Getting Comms Right

Travel retail types are a gregarious bunch and much of our business is done over lunches or late night drinks in conference hotel bars. But while there’s no substitute for building solid personal relationships, a little good publicity can go a long way towards helping to make new introductions. We are fortunate enough to have a highly active and well respected trade press, and all of these publications are keen to publish news from the movers and shakers in the business.

And one of the best ways to tell them about your news is with a well-crafted press release.

What is a good press release? As journalists who’ve been on the receiving end of press releases for many years, we’ve seen some great work. We’ve also seen some dreadful creations. Here are some thoughts on how to make sure yours is one of the former.

Write right Sometimes it’s easy to forget the simple rules of writing in the excitement of a great story. Here are a couple of reminders to help keep your press release on track.

Don’t use clichés – if someone else has already said it, try not to say it again. Avoid hyperbole – let other people be the judge of how ‘great’, ‘unique’ or ‘pioneering’ your service really is. Less is more - cut words where possible. Use humour with care – bad jokes irritate rather than appeal. Write in the third person – ‘they’ not ‘we’, unless in a quotation.

Keep it simple And keep it short. If it doesn’t fit on one page, it’s not a news story, it’s a feature. If you want to add more detail, include it as ‘notes to the editor’ at the end of the story. Don’t waste your crucial first lines with irrelevant detail – grab attention in the first sentence.

Be sure to include a quote from a top executive and a boilerplate ‘about the company’ section. Keep the appearance business-like - save corporate colours and jazzy fonts for direct mail campaigns. Remember to include your contact details so the journalist can get in touch if they need more information.

Focus on the facts Keep it focused by answering these six questions: Who - is the story about? What - have they done? Where - did they do it? When - did they do it? Why - did they do it? How - did they do it?

Finally – is it news? Ask yourself – is this what people want to hear? If it is, then it’s news. If it’s nothing more than what you want to say, then it’s advertising and you can’t realistically hope for a magazine to publish that for free.