Increase your odds of getting good media coverage by following a few simple guidelines

First, make your headline as interesting as a newspaper headline. It should promise something new, dramatic, or timely. Make the editor or reporter want to know more. Remember, though, the claim has to be credible and relevant. One more thing: Don’t use a headline that includes a company name, as in Acme Widget Announces Perpetual Motion Machine. Instead start with the ‘news’.

Interesting news stories always trump equally important, but poorly positioned news stories.

Second, in the first paragraph of the body, get in what journalists call the Five Ws: Who, What, Where, When, and Why. In fact, try to get them into the first sentence, and if you can’t, at least start with a clear concise statement that summarizes the story. Of course, you won’t always be able to get all five of the Ws in the first paragraph every time, and if that’s the case, be sure you make a dramatic entrance with one of them.,

Traditionally, reporters have tried to get the essence of every story into the first paragraph because they didn’t know where, or whether, their stories would be cut (in the sense of how far they would get into the story before it ended) . So, they start with the most important information and end with the least important. That way, no matter where the story was cut, the best material stayed.

Third, write and rewrite your news release many times before ‘releasing’ it. Use active verbs and transitions (from sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph). Boil down the content as much as you can; as a rule of thumb, don’t send out a release longer than two pages. Further, a one page release usually gets a better response than a two-pager.

Style in a release can count for as much as content among some reporters and editors. Given two stories of equal merit, the one with more style will almost always win.

Finally, please see a couple of my other business communication articles, on employee surveys and on post card printing