Featured on PR News Jan 9, 2015
According to a new study by Scholastic, reading aloud to children even after they have learned to read independently helps them develop a lifelong enjoyment of reading. When you think about it, a similar lesson can be applied to the daily practice of public relations. The ultimate goal of many press releases is to win audience attention and influence specific behaviors. Continuously creating content such as press releases that incorporates storytelling helps customers develop long-term loyalty and appreciation of a brand. When a story connects to a reader emotionally, it can inspire journalists to write about it or consumers to share it with their networks.
Scholastic promoted their study via press release titled, “National Survey of Kids and Parents Provides Insight into What Makes Children Frequent Readers.” What makes this release unique is that the numbers from this study are not used as the main attention grabber. Instead, Scholastic uses those data points as supporting details to tell a more significant story about what this information means for their target audience which consists of both parents and children. This is an important distinction when it comes to effectively pitching a journalist to cover a story. For these reasons, Scholastic has earned a place as the subject of this week’s Content We Love.
Other tactical elements to make note of in this press release are:
- An interesting headline that immediately explains the reader benefit of this information followed by supporting details in the subheading
- A succinct and vibrant infographic that catches the eye and illustrates key points of the study for higher reader engagement and easy social sharing.
- A relevant call to action hyperlinked in natural language within the first paragraph – which takes into account that not every reader will make it to the bottom of the release.
- Bold text and bullet points to break up the paragraphs into digestible pieces, highlight important data points, and surface different story angles for media.
Congratulations to Scholastic on earning a fantastic feature in the New York Times for their story as well as crafting an awesome release!
Full story and press release titled, National Survey Of Kids And Parents Provides Insight Into What Makes Children Frequent Readers, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/national-survey-of-kids-and-parents-provides-insight-into-what-makes-children-frequent-readers-300017703.html.