Journalists spend less than one minute reading releases
Tick tock.
In the time it takes you to wash your hands, buckle your seat belt or start the dishwasher, your favorite journalist can finish reading your news release.
That’s right: Nearly 70% of journalists spend less than a minute reading a news release, according to a recent study by Greentarget. The rest spend one to five minutes.
So if your release is longer than 200 words, seven out of 10 journalists won’t finish it.
Why so short?
No wonder reporters don’t linger over your release:
- 45% of journalists surveyed get 50 or more releases per week. Of those, 21% get at least 100 per week.
- 40% get 10 to 50.
- Just 5% receive fewer than 10.
These folks are drowning in an ocean of content. Plus, years of media downsizing and increasing demands on journalists to produce digital content mean that their time is even more constrained.
As a result, “releases that are too long” is the fourth biggest pet peeve of the journalists surveyed by Greentarget. (“Releases that are poorly written” — ouch! — is No. 3.)
So how can you write a press release that’s short enough for everyone from small-business owners to search engines to love?
To reach these folks, you need to send a press release that’s attention grabbing — and no more than one-minute long.
Would your news release by twice as good if it were half as long?
How can you write PR pieces that get read?
Journalists spend, on average, just one minute reading a news release. So how can you get the word across in your PR piece?
Learn a simple formula for getting the word across to journalists in 60 seconds or less at NOT Your Father’s PR Writing — our media relations-writing workshop starting Aug. 15.
There, you’ll learn how long your PR piece should be … how to write paragraphs people will read, not skip … how to write sentences that readers can understand … how long journalists think your first paragraph should be.
Plus: Find out how to stop doing one thing that reporters and editors say gets in the way of their covering your story.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
