How to Format your Press Release

A press release is not an article. The purpose of issuing a press release is, in part, to have others write an article about it but there are some very specific guidelines required by all major media outlets that your press release must meet to avoid it being automatically ignored as spam. Here are the basics:

Release time – The very first line of your press release should either state “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” or “FOR RELEASE ON (date here)”. This should always be capitalized.

Contact Info – The contact information you want the public to see can go next, although you can skip it and add it to the end of the release instead. It tends to have more impact at the beginning though.

Dateline – The city and the date come next, all upper case again.

Press release text – This can read however you wish, but it must be grammatically correct and free of spelling and punctuation errors. The last paragraph or two should be specifically about the company that is announcing the news. A recap helps as well.

Footer – Skip two or three lines down after the recap and type “###” or “-30-” or “ENDS”. This signifies to the media that this is where content for public consumption ends. The only thing after the footer should be your contact information so the press can reach you easily.