Most press releases get written because someone senior wants one, so before you start, ask whether anyone outside the company will. The reader is a reporter who's never heard of you and will give it about four minutes, and in that time the release has to say what happened and why anyone outside your building should care.
When a release is the wrong tool
A release suits news that several journalists will want at the same time and in the same form. That means a funding round, an acquisition, a named customer worth writing about, a product customers are already using, original research with a number in it or a senior hire at a company people have heard of. The point of the document is that twenty inboxes get the same version. A pitch suits almost everything else. One story with one journalist in mind is a proactive pitch. If what you have is a point of view and nothing has actually happened, offer a comment or an interview. A feature that nobody outside your customer base will notice is a blog post, and a release about it teaches the journalists on your list that your name in the inbox means nothing has happened.
If you're not sure which you've got, count the journalists who'd want it. If it's fewer than five, write to each of them.
The inverted pyramid
Press releases are written the way news stories are: most important first, least important last. Journalists call it the inverted pyramid. The headline and first paragraph carry the whole story. Each paragraph after that is a little less important than the one before, which means an editor short of space can cut from the bottom and lose nothing that counts, and a journalist who stops reading after three paragraphs, as most do, still has everything they need.
It's the opposite of how most people write at work. A report builds up to its conclusion; a release starts with it.
- 1The news. Who, what, when, where and why, in the headline and first paragraphRead by everyone
- 2What makes it matter. The number, the customer, the change; then the quoteRead by the journalist deciding
- 3Supporting detail. How it works, availability, pricing, a second quoteRead by the journalist writing
- 4Background. Boilerplate and contactRead when needed
To test it, cover everything below your second paragraph with your hand and ask whether a journalist could still write the story. If not, the news is in the wrong place.
The anatomy
- 1HeadlineThe news in under twelve words. No adjectives.
- 2DatelineCity, date.
- 3First paragraphWho, what, when, where and why. A journalist should be able to stop here.
- 4Second paragraphThe detail that makes it matter: the number, the customer, the change.
- 5QuoteOne person with a view a journalist could not have written for them.
- 6BoilerplateWho the company is, in the same words it uses everywhere else.
- 7ContactA named person, a phone number that is answered.
Headline. Say what happened in under twelve words, with the company name and a verb, and don't try for a slogan or a pun. If it would work as the first line of a news story, it's right.
Dateline. The city and date go at the start of the first paragraph, to show where the news comes from and when it can be used.
First paragraph. In two sentences, say who did what, when and where, and why anyone should care. A journalist who reads nothing else should be able to write a short story from this paragraph alone. Most releases fail here, by opening with the company's description of itself instead of the news.
The detail. This is where the number, the customer and the terms go, along with what changes for whom. Put the facts in descending order of interest so the release can be cut from the bottom and still make sense.
The quote. Use one, from the most senior person involved, and make it say something the facts above don't, such as why you did it, what you expect to happen next or what you think of the market. "We are delighted" gives a journalist nothing to use. Journalists lift the sentences with an opinion in them and delete the rest.
Boilerplate. This is the 40-word description of the company under "About [Company]", and it should use the same words as your website and your LinkedIn page. If you have three versions of who you are, you'll see all three in print.
Contact. Give a name, a mobile number and an email for someone who'll pick up that day. A press@ address at the foot of a release tells the journalist that nobody in particular will answer.
The template
Copy this and replace everything in square brackets.
[HEADLINE: what happened, under twelve words, company name and a verb]
[Optional subheading: the one number or name that makes it news]
[CITY], [day month year]. [Company], [what it does, in eight words], has
[the news: bought, signed, raised, launched, published]. [One sentence on
why this matters to the readers of the title you are sending it to.]
[The detail: the number, the customer, the terms, what changes and for
whom. Two or three sentences, most interesting first.]
"[A quote with an opinion in it: why you did this, what you expect to
happen next, what it says about the market. Two sentences at most.]"
said [Name], [title], [Company].
[Background: how this fits with what the company has done before;
availability, pricing, dates. The first paragraph to cut if it runs long.]
"[Optional second quote from a customer or partner, only if they say
something the first quote did not.]" said [Name], [title], [Customer].
ENDS
About [Company]
[The 40-word description you use everywhere: what the company does, for
whom, since when, from where. Website.]
Press contact
[Name], [title]
[mobile number]
[email]
A worked example
We've left brackets where the facts would go, because what you're copying is the shape and the tone.
[Company] signs [Hospital Trust], its first NHS customer, for record-sharing software
LONDON, [day month] 2026. [Company], whose software lets hospital departments share patient records without retyping them, has signed [Hospital Trust], which serves [number] patients across [region]. The trust will run it in [number] departments from [month], in place of a process that re-entered records at every handover.
It is [Company]'s first contract with an NHS trust; its [number] existing customers are private clinics. [Hospital Trust] chose it after a [length] trial in [number] departments, during which the time to retrieve a record fell from [minutes] to [minutes].
"Hospitals have spent decades buying systems that do not talk to each other, and the answer has always been another system. We would rather make the ones they already have share what they know," said [Name], chief executive, [Company]. "The trial told us what the saving was. The contract tells us a trust will pay for it."
[Company] expects to announce further NHS contracts before the end of the financial year. Pricing is per department, from £[amount] a month.
ENDS
About [Company] [Company] makes record-sharing software for hospitals and clinics. Founded in [year] in [city], it works with [number] healthcare providers in the UK. [website]
Press contact: [Name], [title], [mobile], [email]
What journalists delete
Put a release beside the story it produced and the cuts are always the same. The adjectives go first, words like leading, innovative, unique, award-winning and best-in-class. "Today announced that it is pleased to" becomes "has". The second quote goes unless the customer said something the vendor could not. The boilerplate goes entirely, because the journalist writes their own line about who you are, usually from your website. Any sentence about how excited anyone is goes.
