by Beverly Bochenek

Created on: July 20, 2009

If you're promoting and activity, business, or even yourself, a good press release is an essential and invaluable tool. A well constructed press release can get you noticed in a small amount of time

A press release should accomplish one of three things:

1. It should get you a mention. If nothing else, your press release should get you a mention even if it's just on a community calendar or a little FYI side bar. It should garner enough interest that the media outlet you sent it to wants people to at least hear about it.

2. It should get you a phone call or email for an interview. If your press release is written to captivate, you should get the newspaper, radio station or website to contact you in order to give some clarification or for an outright interview. Now while you may think this is the best thing that can happen; it's the best thing that can happen on subsequent press releases. The best thing a press release should do for you is:

3. Be printed almost word for word as you submitted it. If you write your press release as if it's an article or in the same vein of the media where you're submitting it, you've done a great deal of the work for them. They can just plug it in and go. You've done several things: You've gotten your press your way, you've given them something to put in their publication or production and you've done it without them having to expend manpower which saves them time and money.

That gains you a good amount of goodwill with the publishers and when you consistently provide them with good press releases they will come around at some point and give you even more space with an interview or some kind of greater exposure. And they won't forget you.

There are some standard items that go into a press release:

The date you wish it run (For immediate release or the start date)

Contact information for the press (Phone and email)

It used to be these had to be formatted in a certain area on a press release page. However, with the advent of electronic submissions all this information can be on the right or left of a page.

Several spaces below that:

Title of press release subject in all caps. The Subtitle right below in upper and lower case.

What you place in the body of the press release is the difference between a press release that will be ignored and one that never will be.

You will want to get the who, what, where and when all in the first paragraph but it doesn't have to be a boring litany of information. Look

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