How to get your team into the news(papers)

Sep 09

Today I want to give you a little guide on how you
can increase your chances to get your team into the
news(papers) dramatically, that is, if you’ve not already
done it that way, of course.

OK, here it comes:

A) How to write a press release

First of all obey the 5 W: Who, Where, When, What and Why
Write in third person (as if somebody outside your organization would be writing about your team)
Add a quote or two. I.e. from the HC, President, Sports director or a featured player – who and whatever matches the “story”.
Add a link (URL) to the teams website for more information (if there’s actually more information related to the topic)
Put all the important information into the top 2 or 3 sentences
Make the rest of your press release “telling the story”
Make sure it’s newsworthy – if you don’t have any interesting news, don’t write a press release! (TIP: Game-Reports with detailed stats and quotes are always newsworthy just make sure you’re releasing it within only a few hours after the game!)
Put your complete contact information at the bottom (make sure the contact is informed about the press release and is able to answer detailed questions promptly – there’s nothing more annoying for a journalist than calling the contact for more information and then talking to an uninformed person)

B) How to send your press release to the newspaper

find out the correct/relevant journalist’s contact information of your local newspaper(s)
contact them personally (or via phone) and find out about their preferences on how they’d like to receive your press release. Learn about their deadlines – so you can make sure they’ll receive your press releases in time, and what they want the eMail subject to look like. I.e. do they want it preceded with PR: or Pressrelease: or whatever…
Also contact them regularly in person (i.e. phone) to make sure they’re still covering your field (i.e. Youth/HS Sports, Youth/HS Football, …)
Always send your press release to their personal contact eMail-address or fax-number if they should prefer that. Never send it simply to “to whom it may concern” to the general newspaper eMail-address, it’s very likely to be deleted before even read by anybody.
Make sure you’re always sending it from the same eMail-address.

C) How to publish your press release

First of all make a section on your Website (your team does have a website, right?) an put your press releases there (lastest on top!)
There are some (free) press-release websites on the internet here are the URLs (there are also national PR-Websites for non-US countries in case you’re not US-based):
create an account on each and publish your press releases immediately after you send them to your personal newpaper contacts.

I hope I could give you here some useful tips for getting your team better into the news – thus getting better known and therefore maybe easier to recruit new players or find sponsors…

And yes, you also can send me your press-releases, and if they meet my quality standards I’ll publish them also here on my website/blog and will mention them in my next newsletter. Oh, btw, I’d perfer if you would put your PR-Title into the subject of your eMail and preceed it with “PR: ” (without quotes)