“There is no such thing as bad publicity” showman and circus owner PT Barnum is alleged to have said. There are such things as bad press releases. We have all seen the results of a poor press release process: the hook doesn’t match the zeitgeist or audience; the market data is months out of date; the connections between points is loose to non-existent and the piece is just uninspiring.
The risk of a bad press release is the message doesn’t make it past the publishing editor and if it does, readers find it uninspiring and it turns them off. In both cases an opportunity to sell your ideas/products/organisation is lost.
Our own experiences in contributing to trade & consumer press releases tell us “ho-hum” releases that make it out into the world often have common issues:
- Lack of clarity or agreed focus between the stakeholders
- Giving standard responses instead of tailoring to the article and audience
- Time pressure, it’s done in a hurry or is a recycled version of the last article or release
- Not having all the right people involved at the start
At Cheetah Transformation we can help with a solution that connects the islands of good input material and achieves sign off in a timely manner. Using Smartsheet, we have created a simple solution that captures your press plan with space for the key content & themes to be listed and ensures key contributors are engaged in a timely manner. An in-built, highly visible proofing tool means all stakeholders can have input to the final content.
Finally, the option to add key deadline and publication dates into diaries means no one should miss their deadline or complain they missed the published article. Feel free to get in touch to discuss how we can support you in improving your press release process.
