When you want to grab attention in the media, or even just make customers sit up and take notice of your latest products by writing for your website, it pays to stick to tried and tested structures.

Here are a few tips on how to structure a news release:

A news release is cut from the bottom up

Your first paragraph has to say it all. If everything else in your new release is cut, this one paragraph should still be able to get across your story. In every news release, this is where you have to include the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’ and ‘where’ of your story.

This is a news release, not advertising puffery

The second paragraph of a news release is where you add more detail. But it has to be written as if by an independent third party. Ideally, a news release should include facts and provide info aimed at the readers of whichever publication or website you are targeting. As a rule of thumb, if a news release of up to 250 words has more than five company, product or brand name mentions, you’re heading towards advertising puffery and the editor’s bin.

Use your news release to say something interesting

If you’re approaching a local newspaper, write a quote that shows the editor just how relevant your news release is to the community. If you’re writing for a trade magazine, use the quote to emphasise your knowledge of the sector. But whoever you’re writing for, try and make your quote as interesting as possible. Please try to avoid the clichéd “we are delighted to announce…” or “this is an exciting partnership…” It just sounds dull. You can use the quote to show authority, compassion, enthusiasm, intelligence and any other emotion that will best position your business. Remember though to make it short, sharp and pithy.

Other rules of a news release

As well as sticking to around 250 words max, keep sentences and paragraphs short. Say 25/30 words per sentence, and only two or three sentences per paragraph. Always give it an independent tone and avoid advertising puffery like the plague. Think about the needs of the website of publication you are targeting – who will be the reader, what would interest them?

Finally, I haven’t mentioned headlines, nor have I discussed how to spot a newsworthy story or a news hook. I’ve chosen just to look at structure this time. News hooks and headlines for a news release are big topics, perfect for another day.

Before 2012 gets into full swing, take some time to think about how you do things. Because if you haven’t changed your marketing materials for twelve months, you’re not doing your business any favours.

Over the course of 12 months, you and your colleagues will have dealt with new clients. You’re probably also offering new or improved services. And  are likely to have clearer ideas about who you want to work with and who you don’t over the next year. So with all this change happening around your business, if you’re pushing out old messages, you’re not selling as well as you could be. Time for a bit of a business revamp.

Business revamp – step one

If you’ve got the time, grab a pen and paper and do some business soul-searching:

• What is it your business actually does? How does it make life better for your clients?
• Who are your clients? Where are they? What do they do?
• What services do they use?
• How do they learn about your business? What do you use to keep in touch?

Business revamp – step two

Then do some business day-dreaming:

• Who would you love to work with?
• What could you do this year to improve the services or products you offer?
• How could you help your customers, and prospects, know more about what you do?
• What do you need to tell them so that they spend more with you?

Business revamp – step three

Your answers to steps one and two will show you where you need to concentrate your makeover efforts. Here are a few practical ideas, some very quick, others take a little more thought:

• Tweak your website – change the copy on your home page, add or change the way you describe your services or products, add case studies or useful articles, or just revamp your business description. Google loves fresh copy
• Transform the whole of your website with new words. Get a copywriter in and give yourselves a brand new personality online
• Go all out with a marketing revamp. Seek some good marketing advice and sit down with a copywriter and designer to get exactly what you and your customers need
• Commit to a regular customer newsletter packed with useful information
• Write letters and emails to follow-up with lapsed clients reminding them about new services, the need for maintenance or discounts
• Keep staff and contacts up to date with new services or products so they can share it with clients and prospects. You have to give people something to talk about with word of mouth marketing
• Look at a public relations programme and shout about what you do
• Sit down with your sales team and commit to new materials that help them sell. If they are proud of your marketing materials, they’ll use them
• Go through all the different materials that talk about your business. You’re guaranteed to find inconsistencies, spelling mistakes, wrong contact details, incomplete information about products or services, the list goes on. Get rid of the rubbish and make sure people stick to current and accurate info

Don’t forget to commit to your business revamp. Get down on paper all those things you want to do. If you have support, delegate some of the tasks, if you don’t, dedicate some time just for your makeover. But remember one thing. A business revamp is for the customer. It isn’t about a new logo. It is about helping customers spend more money with you.

If you’re looking for a business revamp, call Josie at co-writer. Whether it is one web page or a new brochure, fresh eyes and great copy will help you push your business forward in 2012.

