I’ve consistently been revising my tactics of writing fresh, exciting, news-worthy press releases for bands and their shows for the last 5 years now, and have to admit, it can be one of the most frustrating jobs.
1. A lot of the time, the bands don’t have a clue how to write a press release or distribute it, which is fine, because that’s what I do, and I do it well, but the main problem I get is that when I do develop the releases, the bands do not give me near enough information to work with… I need stuff to research, and to write about, people!
2. Finding a fresh approach and a news worthy angle that the media will want to use, can be quite difficult. The media (particularly street press and entertainment magazines/papers) can inundated with press releases from bands, record company reps, and PR agencies all the time, so to make yours stand out among them is quite a task…but not impossible. If you look hard enough, there will be something unusual about the band that you can use to yours (and their) advantage…and then there are other times when you get given something so nice and easy, that the press release writes itself (love those).
3. Keeping it short, but not too short. I’ve seen some press releases that bands or reps have done up, and they’re ok, but most of the time in my opinion they are not well laid out, and aren’t exactly obvious. Remember, we are trying to make the media’s job easier by providing them with enough information to use, so if (and when) they decided to follow up, they are well-prepared. Some press releases I’ve seen read like a 3 paragraph bio of the band…um, where’s the hook? My trick – use the inverted pyramid technique (or inverted triangle, whichever – google it), hit with the most important facts first, a lead in quote, a some more tied-in information, a few more small quotes, then sum it up. Remember to kick it all off with a killer intro – Who What When Where…then the rest of the release is the How and Who.
These are a few tricks I’ve learnt along the way, but the easiest of them all would be to let me do it. That’s what I’m here for.
R.
Tags: Band PR, band press releases, Inverted Pyramid, tricks, Writing press releases
