The workhorse of public relations is the press release. Written in the form of a conventional news story, a press release alerts the media to an organization’s news and presents it in that organization’s point of view. Editors and reporters use facts, quotes, and other information contained in releases to flesh out their stories. Blogs are great, but if you are really going to grow, you need to know how to write a good press release. – TM There is a standard structure for press releases. Your … [Read more...]
Marketingspeak: Why’s It Called ‘Boilerplate’?
Marketing is full of jargon, anachronisms (B-roll comes to mind), acronyms, and new expressions dreamed up almost every week. We use them all the time, almost without thinking. I've done my best in The Professional Marketer to dig in and find their origins. This week, from my chapter on the press release, is boilerplate: "Boiler plate" originally referred to the small metal plate that identified the builder of a steam boiler. The term was borrowed by the printing industry, where plates … [Read more...]
Chapter 6 – The Press Release
The workhorse of public relations is the press release. Written in the form of a conventional news story, a press release alerts the media to an organization’s news and presents it in that organization’s point of view. Newspaper editors and reporters use facts, quotes, and other information contained in releases to flesh out their stories. Given the importance of the press release and the process of creating and disseminating a good one, we’ve dedicated an entire chapter to the topic. We begin … [Read more...]
Chapter 5 – Public Relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and the public. The goal of PR is to influence public opinion. As long as people have walked the earth, they have tried to convince others to see things their way PR is the formalization of that human need, acting on behalf of a company, government agency, nonprofit organization, or famous person, and using all manner of media.In far too many cases, PR is the only thing that an organization’s … [Read more...]
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