PRESS
RELEASE
ANATOMY
GUIDE AND TEMPLATE
DIVE INTO
THIS GUIDE
to gain a thorough understanding of all the components that
make up a press release, become familiar with a basic format
layout, and then get started with our custom template!
ANATOMY OF A PRESS RELEASE 101
REGARDLESS OF THE PURPOSE OF A PRESS RELEASE,
MOST OF THEM FOLLOW A SIMILAR FORMAT.
To get started writing your own, you’ll want to have a solid understanding
of the following components, and then decide which make sense to include in your release.
While most of the components described below are common practice for press releases, there is
lots of room for flexibility based on personal preference.
LOGO
Anyone reading your press release should be able to tell who it’s about and who it’s from
without reading a single word on the paper. Your company’s logo should be nice and visible.
Most people opt to put it in the banner at the top of the page, but if your branding or release
design requires that it be put somewhere else, that’s fine too. Just make sure it’s easily
spotted.
HEADER
Something else you’ll want people to be able to tell with little to no effort? The fact that what
they are reading is in fact a press release. While it may seem obvious or redundant, an easy way
to do that is to include the physical words “Press Release” or “News Release” as a header at
the top of the release.
RELEASE TIME
You need to let the reader know when the information in this release can be made public. This
is where you’ll most often see “For Immediate Release”. This means anyone reading your
release has the green light to publicly discuss or publish the information.
In some cases, however, you may not want journalists to publish right away. Perhaps your
company will be doing an official launch in a few days but you wanted to give journalists time
to process and consider all the information in your release so they can have a story ready-to go
when your organization makes the information public. If that’s the case, you’re writing a
release that is “under embargo”. This means that journalists cannot publish anything until the
time you’ve specified.
Make sure this crucial info is included prominently on your release, usually right at the top.
Some companies even opt to watermark the document with “Embargoed” as well as include it
at the top of their release.
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TITLE/HEADLINE
Now for the fun stuff. Your headline is perhaps the most crucial aspect of getting your press
release picked up. It needs to grab the journalist’s attention while also conveying the most
important part of the release’s message.
DATELINE
This little bit of info at the start of your release indicates the date your release is being made
public, as well as the location. This lets journalists know when and where your info is coming
from and helps them determine whether or not the information will be relevant to them.
BODY PARAGRAPHS
This is where the meat of your message lives. While the title/headline should tell your reader
exactly what the press release is about, the necessary supporting information lives in the body
paragraphs of your press release.
FIRST PARAGRAPH
This should essentially answer the 5Ws for the reporter: Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Don’t “bury the lead”! This means, don’t wait to reveal the most important information.
A journalist should be able to stop reading after your headline and first paragraph and
know exactly what you’re trying to communicate.
SUBSEQUENT PARAGRAPHS
The subsequent paragraphs provide the supporting information of your release and are
also where your quotes will live.
QUOTES
Quotes are generally introduced in the second or third paragraph and are typically assigned to
senior representatives of your company, and/or those directly related to the information being
conveyed in the release. The quote gives the release a human element. It is the voice of the
company, and usually reflects the tone of the piece.
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END NOTATION
This is a symbol used to signal the end of the press release. Two common end notations
include -30- and ###. Consult your regional style guide to see what is most appropriate.
BOILERPLATE
Boilerplate text is the standard description of your company, likely included across all your
marketing materials. Essentially, your company’s written elevator pitch. It typically includes
your company name, who you are and what you do, as well as your website.
CONTACT INFORMATION
The contact info included in a press release is the contact you’d like the media
to follow-up with if they have questions, want to request interviews, or require
more information.
ADDITIONAL PIECES
SUBHEADING
The subheading is sometimes used to expand on the release’s initial title .
SUMMARY BULLET POINTS
Some organizations like to include a series of bullet points at the beginning of the release
that the journalist can skim if they don’t want to read the entire release. The bullet points
should give the reader a good overview of only the most crucial info included in the release.
