America’s pre-eminent Catholic newspaper has featured an article about one of our clients here at Vocation Promotion.
The article, about a video gone viral, made by the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, was covered in the National Catholic Register’s June 12 online edition.
Headlined, “East Meets West in Sisters’ Viral Video Parody of Adele’s ‘Hello’,” the article covers the sisters’ video, which was a parody of the famous pop singer Adele’s “Hello” song and video.
We wrote and sent a press release last week on the video to a reporter at the paper. In doing our promotion work with the Mercedarian Sisters, we first spotted the video on their Mercedarian Facebook page. We noticed that it had gained 23,000 views in its first two weeks since being released. Wow – this went viral, I thought.
Thus, a story that is picked up by a large news outlet can be a great boost to your organization. It is third-party approval of what you do. The bigger the newspaper, blog, or video channel, the greater the weight is given to the value of what you do. Most news outlets depend upon such press releases. They just don’t have the time to do the research themselves.
There are a few essential parts of every successful press release. We share them here for your benefit.
11 commandments of a successful press release
- The event must be newsworthy. This could be something done that proved very popular, or successful. It could be a new idea, new method, or a response to a new problem.
- The press release must be written like a news story, or feature story. It should be written in a way that it could be placed directly into the publication. (This is what is done a lot of time.)
- The release should not have the organization’s name in the first few words of the story. This is too “salesy.” (A common fault)
- Send the release to about a dozen news outlets. Include the major Catholic papers and news sites, vocation blogs by organizations and individuals, Catholic faith blogs, your local secular paper, free press release sites, as well as your diocesan paper.
- Send a “teaser” email, in which you include the first few paragraphs of the story, with a promise to send the whole release if they are interested. (We had a link to the complete press release on a website, so there was no need for them to write back.)
- In writing the email, comment about what that reporter wrote about recently. This makes it more personal.
- Include links to images that can be used.
- Timeliness is important. Does the publication feature a vocation issue once or twice per year?
- Respond to a big news event. Did the Pope come out with a recent statement about religious life that you can comment on?
- Follow up with the publication to see if it was carried. Write again to your contact, since they may have just missed your email.
- After you get your story covered, don’t forget to brag about it to your friends and subscribers, and on your website or blog!
We at Vocation Promotion can review for free your recent or upcoming event and find if it qualifies as a newsworthy event. Call us at the number at the top of the page, or contact us.
Read the “Five Components of a Successful Press Release,” by Shift Communications.
Take a look at our article, “Digital Discernment is Trending, Says National Catholic Register.”
