There is a stark difference between news that is important to your company and its internal audience; and news that is important to your company’s external audience. Your internal audience may include employees and shareholders, while your target external audience might be new and existing customers or clients, the general public, those in your industry, and niche enthusiasts. If you want to make your news “newsworthy” to external audiences, it’s critical to understand the difference between these two audiences.
- Create interest:
Focus on the external audience when drafting news releases. What will the reader find interesting, and why do they find it interesting enough to read? In other words, why does it matter, and why should they care? Center the news on exciting, new innovations that affect your consumers and the field itself. External audiences are receptive to novel concepts. Focus on what your company is doing to contribute to the industry and how it is making a difference to your consumers and your field. Also, consider a human-interest angle — these stories are relatable to external audiences because of our natural instinct to learn about other people’s lives and stories.
- Include data:
For new product releases, including numerical data, appeals to external audiences’ logos reasoning. Translate the numerical data into valuable and understandable comparisons. For example, try using relatable concepts like football fields and Olympic swimming pools in addition to using units of measure. Highlight any exemplary piece of data that stands out from what consumers and those in the field are used to seeing. For example, if your new battery technology can last twice as long as comparable brands, then that is something your external audience will be interested to hear.
- Stay on top of trends:
By providing expert commentary on hot industry news or trends, you solidify your company’s role as an opinion leader in your industry. Be timely and make certain your company is not pitching news that has gone past its “best by” date. If there has been a major shift in your industry, your external audience will want to hear from an industry source about how that will affect them or their business.