Writing your own lists

Quite a few of you larger PR firms issue list-like press releases. List-like in the sense that they’ll have 5-10 entries — usually around the 150-word mark each, although we’ll come back to that — courtesy of various clients, all grouped to a theme. Most typically, that theme is “what’s new”, but sometimes it’s an upcoming National Something Day (which I’ve discussed before here) or an obvious topic for travel-section lists — half-term, say, or spooky trips with Halloween in mind.

The hope in those topical cases is that a recipient will be writing just such a list (aka a round-up), and, hardly believing their luck, will pilfer some or even all of the entries. During my PR career, my main firm’s list-like releases would often get reproduced verbatim in regional papers via the Press Association; perhaps that still happens, or does on content-obsessed websites instead.

Still, I frequently wonder if it’s worth your while. I certainly wondered that recently, upon receiving one where the first entry was more than 900 words long. Lord knows how long that took to put together; was it really the best use of the writer’s time? If you don’t buy a ticket… and all that, I suppose; plus you can obviously re-use these entries in the event of like-minded press request landings. But still. 900 words.

My advice, if welcome, would be to write your entries for these list-like releases as speedily as possible. They needn’t be eloquently phrased — I’ll do that part, hopefully! — nor full of adjectives; just a quick run-through of the suggestion, perhaps with a good headline (something I aim to cover next week, FYI).

They also, in the case of ones themed on topics you reckon publications might be covering (eg again, half-term or Halloween), must be issued with sufficient notice. I’d suggest getting any Halloween ones out imminently, for instance — as work on a Halloween list at a newspaper or website could easily commence a month or more ahead of the event.

I’d love to hear if these types of releases do reap rewards for you; please do let me know if you get a spare second.