Why News Releases Fail — The Most Common Reasons & What to Do About It

By Paul J. Krupin

I run Imediafax, the Internet to Media Fax Service. I send out
over a million news releases a year for people via fax and email.
You probably think that I’ve got news releases failing on me day
in and day out.

Actually, I don’t. The news releases I write and send out for
people do quite well. My clients are quite happy with me because
they are successful with their outreach efforts.

It’s the draft news releases that people send to me that are my
problem.

Fixing the problems I see in the news releases people send me
takes forever. It is also very painful.

I’ve seen a lot of news release failure over the years, and I now
know what the key problems look like and how to fix them.

My plight as a publicist is that I spend a lot of time educating
my clients trying to get them to understand the psychology of
dealing with the media.

The rubber meets the road in the news release because this single
sheet of paper is the key nexus for all communications with the
media. The importance of the copy on a news release cannot be
overstated. It has to be free of negative issues or factors that
will reduce or eliminate media interest and response. One fatal
error and it’s all over.

So identifying the problems and revising the news releases is
crucial. I spend a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to
avoid sending out news releases with problems still in them.

The issue is that when people send me news releases, it often
takes a long, long time to identify and communicate the problems,
and then more time again to explain and negotiate all the word
changes with the clients, and more time still to finalize the
news release and have it ready and approved for transmittal.

Honestly ­ it can be very painful for all involved. I’m quite
brutal on my clients, since their success is all that matters. I
don’t pull any punches. My comment process can bruise a lot of
highly inflated egos of some otherwise very accomplished people,
on the way to a problem free news release that maximizes the
chances of success when finally sent. Lots of people think they
can write a news release. Very few of them can do it very well.

They simply haven’t followed the media response to enough news
releases to learn the errors that are made when they write news
releases. They haven’t yet learned what the mistakes are, so
there is no learning from continuous improvement.

This is where the blood, sweat and tears of the copywriting
business is truly found. It gets even tougher when another
professional publicist wrote the news release for the client. Now
the client is getting opposing advice from two professionals. One
says “Make it Hot” and the other says “Cool it”. What’s a
publicist to do?

So my motivations for doing this article are really quite
selfish. I want to spend less time doing this. My life will be
significantly improved if my clients send me news releases that
take less time and energy to fix. Very simply, for each and every
news release that comes in and doesn’t have these problems, I’ll
free myself to spend more time doing things that are more
profitable for my clients and me.

The issues listed here have all been identified as reasons for
the failure of a news release. This is based on over 20 years of
experience in dealing with the aftermath ­ the actual number and
quality of responses generated from the transmittal of a news
release.

So here are the most common reasons why news releases fail:

1. You wrote an advertisement. It’s not a news release at all. It
sells product. It fails to offer solid news of real tangible
interest, value-added information, education or entertainment.

2. You wrote for a minority, not for a majority of people in the
audience. You simply won’t compete with other news releases that
clearly are written for a larger demographic of the media
audience.

3. You are the center of attention, not the media audience. You
focus on your business and your marketing, instead of things the
editor and his or her audience will be interested in.

4. You forgot to put the five W’s up front. (WHO, WHAT, WHERE,
WHEN and WHY THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED). You didn’t clearly
and succinctly tell the media why the audience would be
interested in this.

5. You are too wordy and text dense. You focused on details and
minutia, instead of the most important ideas, issues, factors,
facts, and news angles. You fail to address the real significant
impacts your story has on people.

6. You place too much information on one page ­ the one page news
release has a font size so small an editor needs a magnifying
glass to read it.

7. You included corporate logos and other non-persuasive low
value added graphics that distract the editor from your key
message. You may have also used an unusual fancy font or a file
format that turns to gobbledygook when it goes through a fax
machine.

8. You wrote a personally biased article for the media to
publish, instead of pitching the idea to the media and the
objective reasons why the media audience will be interested.

9. You wrote about features and facts, and forgot to explain what
it means to real people. Tell a story about real people. Add in
real life human interest.

10. You wrote about how your news ties in to someone else’s fame
and glory. Forget it. Never stand in the shadow of someone else.
Make your own light. Tell your own story.

11. Your news release responds to something that just happened.
You’re too late. You’re behind the eight ball. Forget it. Get out
in front of the news.

12. You included too much hype, self-laudatory praise, pithy
quotes, useless testimonials, jargon or gobbledygook. Get rid of
it.

13. You may have also identified prior media coverage, which
indicates it’s no longer a new issue. Get rid of it. Let each
news release stand on it’s own two feet.

14. You tried to impress and be clever or innovative but you come
off naïve, less than expert, biased, flippant, arrogant, or
crazy. Tone it down. Get straight.

