In this second interview with Nancy, her background provides expertise and how to create press releases that ensure that media and the intended audience will read and feel connected. To the concept that is being pitched. >> This lecture is going to be about press releases. So let me talk a little bit about what a press release is. Most importantly, press release is news. So, if a dog bites a man, thats's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that's news. And that's the thing you have to remember when you're developing your press releases. Always find where's the news. If you're writing a press release, think about as though it's a pyramid, only reverse the pyramid so that it's what we call an inverted pyramid. What that says, is that you're going to be talking about what's most important at the beginning. And then at the very bottom, it gets less and less important. It's kind of the reverse of how often times we've been thought to write. So it's important to understand how you need to go with the who, what, where, why and how, right up at the top. Now, in a press release after you've given the contact information and your name, what you want to do is you want to have a very strong, a powerful headline because it fit most important parts in some ways. It's what gets the media to pick it up, so make sure it's brief but powerful. It's really what the release is about, and why it's significant. Is it the first? Is it unique? Is there a change? Think about what makes it important for the reporter to read. Then you go to your first paragraph. And as I said before, you want to put as much of the who, what, when, where, and why in that paragraph. If you think about the game of clue, you always said I accuse Mrs. White of killing the man with the candlestick in the kitchen. Well, that's pretty much who, it's what, it's where, and it's how. You're missing the why, and perhaps the when. And that's of course what you'll try and remember to add as well. Then the rest of the release, it's kind of the elaboration part of the release. It's got the quotes perhaps. You may want to quote one of your senior executives or you may want to quote one of your customers, even better. Or you may want to quote a celebrity who's endorsing your product. As you continue on, you want to give further details. And you finally get to the very bottom, which is called the boiler plate in technical terms, but what it is is just a short statement about your organization. When you're writing your press release remember to use fewer, what I call two dollar words. And try and do the nickels, dimes and quarters. That's really what you're aiming at because what we know from the readership studies that have been done is that most people read or listen at about the eighth grade level. So try and get your statement as easy to understand as possible. So, as we've said, public relations and press releases as a tool within public relations, has a very similar kind of need. It wants to get all of the important information up top because frankly, there's not a lot of time to grab the attention of your audience. We also want to remember what's the so-what or what we call the what's in it for me. If you address what's in it for your customer, then you're halfway there. Now you need to get it to your audience. And to do that, you may want to tweet to your news area and link your press release to it. The tweet might be your headline. Or, you may want to use a service, there are a services that will send it out very broadly to a lot of media. And if it's just really a local release that has a local interest level, then you might even physically take it over and drop it off at the local newspaper or radio station. Now you've done it you've got the information out, you need some feedback. So how do you know what your feedback should be? It really depends upon what your objective is. And that when we're beginning to talk now about a communication plan, where your objective is got four attributes. It has to be specific, it has to be measurable, it has to be actionable and it has to be controllable. If we think about a press release, the objective might be to generate awareness of your product. Are to drive customers to try your brand. So, how can you measure it? Well, you measure it, perhaps, by doing pre and post test surveys. So, there are other tools you can use. Press release is certainly important but you can blog, you can have a poster, you can write a letter, you can use fliers. You can use a microsite, you can use brochures. All these are some of the tools that you use, and which tool depends upon which strategy you use to execute on your objective. If you want to reach the customer directly, you might choose a letter. If you want to reach a customer through an influential vehicle then you might choose newspaper or a blog. All of these are ways to think about accomplishing your objective and your tactics are the tools that we've talked about. The press release, the blog, the letter, the brochure, etc. Again, the real purpose of public relations is to get into the hands of your audience. More earned, earned being something that is in a newspaper, or on a radio, in a blog, etc. Or owned. That is to say, something that's perhaps owned by the organization. Microsite, or a website would be something that's owned. Brochures would be something that's owned. All of those are ways to think about the role of public relations within the mix of marketing. Now, what happens when it goes wrong? That's the subject of our next lecture, which is on crisis communications.
