Divide and Conquer
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 01:39PM 
Many press release writers think that bigger is better, but casting a big net isn’t always the best way to reach a broad audience. Dividing a larger statewide or national story into regional news releases will often have a greater impact than blanketing the whole area with one general release.
At Newsworthy we’re all about highly targeted local news. Press releases are at their best when they relate to a specific geographic audience. Newspapers, television and radio stations everywhere have taken a “backyard” approach to publishing news, and because of this, it pays to be precise while distributing press releases. The next time you send a release statewide or nationally ask yourself the following question: “Can I split this press release up into regionally specific stories?”
When you break up a large story, the idea is to create several similar press releases that cater to certain geographic areas. While there will obviously be similarities between these regional stories, the content will definitely differ from release to release. To illustrate this point, check out the following releases from the New York State Department of Labor:
While these three releases are very similar, they each deal with separate news stories. They could have easily been sent as one release with call outs for each region. Instead, the author created news articles that point out a newsworthy story and its relationship to individual areas of the state.
Many of the paragraphs in the releases themselves are identical. However, each release contains full paragraphs of original material. This targeted approach makes each of these releases more important to their specific audiences than a more generic news story.
Here’s another approach:
The following series of press releases from the New York State Housing Finance Agency do a good job spreading the news throughout the state. Their strategy involved a series of six releases. They began by distributing a release announcing $4.965 million in affordable housing grants to business editors and the Legislative Correspondents Association in New York State.
They then distributed five additional press releases containing detailed news about a specific region. You can find those press releases here:
Whereas the initial release provided only an overview, each of the regional news stories went into substantial detail about the properties receiving the grants. This approach carefully delivered the necessary information to only the media who were interested in it.
Many organizations mistakenly try to send too much information to too many recipients. Instead of trying to cover a large area in one shot take a more calculated approach and deliver your news to the precise areas it’s important to. Your recipients will thank you for it.
Nowadays, media outlets love receiving material that is considered print-ready. Staffs have been cut at many news publications, and reporters and editors have less time to spend editing stories. In fact, many media outlets use RSS feeds and widgets to host press release content online directly from the source.
Regional press releases will generally require less editing and be more attractive to media outlets specializing in local news.