15. You made vague and unsubstantiated claims, or wild and
outrageous claims, or you included a statement that simply rubs
the media the wrong way. Get rid of them.

16. You are trying to be different, just for the sake of it, but
you come off eccentric. Forget it. Don’t create a false or
inflated image. Be yourself.

17. You wrote a rant and rave, worthy of a letter to the editor,
instead of a problem solving tips article, worthy of a feature
story. Decide what you want, put your best effort into it.

18. You are simply not credible. It could be your ideas are
simply not well thought out, or that you have offered old
well-worn material, or that you are too extreme or controversial,
or not qualified. You may not be expert enough, or sufficiently
qualified, to make the statements, compared to others in your
field. You need to present information that qualifies you
properly and adequately.

19. You provided poor contact information. You need to identify
the best single point of contact and the correct phone number so
interested media can reach you and get the best possible
attention and response from you to meet their needs. One key
person, one phone, no fax, one email address, and one URL (with
no long string addresses).

20. You did not include a clear media call for action. You didn’t
tell the media what you want them to do with your news release.
You need to tell them what you are asking for or suggesting or
offering. Then you need to offer the media incentives value-added
reasons to do so, like free review copies, free test samples,
interview questions and answers, media kits with story angles and
stats and data, relevant photographs, etc.

21. You did not incorporate and integrate a primary response
mechanism. You need to include a value-added reason, which
motivates the editor to publish or mention your contact
information, which will generate calls, traffic, interviews, or
requests for more information. This usually means something
unique and of special value to the audience, that the editor
feels good about mentioning. Use an offer for a free problem
solving report.

22. You sent the release to the wrong media. Target the media
that your clients read, watch and listen to when they are in the
right mood, that is, receptive to hearing about your news, and
willing to take action when they get your message. Work with your
publicist to target the right media.

23. You rely on a single fax or an email to produce an avalanche
of media calls. You conduct no follow up. Get real. Follow up
properly and you can triple or quadruple your media response
rate. Better still, you can ask the editors “what can I give you
to support a feature story and meet your needs”.

Finally, the biggest reason for news release failure is one of
attitude. How do you define success or failure? It’s called
unrealistic expectations.

Get real. You won’t get rich off one news release. You’re chances
of getting famous are just about as slim.

You might be able to break even.

Look at your investment and compare it to what you need to break
even on your investment. If you need to sell 100 books to cover
the costs of a $500 outreach effort, you need ten articles
because each article only produces ten sales. So that’s your
break even goal. More books per article, means less articles will
satisfy your needs.

You may simply have to be realistic and understand that while you
are wildly interested in the topic, it may not have the broad
general public interest that you have for the subject. If you
wrote an article that has local interest and you expect national
media to pay attention, think again.

If you want to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show, then you’d better
pray because chances of doing it off one news release are very
slim, near zero in fact. Get real. If she calls, then
congratulations are in order. But don’t count on it.

If you wrote an advertisement and wanted a feature story and
interviews, don’t be surprised if the only media to call is the
advertising manager offering you a package deal. You get what you
ask for. What you offer is often times what you will get.

Even if you do get publicity, it may not come out exactly the way
you want it. More often than not, the bigger the media, the less
likely they are to run contact information.

Often times, the quality may be there while the numbers are not.

One or two quality media responses may be what you want or need.
If you get that, it’s a success.

One article in USA Today may out perform ten articles in small
dailies and weeklies in the mid-west.

On the other hand, it may not. The small high quality articles
may outperform the small mention in the big media.

Similarly, one quality 30-minute interview on a well-liked talk
show on a radio station in the middle of nowhere out in the
mid-west, will likely outsell a five-minute interview on an
Arbitron rated radio station in the middle of the morning talk
show in a major metropolitan area. You can’t tell the listening
quality of the audience.

So when you write a news release please review it against these
criteria to see if you’ve made any of these errors. Then fix each
and every one of them yourself, and when you are done, feel free
to send me your final draft. I’ll be happy to take a look at it.

So listen to your publicist. Heed these warnings and reduce the
risks of failure. Fail to pay attention to these issues, proceed
at your own risk.
——————————————————————————–
Paul J. Krupin is the author of the book “Trash Proof News
Releases” and creator of IMEDIAFAX - The Internet to Media Fax Service.

His service transmits news releases to custom targeted media lists via fax and e-mail. Visit www.Imediafax.com. Email him directly at Paul@Imediafax.com 800-457-8746 509-545-2707

There are more articles, strategy and tactics at the Imediafax.com website. You can also download the free pdf file ebook version of his classic manual for publicity practitioners, “Trash Proof News Releases” so to be updated and released in a
brand new second edition.