Press Releases Ignored?

July 30, 2007 In Uncategorized By Fusion Staff

By Carly Siegel, Intern, N.Y.

With journalists ignoring 90% of the press releases they receive, as reported by David Brazea of Journal Marketing, strategy needs to be used in crafting announcements that are both favorable from the first glance and thorough, presenting a full-bodied overview of the news.

Unfortunately, the writing of some PR professionals is cluttered with gobbledygook, as explained by Bob Geller in the post below. These keyword heavy descriptors often produce a message that is vague, allowing journalists to miss the product or company news, altogether. Plus, publications including Forbes, Economics, Fast Company, and Investor Business Daily report that they use e-mail filters that automatically delete press releases that include overused and generic jargon.

Thus, Journalists, exhausted with the barrage of bad press releases, have begun to ignore even the good ones. True PR professionals though are not satisfied with the manufacture of mindless press releases and careless writing. From my observation, the best press releases are backed by hard research and are minus the fluff.

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press releases

1 Comment

Ana Yoerg
August 20, 2007 at 3:52 pm Reply

You’re right – hundreds of press releases are unleashed every day, so what’s a PR pro to do? How can you keep yours from getting lost in the shuffle? CMS Wire’s Angela Natividad has just, ahem, released Top Five Tips For a Great Press Release.

Rather than reading like a series of traditional PR do’s and don’ts, she points out a few key do-not-forgets, like synchronizing your website to the release and knowing your audience: "Respect their intelligence and they’ll respect yours," she writes. "Be brief. Be relevant. Drop the hyperbole."

A brief, relevant, hyperbole-free article, useful for anyone from first-time entrepreneurs to longtime PR professionals.

Press Releases Ignored?