What to include in a killer press kit and why it's important.
“All press is good press”, right? I’ve never been too sure about this saying. But either way, you can make sure that what the press is saying about your business works in your favor by furthering your brand! How can you take advantage of those instances where the press chooses you as a topic? Make and distribute a “press kit”.
A press kit is a package of files that you can send out to local, regional, and national press outlets, blogs, or any other source that could write or promote your business. The kit should be included with pretty much all of the press releases and article contributions you make and send out.
Once full of printed pages and photos, old-school press kits used to be bulky and cumbersome. Now you can make a digital press kit. This article will give you a quick list of all the items that should be included in your digital press kit.
Logo Files
One of the most important things you can include in your press kit is your logo. Your logo is the most visual part of your business so you need to make sure that it’s being utilized correctly. Rather than letting an outside party try and Google search for your logo - or even worse, try and recreate it! - make sure they get the right files at the start.
Your press kit should include high resolution JPGs of your full-color, grayscale, and single-color versions of your logo. If you want to round out the package to cover every instance, you can also include PNG files with transparent backgrounds and PDF files that are vector based.
Including the right logo files into your press kit can help ensure that your brand is visually represented in the correct way.
Messaging
A good thing to include in your press kit is a sample of your messaging. This could include any taglines, slogans or quotes that you would like people to know about your business. This can be helpful to writers who are developing stories about your business and it will help them understand your brand. These writers could even be doing a story about a specific industry and choose to use a quote provided in your press kit to supplement their story. This not only saves time for the columnist, but it sets you up as a leader within your industry - score!
Short biography of your business and services
Always include a short bio that tells about your business. Start with a couple sentences about your history and how you got started. Then you can include some projects that were particularly challenging or are well-known to help reinforce your expertise. Finally, you can wrap up with a list of services.
The great thing about having your business biography ready is that you can use it on your website, within your brochures, and anywhere else you need extra copy.
Points of contact
Once this electronic press kit makes its way out into the world, how will those accessing its information know who to get ahold of for more information or if they have questions?
It’s always prudent to include a page containing contact information for whomever is in charge of your promotions. This could be the owner, a manager, or maybe a dedicated staff member. This person will be the one fielding calls from the press, making sure your business is portrayed correctly, and forwarding people on to whoever can answer their questions appropriately.
Photos of your staff, products, services
A great way to reinforce your brand is through photography. If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to have some brand photography taken. I offer a package within my branding services that includes a session of on-sight photography so your staff, services, and location can all be included as a visual boost to any marketing pieces my client needs.
Including these branded photos benefit both you and the publication. You get the benefit of added exposure and the publication doesn’t have to trot out and take photos themselves or search for stock photography.
Fact sheet about your company
Think about developing a sheet of “fast facts” for your business. This could include a statement of services, percentages of customer satisfaction or business growth, mission and vision statements, customer testimonials, or whatever else you think worth mentioning.
A great way to present these facts is by way of infographics. I love a good infographic and I love creating them. It is a much more interesting way of presenting otherwise dull information and studies show that information is much more readily absorbed by the reader when presented in such a way.
Link to press releases
If you have a press, news, or blog section on your website, be sure to include it within your press kit. I would even say you should include a zipped, downloadable version of your press kit on your website! Pointing writers to more resources about your company is a great way to make sure that they can pull more quotes, source information, and attribute those items to you and your business.
This could also lead to “link building”. Link building is a positive way to boost credibility for your site within search rankings and is an important building block for SEO. The more links you have on highly credible sites like news and industry focused domains, the more authority is attributed to your site.
Once you have your press kit buttoned up, you should make sure to update it periodically so when the need arises, you're not scrambling to make changes at the last second. You should be able to send off this digital press kit at a moment's notice. Now, understand that great press about you and your business isn't going to just start happening by itself. So, start putting a plan together about how to get your name out there and start distributing your electronic press kit - and all of that hardworking will pay off.
Image by kaboompics on pixel.
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