Need to get a PR out next week and bashing my head!

[Richard Conyard]

I need to put a press release out for our CMS next week, and it isn't easy! Everytime I try to make it friendly it rambles, everytime I start going into what is does it gets too technical and too long. Everytime I try to shorten it I miss out key features.

I've cut and pasted what I have so far below, any feedback on the text would be appreciated.

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Red Ant are proud to release the latest version of Colony, our easy to use, standards compliant, accessible content management system. The latest release sees Colony move into it's third edition; and whilst it retains the same stability and security that is expected of a mature CMS, it is by far the most flexible Colony yet.

Colony can now come in one of six packages, these are:

SME - for Small to Medium sized enterprises
Education - for higher and further education establishments
Recruitment - for recruitment agencies
E-Commerce - for e-tailers that wish to sell online
Government - for local authorities and public bodies
Enterprise - for companies that wish to branch into managing information, intranets and extranets as well as websites

Of course since Colony maintains its loose knit modular structure the mixing and matching of functionality and the development of bespoke functionality is possible.

Although it is easy to use Colony has not lost any of the functionality that makes it a powerful CMS. Colony still supports:

Supports multiple sites through one administration interface
SEO support (Friendly page name, well structured pages, multiple page names)
Freeform and Forms based content management
Support for members areas and multiple member types
Multiple user types, Administrators, Editors and Authors
Workflow and sign-off routing
To the page security checking
eGMS, Dublin Core and eGIF meta-data standards
Asset libraries (Images, Flash, Documents, HTML / JavaScript snippets)
Extensible record structures with sxForms

For more information about Colony please visit http://www.thinkcolony.com or call us on 01622 664333.

[epiphany]

Can I ask what you want to achieve with this press release?

[Richard Conyard]

It's going out to a number of places, some regional business magazines and some focusing more on the CMS side of things.

What is hoped to be achieved by the PR is the same as any PR greater awareness and therefore increased sales.

[10 Yetis]

Whilst being a shameless attempt to get you and others to have a gander at my site :) , I have a useful newsletter from March on the site that goes through the ideal* structure for preparing press releases.

Hopefully this will help...

http://www.10yetis.co.uk/newsletter.html

Maybe you could review yours and re-post up on here again and all us PR's can take a look to give advice.

For the more observant of you, yes I know I am a few newsletters short... there have been "issues" :)

*when i say "ideal", I mean it works well for me.

[Greg]

We have the following tips at
http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk/services/advice.html

Tips on writing a press release
Tips on when to issue a press release
Tips on liaising with journalists

[Cornish Steve]

Whilst being a shameless attempt to get you and others to have a gander at my site

What's good for the gander is good for the goose.

One of our courses addresses aspects of good writing. In particular, we promote the importance of being concise and of considering the reader's perspective.

- Write concisely. As you say, it's easy to ramble in an attempt to be conversational. We recommend the following steps when writing a business document (including a PR):

1) Write what you want to say, no matter how poorly it reads the first time. It's important just to get something on paper.

2) Edit what you have written to correct obvious problems. Typically, this involves several passes.

3) Rewrite the PR in a conscious attempt to reduce words to a minimum.

4) Revisit the PR to make it more conversational in style.

The order of 3 and 4 is particularly important; reduce words first, then go back to correct undue terseness.

- Write with the reader's perspective in mind. Does the reader know who you are and what you do? Does the reader understand industry terms and acronyms? Why should your audience bother to read your announcement? Do you have any credibility in your reader's eyes?

The issue of credibility is important. If you include a single exaggeration or biased statement in your PR you will lose all credibility. Again, it's very important to consider the content of your PR from the reader's perspective.

Personally, I cringe when I read many press releases. They are filled with long corporate statements that I for one ignore. How many companies in this world are "the leader in" something or other? The statement is so overused as to be meaningless. An honest, concise, yet conversational PR is a breath of fresh air.

Steve
www.goldctr.com

[nickkis]

I am NOT a PR expert/journo/copywriting expert. I'm in Retail Sales.. but I'm going to say something in any case and see if it helps.

Your essentially selling a product and the first rule of sales is to sell the benefits not the features. If this PR is targetted towards a very technically minded demographic, then it makes sense. If its designed to go to a more generic audience, something that sells the benefits may be more appropriate.

My tuppence would be that it may make sense to send 2 varients depending on where its going.

[T-Kicker]

Hi Richard,

A friend of mine (Robert Schneider) is very knowledgeable about online PR, which you need to factor in. What keywords are you hoping to perform better on in Google? Because press releases can help, if written well, and distributed well.

He also has a hundreds of tech journos on his media list.

You can reach him at onlinepr@gmail.com.

T-K

[BrightSparke]

Hi Richard:

Sorry to sound harsh, but what you have written is not a press release at all. It could possibly go in a broachure, on your website or you could say this in a demo of your product - but it's not a press release...

Role play for a moment: You're a slightly jaded journalist, mid 30s, seen it all (or think your have).

Ask yourself the question: What's the story? the hook? angle?

Journalists are not in business to promote your product.

Give it an angle. Write objectively. Stop being a salesman!

Don't misunderstand me - I'm in the same boat you are (new product, keen "as mustard...").

But you have to take yourself OUTSIDE yourself and try and think about your product from another perspective.

Honestly given (if not so tactful) advice.

Good luck, Peter

[Cornish Steve]

But you have to take yourself OUTSIDE yourself and try and think about your product from another perspective.

This is exactly right. Consider the perspective of your readers, not your own perspective. Put yourself in their shoes. Why would they want to read your PR? What are they most interested in? Also, keep it short and simple.