Five ways to give your press releases a better chance of being covered:
- Make it human – a local newspaper is more likely to cover human interest stories (people come first – staff, customers, visitors, representatives, experts etc where possible).
- Appeal to the readership – remember, a journalist’s first priority is to his/her readers, so the material has to appeal to them.
- Charity connections and free events work well. If you have an event to publicise timing is crucial.
- Plan ahead – weekly newspapers would require details in a media release format roughly three weeks before the event in order to use the information in a relevant issue.
- Plan even further ahead for greater coverage – county/regional magazines that come out on a monthly basis work two months in advance and national monthly consumer magazines work around three months in advance.