Christchurch has suffered over 8000 aftershocks since last year’s earthquake, and one of those stole over 200 lives from the city. Those people had been on buses; buying their lunch; shopping for clothes; working at their desks. Just like anyone living in any city.

The heart was ripped from Christchurch. Buildings demolished. Shopping centres condemned. Roads diverted away from the devastation. But now they are clawing back those amenities that help a city breathe. A temporary city centre bus station has re-opened this week. And on Saturday a small shopping mall will open to help pump life back into the centre.

The Cashel Mall Restart project is very special – not just because of the emotions bound up in the creation of this shopping

Christchurch hard at work

mall. It has been called a pop-up mall because it is made of shipping containers and they don’t want it to be there forever. No way. Christchurch just needs a heart again. It needs to feel like a city as the demolition and designwork continues.

These shipping containers have been knocked about a bit, tarted up I guess you could say, to create a new, exciting space for businesses to get back to what they do best: rebuilding a shattered economy.

Enter Boxpark

Boxpark is a development in Shoreditch, London, set to open before Christmas 2011. They have spent  a huge amount of time and money developing what they are calling the first pop-up mall. Also made out of shipping containers, the Boxpark concept is the same – shops and cafes in containers to create a mall. Here’s a brief overview of what Boxpark is all about.

The Boxpark concept is partly in response to high rental prices for retail in the Shoreditch area. And let’s not forget that

The Boxpark concept

the UK is hurting from the economic downturn. I mean really hurting. Food kitchens for families, you name it. Life isn’t pleasant for lots of people in the UK. Retailers are struggling.

As with any development, there are investors to satisfy and tough letting targets to meet. People have thrown their souls into Boxpark.

So what do they do when they get wind of the Christchurch project? Well understandably they feel a bit put out. Christchurch, with all the grit and determination of a city once crushed, has beaten them in the race to open to the public. Boxpark’s marketing claims of being a world first are left in tatters.

Boxpark reacts

But instead of talking to the Christchurch project about their concerns, Boxpark management dive right in with legal threats. Boxpark has accused Christchurch of copying their project. The director of the Boxpark scheme claims that there has been an infringement of intellectual property rights.

So as I write this blog post, Twitter is alive, Boxpark are hurriedly removing criticism from their Facebook page and emotions are running high in Christchurch.

It remains a little unclear about exactly what Boxpark is contesting. Perhaps it is the term “world first” in relation to “pop-up mall”? Christchurch has reacted to the email from Boxpark by removing those claims from marketing material. But the opening will still happen on Saturday. Christchurch is determined.

Personally I think Boxpark have shot themselves in the foot on this one. They failed to understand what was driving the Christchurch project. Christchurch isn’t interested in claiming the world first. They aren’t doing it to create a scalable business concept. They don’t even want a pop-up mall. What they want is a city that functions as a city. Where people can buy their lunch. Where they can sit at their desk. Where they can travel on buses. Where they can shop for clothes. Where they can feel normal again.

Boxpark, where is your empathy? Where is your support? You could have gained so much positive publicity from this. You could have gone on the record saying you were backing Christchurch. That being first wasn’t important when there are cities in desperate need. That you had helped Christchurch rebuild by offering advice on your concept. You could have linked live to the opening; offered comment in the UK press; positioned Boxpark as one giant step towards overcoming the death of the high street. But instead you ran straight to the lawyers.

A strong Public Relations consultant would have looked at all of your options, not just the legal ones. They would have explored story-lines to build the Boxpark brand, not dismantle it. They would have considered how your actions impact your audiences, not just your business plan. Because business really is all about people. People selling their ideas or their products to other people. And people need to talk to each other, and try to understand each other.

This week tweets and news updates have been flying around on the subject of New Zealand’s PM, John Key, and his appearance on the David Letterman Show during his trip to the US in 2009. Everyone is getting over-excited about $10,000 being paid to a public relations firm to secure his place on the show. I’m hopping mad about the reporting so far. And the easiest way to explain why is to share with you a bit about the PR process:

What is public relations anyway?

Public relations is all about messages. It is about getting the right messages to the right audiences at the right time. Companies will use PR for a variety of reasons but that’s a blog subject for another day. In this case, John Key was off to wave the NZ flag. He wanted to raise the profile of this beautiful land in which we live and attract the US tourist dollar. So in his case, using a PR firm was all about profile raising to a particular audience.

And what do PR people do?

