How to Write Short, Succinct Press Releases that Speak Volumes

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“In general, those who have nothing to say contrive to spend the longest time doing it.” Lowell wrote this truism eons ago in An Oriental Apologue.

Some things never change. Those wise words still pack a wallop today. Think about the monologues you must listen to daily for business purposes or just because you’re too polite to say, ‘Enough already!’

Nobody likes to listen to endless chatter. The same is true with press releases. In general, those press releases that carry the least amount of real news take the longest time to say nothing. They are dressed up with hype and adverbs, adjectives and exclamations.

Think before you write a press release. Think about what information you would like to know about the subject. Skip the superfluous hype; eschew the exclamation points.

Think about using strong action verbs rather than wimpy adverbs. For example, Use ‘His head shattered the window’ rather than ‘His head hit the window hard.’ The action verb ’shattered’ is far stronger than the verb ‘hit’ modified by adverb ‘hard.’

Also, in the following sentence, compare the difference in impact between the active voice and the passive voice. ‘They scaled the mountain.’ (active) ‘The mountain was scaled by them.’ (passive)