MULTIMEDIA
While not required, they are certainly suggested. Photos, videos, or any other multimedia to
accompany your release can also be included in the body of the release. Multimedia is
particularly effective at grabbing journalists’ interest and provides them with valuable
collateral they can use in their own piece. The less work the journalist has to do to get their
piece written, the more likely they’ll do it, so if they don’t have to get in touch for visuals to
use in their piece, all the better.
STOCK MARKET ABBREVIATION/TICKER SYMBOL
Publicly traded companies will include their stock market ticker symbol in brackets following
the first mention of the company name in the first paragraph.
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basic
PRESS RELEASE
LAYOUT
TIPS AND TRICKS
FOR PUTTING
IT ALL TOGETHER
Now that you have a good understanding of the individual
pieces of a press release and how they’re laid out, how do you
go about getting started writing one (and a good one at that)?
STEP 1: ASK YOURSELF, “is your story newsworthy?”
And be ruthless in your answer! Think long and hard about the message you’re putting out and
whether or not it is actual news. If you start sending press releases to journalists for every bit of
information coming out of your organization, you’ll quickly find yourself in their “Spam” folder
and you can kiss future media relations efforts goodbye.
There are lots of other venues to communicate information with your target audiences,
including blog posts, a social media thread, an announcement in your weekly newsletter…
Is a press release really the best tool for this message? If the answer is emphatically yes, then
you’ll want to...
STEP 2: FIND YOUR “Big Why”
Why should anybody care about the message in your press release? And more specifically, why
would a journalist and their audience care? The answer to this question is crucial and gives you
your hook or story angle—the thing that will pique a journalist’s attention and help them
decide whether they cover your story.
Some things to consider:
Does your story have a local aspect?
Is it relevant to a particular topic or theme that’s been popular in the news lately?
Does it coincide with a related event, date, or holiday?
Does it deal with a subject that an outlet frequently covers?
These questions will help you write your headline, position the messaging of the release, craft
your individual pitches, and increase your chance of pick-up in the media.
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STEP 3: WRITE THE BODY OF YOUR PRESS RELEASE FIRST
Once you’ve found your “Big Why”, you can start on the body of your press release. You can try
writing your headline first, but generally speaking, it’s easier to write the headline once the
release is done and you have all the info in front of you.
STEP 4: WRITE YOUR HEADLINE
Now you can start thinking about your headline. How do you take all the juicy info you’ve just
written and boil it down to something that conveys exactly what your release is about and why
anybody should care? Revisit your “Big Why” and the body paragraphs for inspiration.
STEP 5: GET YOUR QUOTES
Often, you will be writing quotes on behalf of your organization, so you’ll want to be familiar
with your organization’s policies. For most PR pros, quotes are drafted and then sent to senior
management for approval. Once you’ve got the green light, they can be included in the release.
STEP 6: STYLE YOUR PRESS RELEASE
Once you’ve got the meat of your press release (headline, body, and quotes), you can add all
the other components and style them to suit your needs. Style will often dictate the placement
of the logo, header, contact information, release date, and multimedia.
Where your press release is being posted should also be considered. Is it going to look different
on your website? In your email pitches? Some of the format components are remnants of a
time when paper copies were the way to go. In our digital world, this is less common, though
many organizations will have a PDF copy that is fully formatted according to the guidelines
above, and an online copy where not all the components are necessary. For example, in a copy
being posted on your website in a section called “Press Releases”, you can probably take out
the “Press Release” header. You may also decide that an end notation and logo aren’t
necessary. Whatever works!
To finish it all off, it’s a good idea to consult your regional style guide to double check and
match your grammatical and stylistic writing standards to those used by journalists in the
area.
SOME COMMON STYLE GUIDES INCLUDE:
United States T H E A S S O C I A T E D P R E S S S T Y L E B O O K
Canada T H E C A N A D I A N P R E S S S T Y L E B O O K
BBC NEWS STYLE GUIDE
WRITE
YOUR OWN
And there you have it—everything you need to write your own press release and start
chasing some well-deserved publicity.
Need some more help? Agility offers many tools to help you make the most of your press
release including a media database to tailor pitches and do specific outreach, a newsroom
to help boost your SEO efforts and give your release a place to live, a built-in newswire
service for broader distribution, and media monitoring and social listening solutions for
you to track your coverage. Let us show you!