In order to raise profile, a public relations consultant will look at the client business or organisation and create a series of messages that will appeal to the audience or audiences. They will spend time researching how best to position the client, minimising the chance for negative publicity and maximising the chance of identifying relevant messages that grab attention.

Once all that more strategic stuff is sorted, they’ll move on to tactics i.e. how do we get these messages across?.  And to do this they’ll search hard for broadcast, print and social media opportunities. Lots of questions will be used to check if tactics are appropriate:

• Who is writing / broadcasting what?
• Will the right people be reading it or tuning in? And will enough people get the messages?
• Does it get to my audiences at the right time?

That all goes into a plan. Then the PR team will hit the phones and emails, trying to sell the client and their expertise into the journalist. Because the most important thing about public relations is it is not based on a commercial agreement. News stories appear because the journalist or producer believes it to be relevant to the readers, listeners or viewers. And the vast majority of the time, they only find out about things if PR consultants like me get in touch.

Is public relations like advertising then?

The journalist’s job is to interpret what the client says which is why PR consultants work so hard to get the messages right, train spokespeople, and target the right media. Journalists don’t just take a cheque and report the story verbatim. You only get control like that when you pay for it directly with the media outlet. And that’s called advertising which is also a blog for another day.

Can you bribe your way to media coverage?

PR is a sales process. And it is a specialist sales process. Therefore people don’t do it for free. Public relations agencies charge money for all the strategic development work, the research on tactics and the preparation that goes with the sell-in process. And if the sell-in is successful, there is a load of work to prepare spokespeople for interviews, or develop just the right info for journalists, as well as making sure everyone gets what they want out of the process. So understandably public relations consultants are paid for their work. But the media aren’t paid to take the story.

Back to public relations, John Key and the Letterman Show

Tourism NZ saw John Key’s trip to America as a great opportunity to boost interest in New Zealand. They employed a fine PR firm to position NZ in the hearts and minds of as many relevant Americans as possible. The PR firm was given the Prime Minister of New Zealand as the spokesperson for the job. And everyone delivered. Clips of John Key doing his ’10 reasons to visit New Zealand’ slot on the Letterman Show were shooting about on Facebook, Twitter, websites, blogs as well as broadcast media. The Letterman Show is a big win – it gets over 3.5 million viewers every week. The New Zealand population is 4.4 million.

So why the fuss? I think the media here wanted the story to be far more sordid than it is. I think they wanted to say John Key bought a slot because NZ is desperate for someone to take notice. But for me, this just isn’t a story. This is just about public relations in action.

A couple of weeks ago I read that the enormous global PR agency that is Golin Harris had changed the job titles of employees. They will now be called either Creators, Connectors, Strategists or Catalysts. This change is part of Golin’s desire to position themselves at the heart of the social media and digital era. The names replace common agency titles of Account Executive, Account Manager, Account Director etc. Now I understand why they might want to reposition themselves. I’m just not sure the new job titles offer much clarity for clients who at the end of the day just want some great output from Golin staff. It rather reminds me of bees in a hive – I wonder, do drones always want to be workers? Will the catalysts always secretly yearn to be creators….?

Ouch, but that’s my job title…

I was talking to a journalist once about a project I had won. She was interested in all the pizazz I was going to create around an event – it was when I was running the regional office of a major PR firm in the UK. We had a lovely chat, I delivered my key messages, and then she checked my details with me. Upon hearing my job title, she exclaimed that it was really odd and asked if she could use something else. I was stunned. I’d become quite attached to it. And better than that, it actually said what I did. The job title in question was simply Office Head.

What would the customer think?

Last week I was getting my business cards re-vamped and I spent ages thinking about a job title. Should I be a consultant, an MD, a proprietor, the owner, an overlord even? Well after several rummages through the Thesaurus, lots of scribbling and pretty spider diagrams, I gave up and left it blank. I came to the conclusion that having a title just isn’t that important to me. And is it important to customers? I’m not sure it is unless they want to be assured of my experience. But let’s face it, a couple of grey hairs and the gentle laughter lines starting to appear demonstrate that I am not fresh out of college.

Ah, the dynamic job title

Now of course I don’t work in a huge agency any more. I don’t have an organisational structure to make sense of.  What matters now is that people remember me for being me. So for now, out with the job title. I just want to be known as Josie Fitzhugh, that really great copywriter who makes good cakes and is fun to work with.

Read more about the Golin Harris model here: http://www.golinharris.com/#!/about/the-g4-model/