Press release marketing: what counts as news, how to build the release and how to pitch it

Press release marketing works when the release carries real news, goes to the few journalists who cover that kind of news, and is backed by a personal pitch. A release is a tool for putting facts in front of editors at the same moment, in a form they can use without calling you. Treat it as the starting point of a campaign, not the campaign itself, and judge it by coverage earned, not by the number of sites that reprint it.

What counts as news

Editors receive far more releases than they can use, so the first test is whether your announcement is news to their readers. Ask four questions before you write a word.

• Is it new? A launch, an appointment, a funding round, an acquisition, a contract, a research finding, a change in prices or rules.
• Is it specific? A named product, a named person, a figure you can source. "We are excited to announce growth" is not news.
• Does it matter to the readers of a particular publication? A regional paper wants the local jobs. A trade title wants what changes for the industry.
• Can you prove it? If a journalist can check the claim with one call, you have a release. If they cannot, you have an advertisement.

Announcements that fail the test still have a home on your own site, as a blog post or an update. Keep the press release for the ones that pass.

How a release is built

Part	What goes in it
Headline	The news in plain words, with the key name and number. One line.
First paragraph	Who, what, when, where, in two or three sentences. An editor who reads only this should have the story.
Second paragraph	Why it matters, with one figure or fact that supports it.
Quotes	One or two, from a named person, saying something a human would say. Avoid quotes that restate the headline.
Detail	The background a reporter needs: dates, prices, availability, method, sources.
Boilerplate	Three sentences about the organisation, written once and kept current.
Contact	A named person with a phone number and an email that is answered the same day.

Keep the release to one page where you can. Link to a folder of images with captions, a fact sheet and, for a data story, the underlying figures. Make everything in the folder usable without asking permission.

Choose how it travels: targeted, wire or both

There are two ways to distribute, and they do different jobs.

1. Targeted outreach. You build a list of ten to thirty journalists and editors who have covered this topic in the last few months, and email each one a short, personal note with the release below it. This is where most coverage comes from.
2. Wire distribution. A paid service puts the release in front of newsrooms and syndication sites at once. It suits news with a legal or market dimension, such as results, regulated announcements and appointments, where a dated public record matters. Treat it as distribution and record-keeping.

For a small announcement, targeted outreach alone is the better spend. Our guide to press releases and SEO explains how Google treats links inside distributed releases, which is worth knowing before you pay for a wire.

The pitch email that gets the release read

Journalists decide in a few seconds. Write the note yourself, to one person, in four short parts.

1. A subject line that states the story: "New study: how many local shops now take payment by phone" beats "Press release".
2. One sentence that shows you have read their work: refer to a specific recent piece.
3. Two sentences on the news and the one number that makes it interesting.
4. An offer: an interview, a sample, data they can use, a photo, a customer willing to talk.

Paste the release below the note, since many editors do not open attachments. Follow up once, three working days later, with a new fact or offer rather than "just checking in". Then leave it.

Publish it on your own site first

Keep a newsroom page on your site, with each release at its own address, dated, with the contact and the assets. It gives journalists a place to confirm facts, gives your customers a record, and gives search engines and assistants a dated page that says the news in your own words. Use your brand name or a plain description in links, not a stuffed keyword phrase.

Timing and sequencing

• Send in the morning of a working day in the time zone of the publication, and avoid the busiest news days if you have a choice.
• If a story has a date attached, such as a launch or a report, offer an embargo: a stated time before which the editor agrees not to publish. It lets a reporter prepare a proper piece.
• Build the follow-up before you send: a second story, a customer example or new data to offer once the first coverage appears.

Measuring a release

Record what happened, not how many places the release appeared. Keep a sheet with these columns: publication, journalist, date, link, whether your key message appeared, and visits and sign-ups from that link in the following week. Add branded searches from Search Console in the week after, since good coverage makes more people look for you by name. After three releases you will see which kinds of news and which journalists produce coverage, and you can drop the rest.

Questions about press release marketing

Are press releases still worth doing?

Yes, for news. They remain the standard format journalists expect, and they create a dated record of the announcement. They fail when used to promote something that is not news.

How long should a release be?

Aim for 300 to 500 words with the full story in the first two paragraphs. Put the rest in a fact sheet and an image folder.

Should I pay for a wire service?

Pay when the news has a regulatory or market angle and a public record helps. For a product launch or local story, a good targeted list does more.

How often should a company send releases?

Only when there is news. Four strong releases in a year do more than twelve weak ones, and weak ones teach editors to ignore your name.

Can I write the release with an AI tool?

You can use one for a first draft, then replace every general line with a specific fact, check every figure, and put your own named quote in. The facts and the pitch are what get coverage.

What an assistant repeats from a release

Coverage from a good release lasts, because assistants read the same news sites, trade titles and newsroom pages that journalists write for. Months later, someone asking about your category may get a sentence that came from your announcement: your launch date, a price, a founder's name. Search for your own news in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and read what each one says, because an out-of-date price or a wrong date will be repeated until a source is corrected. AI Knows Us (aiknowsus.com) shows what the assistants say about a business and which pages they took it from, so a release that went out last quarter can be checked against what is being quoted today.