There are many different types of press releases we deal with as homeware and gifting PRs, from releases to announce new collections, news stories or expert tips, to trend or gifting specific ideas. Whilst each type of release would be approached differently, we have put together some tried-and-tested tips for how to best approach press release writing:
1. Make sure the content is new and newsworthy. Ask yourself 'what's the headline?' - What about your story will the press find compelling and pick up to feature. When creating your headline and email title, keep it simple and straight to the point so that it stands out in the journalist’s inbox and they instantly know what the release is about.
2. In the subhead that follows, be sure to summarise all of the key information included in the release. To put it simply, the who, the what, the where, the when and the why.
3. Consider what visuals you include, and where these go. If the release for example is to launch a new wallpaper collection and you have strong lifestyle imagery, these should go high up in the release. When it comes to sharing images, instead of attaching them to the email which can risk clogging up the journalist's mailbox, it may be appropriate to create a page of images following on from the main release, which the journalist can then request high res imagery from.
4. When relevant, it can often be beneficial to include a quote from the founder of the brand about the collection, which the journalist can lift directly for use in their feature.
5. From an admin perspective, it is good practice to include the pitch in the body of an email and remember to include stockist information and your PR contact details at the end. Try to keep your release to no more than one page and make sure if you attach the release as a PDF it is not a huge document, around 1-2mb is usually fine.
Below is an example of a recent release we created for our fabulous client Emily Brooks.
If you found this feature helpful, we'd love to know as we are planning on sharing more tips over the coming months. Do connect with us over on Instagram and let us know if you have any PR-related questions you'd like us to explore in our next post.
Have a wonderful day!
Lisa