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Video Transcript: Press release format. When it comes to a small business press release format, it’s basically a five-step format to write a press release. It’s very simple, similar to almost writing a sales letter. Because again, that’s all this is, it’s a sales letter to the journalists. The first thing, like any good sales letter, it needs a headline. Like any good webpage, it needs a headline, something catchy. The headline could be, Excessive Sex helps Tiger Woods Win Golf Tournaments. That’s a pretty explosive headline.
When we both sold the MCG, my press release headline was, 21-year-old Sells the MCG for Under $500. What on earth is that? When I still mention it, people say, tell me the story. It’s an opener. It gets their attention. You’ve just got to figure out where the attention is. Three Quick Home Methods for Fixing a Golf Shoe to Increase Your Swing, whatever that one was we were looking at before. That’s going to get the attention of a journalist at a golf magazine. So you want to have that headline.
Then you want an introductory paragraph. It’s simply one paragraph summarizing the whole project. Let me grab the press release that I did for the MCG as an example. So the headline is 21-year-old Sells the MCG for Under $500. The introductory paragraph was: ‘A 21-year-old sports fanatic and AFL member is now selling the MCG into the widespread public in pieces. He’s giving the public a chance to own part of the Australian sporting history which is set to disappear after this year’s AFL Grand Final when the rest of the MCC pavilion is set to be demolished.One paragraph pretty much tells the story enough to say, this is making sense. I’m keen to read more. What your intro paragraph has to be, is a way to give the journalist an idea of what the story is going to be about. What are you trying to do? So the intro paragraph is ‘Local Melbourne physiotherapist has treated 3,000 clients and found that particularly golfers who have a lot of sex find they drop their handicap by three points.’ You can get creative with that sort of thing.
Then what you want to do, because you’re pitching yourself for an interview, you’re trying to get yourself to the journalists to say, ok, I want to talk to this person, I want to interview them. Give them a quote, show them implicitly, or even explicitly almost that, hey, I’m willing to get interviewed here. I can give a good sound bite. What a sound bite is, when you see those news clips on the news stations or whatever it might be, or even in a newspaper, all they’re going to show you is two or three sentences. They’re not going to print the whole interview word for word, they’re going to write a story and then just put sound bites in there.
What you want to do is give a really juicy sound bite in the quote, so it looks like, yes, I can give good sound bites. I give a good interview and I want to be interviewed. In this example you might want to go again, what I said before could be the quote. It sounds strange, but a golfer came in last week and he says, every night before he has a round of golf, he finds someone to have a good night with. I don’t know, but it’s just a quick sound bite that you can give that talks about that particular space. Then what you want to do is give some credentials of why you should be interviewed, why are you credible, why are you worthy of being interviewed and speaking about this topic.
What makes you an expert? Fifteen-year experience serving over 3,000 physio clients. Internationally qualified ISO Consultant. Let’s think of some other examples. Let’s talk about, if you’re talking about how bad the food is at McDonald’s, consumer, that’s a credential. A consumer, someone who eats food, is enough as a credential in a particular story. It doesn’t have to be anything licensed or anything from a particular university or Harvard or anything like that. Just being a user of the topic you’re talking about is enough. That’s enough as a credential.
Like any good sales letter, any good website, as I’ve mentioned numerous times today, you want to give a call to action. For further information or for interviews, please call Pete directly on 0418-blah blah blah. Tell the journalist what to do. They’re like everybody else. They just want to be told and led, and this is what you have to do and they’ll say, ok.
They’ve got deadlines. They’ve got so many other things to do. And if you can make their life easier and you can give them a story on a silver platter, show them that you are a good interview, show them that you know what you’re doing, it’s going to make their life a lot easier. Of course, they’re going to want to deal with you because you make their life easier. Like anything, if you’re trying to sell something, if I can sell you and say, by using this product, you’re going to make your life easier, you’re going to buy from me. All you’re doing is selling them an interview. If I can show them that I will be a good interview, I’ll give you a great story, I’ll almost write it for you, easy, foot in the door straightaway.
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