You may be wondering if a business press release is really what you need right now for growth. It’s confusing, isn’t it? Every day, new places to share your content seem to be mushrooming out of thin air uncontrollably. Where do you even start? Social media, webinars, YouTube, email newsletters, forums, business press releases – the list just goes on and on, and if you’re new to the space, it can be hard to know where to start.

But even as you tentatively decide on a content marketing strategy, it’s worth remembering there are still some oldies, but goldies out there who don’t want you to forget them. One of these is none other than the staid business press release.

Now, the humble press release for business has been around since the dawn of time – or at least the printing press, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant anymore. They still remain one of the best ways to get news out when it comes to your business. These days, they’re also pretty useful when it comes to SEO and even adding a bit of neat social proof to your mantelpiece.

But before you send one out, remember that you can’t just scribble something out and send it to be distributed. What? You thought that something as old as a press release wouldn’t come with certain expectations of etiquette and decorum? They do – and I’m going to give you a quick run-down on some of the most important ones right now.

Please Be Newsworthy with a Press Release for your Business

This is one of the biggest mistakes a lot of people make when it comes to press releases for business. It absolutely has to be newsworthy. In other words, will people care? Nobody’s going to care if you hired a new dogsbody in the warehouse, or if you changed the background color of your website. Releasing that kind of “news” is a great way to develop a crappy reputation, and even ensure that your future releases just get ignored – especially if you keep spamming up their networks with “CEO wore a yellow tie today” tier news.

So, make sure that your news is legitimate in your business PR. Perhaps you have a new product launch or an exciting new event. Maybe your team has has made a breakthrough discovery that has implications for your industry. Perhaps the President has swung on by your offices – all of these are news and more – so get it published with a business press release!

Speak Elegantly, And Don’t Overstay Your Welcome

Two basics when writing a press release for your business are to keep it concise and to ensure that it is well-written. Aim to give the reporters who will read it all the information they could need without having to contact you for more details. Make their life easy with your news, and you’ll more likely than not get the write-up you wanted.

At the same time, because your business press release will be distributed digitally, you’ll also want to optimize it for SEO. How? Good question, I wrote more about optimizing press releases here!

At the same time as delivering all this information, you want to keep it as short as possible. Nobody – absolutely nobody, especially busy journalists – wants to read your 20-page business press release.

Not one soul in the world – and by the time you’re done writing it, you won’t even want to see the blasted thing again!

When you’re done with your mercifully brief press release write-up, check for grammar and spelling and eliminate all typos and errors: all of these reflect poorly on your company, and you’re trying to share your news – not get scorned over an errant apostrophe.

Don’t Be The Invisible (Wo)Man…

It’s funny, but some people just forget vital information such as their name, phone number, and email address when they send out their press releases for business.

While you do want to write a business press release that makes contacting you an optional extra, be sure to include your contact details so that they can contact you should they need to. As a secondary bonus, potential leads and customers can also contact you for more information should they so desire.

Extra, Extra – Read All About It! Getting Your PR Published

So now you have a press release for you business all dressed up… and there are plenty of places for it to go. Now, you can try to distribute yourself – literally the missing trial of Hercules – or you can take the smart option and use a press release distributor.

There are plenty of options out there to distribute your business PR such as PRWeb and PRNewswire, so shop around and see which one has the best bang for your buck. These distributors will take the gargantuan step of sending your news out to hundreds, even thousands of media outlets, saving you a lot of hard work.  You may also want to publish your business press release on your website, social media channels, and even local publications such as the town newspaper if you want to.

The cool thing about local newspapers – forever starved of news – is that you’re more likely than not to get a story written about your company as well as your products, along with mass exposure from your distributors.

Writing a business PR and distributing it isn’t difficult – but you do need to remember these basics to get the most benefit out of them and ensure that when you write and distribute a press release for your business, it will get the traction that you desire.