What survives is the first paragraph and the quote, if the quote had a view in it. Write the release so that those are its two best paragraphs, and spend the time you saved on the note that goes on top.
Sending it
A release blasted to a big list mostly goes unread. Find the journalists who have covered this subject in the last three months, read what they wrote, and send each of them the release under a note of three or four lines: what the news is and why it's for their readers in particular. Add what else is on offer, an interview or the data or a customer who will talk. Paste the release into the body of the email beneath the note. Nobody opens a PDF attachment on a phone.
Five to ten journalists is the usual number, with a different note for each. Send in the morning, Tuesday to Thursday, in their time zone, and follow up once, two days later, with a single line. Don't chase a second time.
Finding those journalists is the slow part, and it's where a platform like Agentcy helps. It surfaces the journalists who have written about a similar subject recently, shows you what they said, and pulls out a hook from their coverage that you can work into the note, so each pitch starts from something they wrote.
The mistakes
The news in paragraph three. The release opens with the market, or with the company. The journalist has read paragraph one and moved on.
A quote anyone could have said. If a competitor's chief executive could be the name under it, it won't get used.
No evidence. A release that claims and never proves reads as PR fluff, and journalists skip it. Stats and facts are usually what turns an announcement into news, such as the size of the contract, the customers who signed, the result of a trial or a figure from your own research. Every claim needs a source behind it, because a reporter will ask, and a number you cannot substantiate does more harm than having none. Put the strongest figure in the headline or the first paragraph.
A release for every feature. Four releases a year that are news will do more for you than twelve that aren't, and the other eight should have been blog posts.
Two hundred names and a mail merge. Send it only to journalists who are genuine candidates for the story, the ones who cover the subject and whose readers would care. Keep bringing them good stories and a relationship builds. Send them news that has nothing to do with their beat and they learn to ignore your name in their inbox.
A contact who does not answer. The number at the bottom rings a desk in an office nobody's in. Give a mobile and keep it on.
Writing it with AI
AI writes a competent first draft of a release. Give it the facts, a quote and the structure above and it will put the news first, keep the paragraphs in the right order and stay inside the length.
Journalists can tell, though. They read hundreds of releases a week, and AI copy has a sound to it: the same tidy sentence lengths, the adjectives they delete on sight, quotes that could have come from any company, a confident tone wrapped around nothing they can use. A release that reads as machine-written gets treated as one, and goes in the bin with the rest.
Before it goes out, read every line. Check every fact against the source, because AI could fill a gap with something plausible and wrong. Rewrite the quote in words your spokesperson would actually say, and get them to approve it. Cut anything you would not say to the journalist's face. Then read it aloud once.
Tools
If you write more than a few of these a year, the slow part is assembling the facts and getting a quote the spokesperson will stand behind, not the typing. Agentcy's press release studio drafts the release from the facts and spokesperson lines you've already recorded, in your style guide, and a person approves it before it goes anywhere. Core includes ten a month at $269/month.
Questions
How long should a press release be?
A press release for a strong story should run to one page, about 300 to 400 words, because journalists who want it will ring for anything else. A release with narrower appeal, especially one for trade and vertical titles, can run a little longer, since those journalists sometimes write the story straight from the release and need the detail and context in it. Whatever the length, the news belongs in the headline and the first paragraph. Cut any paragraph that adds nothing, because a long release that rambles gets read less than a short one.
What goes in notes to editors?
Notes to editors hold anything a journalist may need to check or use but won't want to read in the body of the release. That usually means the full boilerplate, the method behind any research, where to find images and logos, and when the spokesperson is free for interview. They sit below ENDS and never carry news, because anything below ENDS is treated as reference. The press contact goes there too, with a mobile number for someone who'll pick up that day.
Should I send a press release under embargo?
Send a press release under embargo when several titles will want the story at once and each needs time to write it properly, as with a funding round or an acquisition.
- Email each journalist first and ask whether they'll accept an embargo until a named date and time.
- Send the release only to those who agree.
- Put the embargo date and time at the top of the release.
An embargo is an agreement, so a journalist who never accepted it is free to publish the moment the release lands.
How do I write a press release for a funding round?
A press release for a funding round has five parts, in this order.
- Headline. Company, amount and lead investor, such as "[Company] raises £8m Series A led by [Investor]".
- First paragraph. The round, who led it, who followed and what the money is for.
- Proof. Customer numbers, revenue growth and market size, each with a source.
- The investor's quote. Why they backed you, which is usually the quote the journalist uses.
- The founder's quote. What happens next with the money.
Agree the announcement date with your investors first, because funding news is often offered to one title as an exclusive the day before.
Do I need a newswire?
Most B2B releases don't need a newswire, because a wire puts the release in front of nobody in particular while a pitched email reaches the ten people who cover your category. A wire does have a newer use, since AI answer engines pick up wire releases and sometimes cite them, although a story a journalist actually wrote carries far more weight with them. Regulated announcements and funding rounds that investors expect to find are the usual exceptions. ResponseSource's UK wire is pay-as-you-go from £85 a release, or £675 for ten (checked 13 October 2026).
Should the release go on our own website?
A press release should go on your own website the day it goes out, on a newsroom page with the date on it. Journalists check there that the news is real, and the assistants your buyers ask cite company websites more than any other source, so a dated release in your own words is the version they find. Publish it as text on the page, because a PDF or an image of the release hides the facts from crawlers. Keep its boilerplate word for word the same as your homepage and LinkedIn, since assistants merge what they read.
Try it on one brand, free
You can set up one brand in an afternoon and see what it finds. Paid plans are monthly, and you can stop whenever you like.