12 ways to produce a killer press release

You’d love to get that major publication or TV network to cover your event, embed your video or quote your chief executive in an economic forecast story.

The last thing you want is for reporters to delete your press release the moment the email notification pops up on their screens.

Surely everyone knows by now that stuffy, old-style press releases don’t cut it when reporters are busier than ever and newspapers want multimedia assets for their online editions. Yet ill-considered pitches keep flooding the inboxes of the dwindling number of journalists.

How to stand out? Here are a few tips:

1. Hook them with the subject line.

Getting a journalist to open your email is the first step in earning coverage. Write a snappy subject line for your email, says Elise Copps of Hamilton Health Sciences.

“Think about headlines that make you click through to articles you come across in your social feeds, and try to replicate the level of curiosity they spark,” she says. “An email with the subject line, ‘Experts warn against this risky trend,’ is much more likely to be opened than ‘MEDIA RELEASE: Experts say Tide Pod challenge is risky.'”

2. Less is more.