How to write a sh*t hot press release

There are few things in PR more universally written about, and more consistently written badly, than the press release. Every agency has a template. Every client has an opinion on how it should be structured. And somehow, despite decades of guidance, journalists are still drowning in releases that bury the news, lead with a CEO quote nobody asked for, and sign off with a boilerplate paragraph that tells you nothing useful about the company.

Here’s the thing: a genuinely good press release is still one of the most effective tools in a PR team’s kit. It’s not the format that’s the problem. It’s the way most people write them.

Start with the news. But actually start with the news

The most common mistake in press release writing is saving the interesting bit for later. Opening with background context, company history, or a vague statement about the brand’s commitment to innovation before eventually getting to the actual story is a guaranteed way to lose a journalist before they’ve read past the first paragraph.

If you can’t explain what the news is in one sentence, that’s a writing problem – and occasionally a news problem. Either way, it needs to be fixed before the release goes anywhere.

The test is simple: read your first line and ask whether a journalist could immediately see the story. If the answer is no, rewrite it until it is. The who, what, and why it matters should all be obvious within the first two sentences. Everything else is detail that comes after.

The headline is doing more than you think

A press release headline is not a title. It’s not a chance to be clever for the sake of it, and it’s definitely not the place for a pun that only makes sense if you already know what the story is. It’s a single line that needs to make a journalist want to keep reading.

The best headlines are specific, not vague. They contain the actual news rather than gesturing towards it. “Brand X launches new product” is not a headline – it’s a placeholder. “Brand X launches first UK product designed specifically for X demographic, backed by new research showing Y” is a headline. One of those sentences has a story in it. The other one doesn’t.

Quotes that are actually worth quoting

If there is a single thing that makes most press releases worse than they need to be, it’s the CEO quote. Not the concept of a quote – a good quote from the right person, saying something genuinely interesting, adds real value to a release. But the average press release quote reads like it was written by a committee and approved by legal, and then approved by the CEO’s assistant, and by the time it’s in the release it says absolutely nothing.

“We’re thrilled to announce this exciting new development, which underlines our commitment to delivering excellent products and services for our customers.”

That’s not a quote. That’s a sentence that exists purely to confirm a human was involved somewhere in the process.

A good quote does one or more of the following:

• Adds context or opinion that isn’t already in the release
• Humanises the story with a genuine perspective from someone who actually cares about it
• Gives a journalist a line they’d actually want to use in their piece
• Tells us something about the person saying it, not just the brand they represent

Write the quote as if the person saying it is a real human being with an actual view. Then show it to that person and let them adjust it, rather than sending them a blank template to fill in themselves – that’s how you end up with the committee quote every time.

The inverted pyramid is your friend

Journalists are busy. Editors are busier. If the most important information in your press release is at the bottom, most of the people reading it will never get there. Structure your release so that the story gets progressively more detailed as it goes, not more interesting.

• Lead paragraph: the news, in full. Who, what, when, why it matters.
• Second and third paragraphs: context, supporting detail, the quote.
• Further down: background information, additional data, methodology if relevant.
• Boilerplate: brief, factual, accurate – not a sales pitch.

This structure exists because editors cutting a release for space will cut from the bottom. If your most important point is at paragraph five, it may well not make it into the final piece.

Know what “news” actually means

A lot of press releases fail before the writing even begins, because the thing being released isn’t genuinely newsworthy. “We’ve updated our website” is not news. “We’ve won an award” is barely news unless it’s a very significant award. “We’ve appointed a new member of staff” is news to that person’s family and approximately nobody else.

This isn’t about being harsh on the brands sending these releases – it’s about being honest about what a journalist can actually do with the information. If the story doesn’t give them something their readers would want to know, the release isn’t going to work, regardless of how well it’s written.

Before writing a word, ask:

• Would a reader of the target publication genuinely care about this?
• Is there something here that’s new, surprising, or significant?
• Does this story exist outside of our own internal perspective, or does it only matter to us?

If the answers are shaky, the problem isn’t the press release – it’s the brief. That’s worth fixing upstream rather than trying to write your way around it.

Keep it short and sweet

A press release is not a blog post, a white paper, or a product brochure. It should be as long as it needs to be and not a word longer. For most straightforward news stories, that’s one side of A4 – somewhere between 300 and 500 words. If you’re regularly hitting 800 words in a standard press release, something has gone wrong.

Every sentence should earn its place. If a paragraph is providing context that no journalist would actually need to understand the story, cut it. If a sentence is there because it made the client feel better about the release rather than because it helps tell the story, cut it. If the boilerplate is longer than the actual news, definitely cut it.

Practical stuff to know

• Embargo clearly if you’re using one – and only use one if you actually need to. An unnecessary embargo is just friction
• Include a press contact that actually responds – a press@ email address that goes into a black hole is worse than useless
• Add assets, don’t just mention them – if there are images, link to them or attach them. Don’t make a journalist ask
• Spell-check, then spell-check again – a typo in a press release isn’t the end of the world, but it’s a very easy thing to avoid and it does affect how professional your pitch looks
• Write “ends” at the bottom – old school, but it tells a journalist the release is finished and the notes to editors are supplementary. Still useful

So, what does a great press release actually look like?

It looks like a piece of writing that respects a journalist’s time. It leads with the news. It has a quote that says something. It gives enough context to understand the story without burying the reader in unnecessary detail. It’s well-written, tightly edited, and formatted in a way that makes it genuinely easy to work with.

None of that is complicated. But it does require resisting the temptation to include everything, please everyone, and hedge every sentence with enough corporate language that nobody can object to it. The best press releases are written for the journalist reading them, not the internal stakeholders approving them. The sooner that shift happens, the better the releases get.

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