I know you must be busy, so I will follow up with you in case you missed this.

All the best

What is the best time to send a press release

The news cycle has changed dramatically over the last few years, but most journalists (especially those handling press releases) still work something similar to a Monday to Friday.

So it’s best to send a press release out at the start of the week, either Monday or Tuesday morning.

Never send out a press release on a Friday or the day before a public holiday.

Also, avoid sending it just before the hour, send it a few minutes after, as publications that publish press releases “as is” will normally publish on the hour.

Journalist etiquette

Here are a few pieces of etiquette to keep in mind when you send out the pitches, so you don’t accidentally annoy any journalists.

It’s common practice to send an “embargoed” pitch out, ahead of your planned announcement date. This gives journalists plenty of time to write it up before the date you make the announcement public. If you do this, clearly mark the email as embargoed in the subject and first line, and state the date you’re going to publicly announce this.

If you don’t send an embargoed version out, send the press release to journalists before you publish it on your own site or social channels. If you’ve already put the news out there, journalists will be less keen to publish it as a story.

Don’t send it to multiple reporters at the same publication. This doesn’t increase your chances. In fact, it lowers them, as this is known to really annoy journalists.

If you haven’t heard anything after 3 or 4 days, then there’s no harm in sending a chaser. But take a common-sense approach to this. Just send one chaser, and make it brief and friendly. Never hound a journalist, as your emails will probably end up getting blocked.

In what format are press releases published?

One of two ways; they are either published “as is” (where the entire press release is copied and pasted) or it’s written up by journalists into an article.