Guidelines
How to write a release that gets read
A good release isn’t long — it’s clear. Here’s the shape we look for, and the things that quietly kill an otherwise good story.
Screening
Start with the actual news
The first sentence should answer one question: what happened? Not your mission, not the market backdrop — the thing that’s new. If a reader can’t tell why this matters in the first two lines, most won’t reach the third.
The shape of a release
You don’t need to reinvent the format. Editors read thousands of these and they expect a familiar order:
- Headline — the news in one plain line. Specific beats clever.
- The opening — who, what, and why it’s worth caring about, in a sentence or two.
- The body — the details that back it up: numbers, context, what changes now.
- A quote — one that sounds like a person, not a press office. Cut anything you’d never say out loud.
- About you — a short paragraph on who you are.
- Contact — a real name and a real inbox someone checks.
Weak headline vs strong headline
Same news, two very different openings. The first makes an editor work; the second hands them the story.
Weak“Company announces exciting new milestone in its growth journey.”
Strong“Acme raises $4M to put solar on 30,000 rural rooftops by 2027.”
Do
- Lead with the number, the name, or the date that matters.
- Write like a person. Short words, real sentences.
- Give one strong quote, not three weak ones.
- Make every claim checkable.
Don’t
- Pile on adjectives. “Industry-leading, cutting-edge, world-class” tells an editor nothing.
- Bury the news under company background.
- Send before you’ve read it out loud once.
- Promise things you can’t back up — see our prohibited content page for the lines we won’t cross.
Stuck on the headline? That’s exactly the part we read before anything goes out. Bring a rough draft to PR Wire and we’ll tell you what’s landing and what isn’t.