How to Write a Press Release

What is a press release?  A press release is a statement prepared for distribution to the news media announcing something with news value with the objective of gaining media coverage.  If done well, it can bring in substantial revenue for you.  


For a press release to be effective, it should be written professionally and contain information that is newsworthy. It should be written in third person.  In other words, instead of using we, us, and ours, you should be using, they, them and theirs.

A press release consists of the following elements:

Headline:  The first line of text that tells what the press release is about and grabs the attention of journalists.  It should be short, but descriptive.  Write it to catch their eye.  It should be written in title case.

The Summary:  Identify a unique feature about your product or service.  How will your product or service make the world a better place?  It's a single paragraph of about three to five lines.  It's in sentence case, only the first letter of a sentence is capitalized.

The Body:  The body includes the following elements.

- Dateline:  The date of the press release and the originating city of the press release.  For some press release services, including PRLog, the date stamp should not be entered as it is automatic.

- Introduction:  The first paragraph, where the press release body starts.  It gives basic answers to the questions of who, what, when, where, and why.

- Details:  This is what comes after the introduction.  It gives further explanation, background, any statistics, and other details relevant to the news.  For PRLog, it should be at least 500 words and a minimum of two paragraphs.  All paragraphs should be between five to eight lines each.

About:  This section is all called the "boilerplate" because it is used over and over again.  It is a short section providing background information on you or the company or organization issuing the press release.

Media contact Information:  Contains the contact information including the name, phone number, email address, mailing address, etc. for the media relations contact person.