New Product Press Releases Washington DC

Welcome to the inaugural ANSOM Marketing & Advertising article, the first in a series of semi-regular columns on the confounding and mysterious ways of marketing, promotion, advertising and public relations that will attempt to provide tips and tricks to both retailer and supplier.

We will also incorporate information about using the Internet for e-commerce and publicity into the series.

Why are we doing this? Because marketing, advertising and promotional skills are the key to surviving and thriving in these most competitive and fast paced of times.

We're also doing this because many of the actions that can be taken are easily within the grasp (conceptually, materially and financially) of even the smallest and most low-tech business in the army/navy industry, or in any other marketplace.

Perfecting product promotion

Let's start with the supply side and focus on mastering the art of the new product press release.

It's surprising how many medium-to large-sized companies (in many industries) have no mechanism in place or even a rudimentary program for providing publications, customers, sales reps and other entities with information, photography and data about new or well-established products and services.

This is perplexing for two reasons; first, it requires relatively little effort and comparitively little expense, with an excellent cost to benefit ratio; and secondly, news and product press releases can usually be placed with little or no cost, and are even eagerly accepted at no charge by many publications and businesses.

Ideally, a supplier company should build a portfolio of product releases, and it's an excellent practice to put together a complete media kit just prior to, or at market launch of every new (or improved, re-packaged, etc) product. It's also a good idea to pre-sell many new products by timing product releases to coincide with magazine publication dates that dovetail with product introduction dates.

It can be tricky, but always try to coordinate your market intro date with the publication dates of whichever magazines your release will appear. That means you may have to discuss the timing of your new product launch with magazine publishers or editors to determine the best time to submit product information or company news.

Discussing your new product launch with magazines, ad agencies or public relation firms can raise concerns about protecting confidential information such as product specs, capabilities or pricing, from premature disclosure to competitors, distribution channels and consumers.

But part of a successful product launch is making the product available to the media, to reviewers and other "opinion leaders," to your own sales staff and to packaging/display manufacturers, regulatory or testing groups and others prior to the introduction of the product to the market.

If your company is concerned about security or confidentiality, the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) provides some legal protections against inadvertent or unscrupulous premature disclosure of information about a new product or service, while enabling certain trusted entities to assist your company in a successful product launch.

Delivering the goods

What materials should be included in a media kit or simple press release?

That depends on the gravity of the product involved, the needs of the recipient of the release/kit, and of course the limitations of your time and/or financial resources.

At a minimum, a one-page, well-written (we'll discuss what constitutes well-written at a later date) fact sheet or letter describing the product or service is mandatory, whether send via snail mail or electronically. E-mail is better than fax.

Whether your release consists of company news (such as the opening of a new factory or the hiring of a marketing support person) or is product-specific, always include a relevant color photograph (or high-res electronic image if by e-mail).

Do not send 35mm slides or other transparencies — in the modern publishing era, these materials are unwieldy, time-consuming and expensive to render suitable for print, and their inclusion in your release/kit will definitely hurt your chances of being published.

We mentioned a couple of ticks ago that e-mail is a preferred medium of transport over fax and snail mail (unless your snail mail includes a CD or other media that contains electronic documents and images). The main reason for this is that your letter/fact sheet can simply be cut and pasted into a working layout by a magazine editor (or similar), rather than requiring a complete re-keying job as would be the case with a hard copy.

Making it easy for a publication to work with your materials always enhances your chances of being included in the final, published product.

Now let's discuss the written portion of the press release and leave the graphic component for a later date.

The "write way"

Having been on both sides of the press release game (writer and recipient thereof), I can definitely confirm that emotion and exuberance have no place in this highly specialized form of business writing.

Since most press releases find their way into publications as part of the editorial content rather than the advertising part, maintaining the integrity and credibility of the publication amongst its readership is dependent upon the appearance, at least, of editorial objectivity.

With regard to publishing product releases and news releases, magazines maintain objectivity by following the golden rule established by Jack Webb in Dragnet - "Just the facts, ma'am."

Lengthwise, a good product release is in the 50-100 word range. That should be enough to cover the most important selling features, nuts and bolts info such as size, weight, cost, colors, packaging, etc. It's okay to cover these aspects on a separate fact sheet, but do include prose-written descriptive copy along with the plain data. Editors are not likely to take your bullet points and compose a couple of paragraphs out of them.

Bad words

Keeping the length of the product release down to 100 words will be easier since you can leave out words and pharases such as, "best, finest, only, leading, super, amazing, stunning, greatest, safest, fastest, easiest to use, most economical, best value, unequaled, unbeaten, exciting, strongest, indestructible and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."

Superlatives and bold claims violate the "just the facts" rule and while some editors will take the trouble to write around them, if your release is too chock-ful of them, it may be abandoned altogether.

Of course, many companies send press release copy that is overloaded with platitudes and boisterous claims, hoping that a lazy or inattentive editor will simply let it go as is.

But more often, an editor will simply pass on such a release altogether, believing it is either too much work to "fix" it or that there would be little remaining workable substance once the fluff was stripped away. The result in either case - your product release does not make it into print.

The politics of print

As mentioned in our previous installment, a good marketing and promotion program will identify all print and electronic media that fit the marketplace for a given company's products.

Some of these publications will be more on target than others, some will be more amenable to utilizing your press materials than others, and some will require effort on your part to demonstrate why your products are truly relevant to their readers.

It's still worthwhile to "seed" your press materials around liberally, since they may take root where you would least expect. Adjust your expectation levels according to your understanding of the mission of each publication that is on your mailing list.

Magazines with which you may already have an advertising relationship, those that are right at the center of the market you serve and those that are product-driven (rather than feature-driven) are the ones that you may consider somewhat obligated to pay attention to your press releases.

Depending on the policies of a given magazine and the quality of your relationship, you have a reasonable right of publication if your materials (both written and graphic) are professional in composition and your product meets the needs of the publication in terms of suitability to task.

Just as an example, some magazines require that new product releases reflect products that are truly new, not simply line extensions or old products with new packaging.

Never attempt to intimidate publications into printing your releases. As long as the publicity opportunity is offered at no charge, you have no right to demand anything.

Done correctly, everybody - reader, manufacturer, publication - wins. Most publications are only looking to identify the most relevant product releases for their readership. If your products are as important as you claim, then they will certainly find their way into print.