How to make your press release stand out

In an era of 24/7 rolling news coverage and always-on social media, it’s difficult to get press releases noticed: To make them distinctive enough for people to want to read them.

So it’s puzzling that so many PR people create press releases that look and read just like everybody else’s. People who wouldn’t be seen dead in any kind of uniform morph into avid conformists once they connect to their keyboards. The worst culprits are those PR people who write for large businesses and official organisations; filling their stories with hackneyed words and phrases that make their writing formulaic and leaden.

Appropriated from management consultants and business seminars, these all-purpose words and phrases are clicked together like children’s building blocks to compose press releases for any situation and every occasion.

Here is an example of what I mean. It’s taken from a press statement issued by a global engineering group, one of whose major investors had accused it of not doing enough to build market share.

Thanks to the language employed there is nothing, apart from the company’s name, to distinguish it from thousands of  statements issued by similar big organisations every day:

“The company is committed to developing World Class capabilities that will put it at the cutting edge of new technology and deliver enhanced value for its customers.” 

You can spot from a mile away the words and phrases that have been used so regularly that they retain all the freshness of an old pair of socks. Just in case you can’t, I have included them in a brief list further on in this article.

Hang on just a minute, you might rightly say;  if this statement is so lifeless and unoriginal, how did it manage to make it into print? Well, this is one of those cases where size definitely does matter.

Is your press release original?

The organisation who distributed the release was financially and physically large enough to demand attention. Especially as it was issued in response to a claim that already had the market’s ears pinned back.

No matter how stilted and featureless an editor might have found the  press release, they couldn’t afford to ignore it completely, given its significance.

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Unfortunately, small or medium-size companies rarely enjoy the same indulgence. Their press releases not only have to be newsworthy but also have to be more original in presentation and content. Using the same painting-by-numbers approach as the big boys is unlikely to make that happen. That is why I recommend  finding more original alternatives to the sort of stock words and phrases listed below:

moving forward

moving on

at this moment in time

take on board

lessons learned

pushing the envelope

Best Practice

leading edge

state-of-the-art

high-tech

thinking outside the box

step change

paradigm shift

lockstep

square the circle

dynamic

stunning

exciting

genre
 
 

Keep a neutral style

Every PR writer knows press releases should be neutral in style, to enable editors and journalists to tailor them to suit their own publications. But, that doesn’t mean that they should read as if they have been assembled by a committee. Far from it. Any writer tempted to fall-back on one of these well-worn expressions should be locked in a cupboard with a good dictionary and a thesaurus until the temptation passes.

Let’s face it, not all new apartments can be “stunning” anymore than all job opportunities are likely to be “exciting”. Companies operating in advanced technology sectors shouldn’t feel the need to  refer to their products as “high-tech” or “cutting edge” anymore than they should aspire to be “World Class”, since that must be a given. Likewise, the paradigm has now been shifted so often that it has probably gone full circle.

Resist the temptation to use words that someone else has already sucked all the life out of.  Look for alternative ways to make a point or highlight a feature. English is such a rich and generous language that there is always a way to make sure you are heard and not simply one of the herd.

About the author: Peter Rose is the author of The Upside Down Guide to writing for the Press and of thousands of newspaper and magazine articles. He is a regular contributor to the Bookboon blog pages and also publishes his own blog, www.grumblingrose.co.uk.

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