Practicing What You Preach!

Writing this blog has become easier and easier after every post. It has also expanded my knowledge on press releases that I feel that I can conquer this task with no problem. 

Looking back on my first couple of posts, I was definitely stressing myself out about writing a press release. I mean when you initially look at it, the task of writing a press release can be a daunting one, but going through a step by step process and analyzing the various components has definitely made me comfortable with writing a press release. However, to truly be comfortable with this task, you have to actually implement it! After all, writing a press release is the best way to be comfortable with it and practice makes perfect! 

I am fortunate that one of our assignments in my Business Communication class is to write a persuasive letter or a persuasive press release. I now have a chance to practice what I have been preaching. I had the opportunity to work with my fantastic team (Group 8 from my Business Communication Class) on a press release. Here are some thoughts that struck out for myself and one of my co-writers and team member, Christina Rodriquez. Christina was gracious enough to tell me know about her experience with writing a press release. 

 

Getting your ideas together and defining your purpose:

Christina is a big advocate for getting all your ideas and information together to present an informative yet easily understandable press release. She also adds that it can be very time consuming. This is because it requires a lot of analytical thought, brainstorming, consultation and proposal work.

Christina hit the hammer on the nail. Getting all your ideas and information together allows you to get all the facts and helps define the purpose of your press release. Our group decided to chose the topic of blood donation, which can be very broad. We knew our over all goal was to increase blood donation, but we needed to narrow down our broad idea and figure out how we were going to do this. This was a time consuming task, but with all the facts, ideas and some critical questions, we were easily able to narrow our focus and define our purpose.

Here are some questions we thought about:

• What is it that we are promoting?
• Are we looking at promoting the regular avenue for blood donation?
• Are we promoting an event, a product, a service, a celebration or a award?

Putting the time into this phase of your press release will do wonders in easing the process of writing it. Once we had our ideas, information and purpose it was very easy to start structuring and strategizing how we wanted to pitch our idea to increase blood donation.

Planning, strategizing and writing:

There were five things that were helpful for me to keep in mind when writing the first few drafts of our press release:

1. Draft away! Don't get discouraged if you have to write a few drafts, it is actually the best thing to do for your press release. For your first draft, just write and write and write, don't care about about how it looks, sentence structure or grammer because these are all things we can tackle in your next drafts. Just get the ideas out on paper and then trim the fat.
2. Two heads are better than one: It was very beneficial tackling a press release with a group. It offered some much needed support, as well as brought in various ideas of how to approach the press release. Overall, we had some great ideas from everyone and together I am confident we will have a persuasive and interesting press release.
3. Setting deadlines: Working with a group ensured that we set deadlines for drafts so we were all able to review and give feedback. This might not have happened if I was writing it by myself, but it definitely showed me that its important that I do. Deadlines helped to complete different phases of the press release in a timely manner as well as giving us enough time to review and tweek it. Deadlines help keep you on track and give you enough time to review. 
4. Power of loss: The business communication textbook discusses the strategy of using power of loss, which is basically using something that could be seen as a downer in your favor. It often motivates individuals to act because there is a negative issue out there that can be made into a positive if they just help. For example, What would you lose if you don't donate blood? Emphasizing the answer to this question could potentially bring in more donors. You just have to remember not to over do it. It is always good to look at the different angles for motivating your audience.
5. Know your facts: Bring some credibility to your press release by using the facts you have spent time to research. Facts add that credibility which lets the reader trust you and encourages them to continue reading. It definitely gives you that extra push to get your readers motivated to act.

Proof reading:

We often fall into the trap of doing everything all at once; find information, write the press release, proof read and make it look pretty. Let's just take our time because this press release is going to be published and it will be reflecting you and your organization. Make sure you take that time to dedicate yourself to every phase.

Start off with focusing on the content as discussed before. Dedicate time to each item and don't mix them because you can easily overlook the little things that can make a big impact on your press release. So write, then edit for content, then edit for grammer and spelling and then make it look visually appealing. Try and avoid doing this all in one go. 

 

Excellent tool:

"I realized that press releases serve as excellent public relation tool for corporation." says Christina. Although our world and technology is constantly changing and there are many avenues to get your information out there, press releases are still an excellent tool. In fact it is more likely to get picked up over the internet reaching a greater audience. Don't underestimate the power of a press release. 
 

Some final thoughts:

From Christina:
Take time to read other corporations' press releases and learn techniques from these.

In doing your own press release, you need to take time to prepare your ideas, your research and your thoughts so that you can present a clear, well-structured press release.

From Me:
I approached this blog and writing a press release in a way that was logical to me. It definitely helped me out and I hope it does the same for you. However, sometimes it isn't helpful, sometimes there are certain posts that may be more helpful than others and sometimes you may have a better way to approach it. My advice to you is look at all your resources out there and if some processes don't work for you, just adapt it and share it! Please share it and post it for everyone because you never know just how helpful it might be for someone else.

I hope you enjoyed this journey of persuasive press releases and that it offered some helpful and interesting reading. Special thanks to Christina for contributing her thoughts to this final blog!

And that's it folks, this is the last and final blog. Thanks for coming along for the ride. 

Peace Out!