Quality over quantity

I have been covering the news for an editor friend and am appalled at the state of many press releases that come into his news-desk inbox.

Press releases with obvious spelling mistakes in the subject box and/or headline, horrendous inaccuracies in data and percentages, sentence construction that makes no sense, and releases that are not at all relevant to the publication.

All of these releases written and distributed by supposed communications consultants.

I thought perhaps the PRs of the financial services world are just having a collective bad day, so I talked to a dozen or so of my editor friends and all said this is the norm for them. Many of them regularly feedback to PRs pointing out the more horrendous errors but very rarely see any corrections issued.

They are praying for the day when their inboxes are just populated by relevant, well written predominantly error free releases.

I call on my fellow marketing professionals to review what has been sent out in the name of their organisation before their brands are done irreparable damage.

Consider the following:

Are there errors appearing in your releases? If so, consider who is writing them. If it’s an agency and they are making multiple mistakes, surely you’re better off finding someone more professional? There are a lot of low-cost good quality communications professionals out there so don’t use cost as an excuse to stay with someone who is doing a poor job. If it’s someone (or multiple people) in-house, then you need to review your sign off processes. Are errors occurring because things are being too rushed? It is better to send something out late than to send a release with errors.

What do the media think of your press releases? Ask them! Check that what you are sending them is actually useful and make changes to your press releases and/or distribution lists accordingly.

Are any mistakes that are being found by the media in your releases being corrected? Make sure your press release distribution channel (internal or external) all know what the process is for issuing corrections. Burying your head in the sand and pretending a mistake was not made is not helpful!

Review the volume of releases you are sending. Make sure that everything that is being sent to journalists it relevant and useful to them. Don’t be a spam bot.

Do you have a style guide? Is everyone involved in the press release process au fait with it? If not, then you know what needs to be done!