FYI:   Introduction    Industrial Marketing Do's and Don'ts     Writing an Effective Press Release     Photography

When you write commercial press releases, separating wheat from chaff is vital, knowing what to omit is almost as important as what facts and data you include.

No two people write anything exactly the same. The differences that reflect our personality and what we think is important are reflected in the word choice and style of all our written materials, from poetry to sales proposals. No one can completely teach you to compose effective product press releases for technical, trade and professional journals. We believe we can point you in the right direction based on what has worked for this consultant and other professional writing colleagues over a 40 year industrial sales and marketing career.

Editors of leading magazines tell us AIMARKET product press releases are the best they receive. They require the least amount of staff time for rewriting to fit nearly any professional journalistic format. One of the ways I learned and eventually developed the AIMARKET style was by reading the work of many predecessors, so before we start with rules or suggestions in outline form, I suggest you jump over and read some of our online client press releases that are indexed at the AIMARKET industrial product index.

• Keep things short - we seldom exceed 250 words on one side of a single sheet of paper.
• 250 words will fit on a single sheet in #11 type (courier or times roman) with 1-1/2 or double line spacing.
• Write in an abrupt but factual, journalistic style. Avoid superlatives completely or most editors will reject your material.
• Normally we describe the products or services in a narrative style but occasionally we will summarize important features in tabulated or bulleted format.
• Describe the most functionality and possible application situations in the least number of words.
• Remember who you are writing for. You are writing first and foremost to an editor, You are telling him briefly about something new you think his readership will be interested in. You are his reporter. His eyes and ears of the moment. Secondarily, you are writing for the editor's readership. Include the information the target publication's readership will want to know about your new product or service. You may include objective information about why the product or service is an improvement on past models or the state of the art. Do not write to inform or please yourself, your competitors, your boss or the guy at the next desk. It is very unlikely any of those people will ever be your customers.
• Four to five paragraphs is ideal with average length of 60 words.
• In presenting technical or industrial material we like to create each paragraph so that it could almost stand alone as a short press release all by itself. Subsequent paragraphs bring in additional specifications and data about the product on a graduated intensity basis. Some editors will choose your first paragraph alone as their information source or they may draw from the higher or different level facts and data in the following paragraphs 2, 3 &4.
• We usually reserve the closing paragraph for information about the company and the distribution availability of the product or service.

Home     |     Email     |     Request Information

Copyright © 1996 aimarket (american industrial marketing associates)
Please email webmaster if you experience difficulty navigating this site.