The task of writing effective press releases can get complicated. You should follow a specific structure to craft the best content for your product or services. Press releases have been an integral part of the corporate marketing arsenal since the beginning. Companies either send them to the media or post it themselves on their websites or their social media pages. Whatever you do with your press release, it still serves as your gateway to the target audience.

Though press releases are used to promote a product or service within your company, they are not like a traditional advertisement. Press releases are factual pieces of content just like the news. It is used to inform the customers and the investors about the newsworthy events in your organization. When you send your press releases to journalists or media outlets, you need to make sure that your content is good enough to get picked by them. Journalists go through thousands of press releases every day.

To make your story stand out in the crowd, you need to follow the steps of writing online press releases as discussed below.

Step 1. Cover a newsworthy story

Your company may have a lot of events happening within it but not all of them are newsworthy. The news agencies want something journalistic that is also relevant to their readers. In order to identify the right angle for your story follows the tips:
• Always choose the most recent events. Writing a PR about something that happened in the past is not going to make you any profit.
• Make sure the story is relevant to the target audience.
• Inform the audience about the unique angle of your story.
• Have an emotional angle in your story. Both the readers and the journalists like stories about some tragedy or tension.
• Tell the audience about your future plans and how the current story is going to contribute to that.

Step 2. Approach the right audience

Though press releases are written to grab the attention of the target audience, they go through the journalists and media houses before they reach the audience. So when you are writing a press release, you need to keep the journalists in mind as well. First, it is important to choose the right media house for your story. For example, if your company sells pasta, then you may want to target the media houses that specialize in food. You will not get effective results if you approach a sports magazine for your product.
• Research which media houses and journalists cover your specific media.
• Find out which media outlets are frequently visited by your target audience.
• Send them well-crafted pitching that is not a copy pasted template.

Step 3. Answer the 6Ws

Press releases should be informative. They are not like advertisements. They help the companies to convey the relevant news of their brand to the customers. That is why press releases universally follow a pattern where they give answers to 6 W questions to satisfy the inquiry of the readers. The 6 Ws are Who, What, When, Where, Why, and how.

Step 4. Follow the inverted pyramid structure

Press releases all over the world follow the same structure that is called the inverted pyramid structure.
• In this structure, you put the most important information, which are the 6 Ws questions in the opening paragraph.
• There should be no more than 5 paragraphs.
• The whole PR should be written in the third person.
• In the next paragraphs, you can put the less important information.
• You should make a separate paragraph for the relevant quotes from the important personalities within your company.
• End the online PR with a boilerplate copy that contains all the information about the company itself.

Step 5. Write an attractive headline

The headline is the most effective part of a press release. Most readers and journalists decide whether they will read the entire content based on what they think of the headline.
• Make sure the title is informative, short, and easy to understand.
• You can add keywords to make it rank higher in the SERPs.
• Use catchy and attention-grabbing words in the headline.
• Make sure it conveys the gist of the whole content.
After you have created your ideal press release, you should submit it to the professional PR agencies for guaranteed placement in top media houses in your industry.