Quotes on writing reader-focused releases

What writers & others say

“Reporters, like the rest of us humans, prefer to do business with people who are smart, funny, and perhaps a tad self-deprecating — so act accordingly.”

— Katie Burke, head of analyst and media relations at HubSpot

“Organizations write press releases for themselves, not for readers.”

— A frustrated PR pro

“Envision your press release on the front page of a newspaper to determine if it’s newsworthy or not.”

— Susan Guillory, president, Egg Marketing & Communications

“Stop the BS and hype. I don’t want to hear that the XYZ company, ‘Leader in the field of fisbies’ has announced a revolutionary new computer … with no data, no insight, no competitive data, just BS, time-wasting words. Do you PR people really think we’re going to either be influenced by that or, worse yet, print it?”

— Jon Peddie, Jon Peddie Associates, interviewed by Softletter.com

“The concept of ‘right now’ and ‘affecting all of us’ is massive. You can turn a lot heads and build a lot of story if you tie it into time and effect.”

— Peter Shankman, author of Can We Do That?

“Occasionally, PR people simply need to grow a pair at the risk of offending the client or executive for the greater good of the company. Let’s face it, painting the conference room is not ‘news,’ nor is ‘new person hired for second eastern region assistant sales position.’ News is news that matters to more than your company. It’s information that’s beneficial to an industry or a whole host of readers. If your client has that kind of news, pitch your heart out. But if not, sometimes the best thing you can do to save your clients’ (and your) reputation, is to say no.”

— Peter Shankman, HARO (Help a Reporter Out) founder

“Present the key element … that explains how your story can benefit Forbes readers.”

— Bruce Upbin, senior editor, Forbes

“What I really like about a (press release) is when it scratches my reader’s itch and not your client’s itch.”

— A trade journal editor quoted in Public Relations Tactics

“The biggest mistake people make when it comes to PR is doing exactly what everyone else does: boring press releases, robotic executive briefings, and dry advertising and campaigns. At the end of the day, reporters live for a great story they can share, and that starts with a unique perspective, a new angle on an old story, or a scoop no one else has.”

— Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor of New York City

“A long-standing tenet of effective PR has been to read the publication and, ideally, the reporter’s work. That has been like preaching abstinence to teen-agers: great in theory, but not very applicable to the real world. But a blog has everything a blogger has written, complemented by relevant links. There is absolutely no excuse for not knowing what a blogger’s passions and idiosyncrasies are before you converse about — not pitch — a concept.”

— Nick Wreden, FusionBrand blogger