CLAIRE FREEMAN: Hi, my name's Claire.
I'm the founder of My Plus One and Airspruce.
My Plus One is a web platform that connects travelers
with the most interesting locals and places
to stay in five cities.
And Airspruce is a new service that
allows people to have their Airbnb or other property
listing written by a professional travel writer.
I'm going to talk to you today about PR
and share some tips with you.
There's some great new tools out there
to make reaching the media really easy and more affordable
than it was before.
And I'm also going to run through how to write and create
a press release and some tips for doing that.
So building good relationships with the media
is really important for getting your startup heard
and receiving press coverage in publications, which
can help the business grow so much.
I launched My Plus One a few years ago in Berlin
as Plus One Berlin.
And there was a lot of media attention, which
was fantastic for helping the business grow.
It was featured in over 50 online
and print publications, such as "The New York Times," "Conde
Nast Traveler," and "Wallpaper."
And what really helped with that is
having these great images and a great story.
So I'm going to talk through how to write and create
a press release.
I'm going to do this in five stages just
to clarify exactly what to do, and give you some tips on how
to make it really attractive for the journalist receiving it.
So the first thing to think about is really your message.
What makes your startup different from all
the other startups?
You've really got to think about what
you want the journalist to know, what's really key.
And for this, you might want to write down your elevator pitch.
Because this really summarizes the strengths
of your business and what it is.
So the first step when you're writing a press release
is to make sure you have the logo of your startup
at the top of the page, and then obviously
"Press Release" written beneath that.
The top of the press release is really the most important area.
Because journalists are really busy people.
They won't have time to read through the whole release.
And they'll probably only read the first paragraph
and the title.
So you've got to make these really, really good.
With the title, keep it short.
I think between three and five words is good.
And then have the date that you're sending out the press
release, and also where your startup is located.
Right, so in this press release, which I wrote for Airspruce,
you can see at the top of the press release I included
the Airspruce logo, and then beneath that the words "Press
Release."
Then, when you go into the title, I made it really short.
There's only three words.
I think, in summary, Airspruce makes listings much easier
to create, to write.
So it's just "Listings Made Easy."
And then, because it was a launch,
that's really newsworthy for journalists.
So if you are writing a press release
about the launch of your startup,
make sure that's really highlighted
in the title and the first paragraph.
OK, so in the first paragraph of a press release,
it's important to have the date you're sending out the press
release and the location of your startup.
In the first paragraph, just try and summarize
exactly what your startup is, or what your message is.
And make sure to include a link to your website
so the journalist can easily just click on that
and go and view your website.
So here I've really written what Airspruce is in a sentence,
as that's really the essence of the startup.
And it also says the date that it was launched.
And it's got a link to the Airspruce website.
So with the rest of the press release,
structure it so the most important information
for the journalist is at the top.
And then it gets kind of more detailed but less relevant,
I guess, as you go down.
So in the second paragraph, you might
want to include information about the team,
about prices, about how it works, and things like that.
And then you can go into more detail
as you go further down the press release.
But really try and include all the key information
at the beginning.
Then in the third paragraph, I gave even more detail.
So as you can see, as we're going through the press
release, writing it, it gets more detailed
probably as it goes on.
And we've got some information in the third paragraph
about what is included for the 50 pounds
that the person spends.
So what exactly do we offer?
And this goes on to say more benefits of who
is the target market for Airspruce.
It's great for people who don't have the time or the writing
skills to create a listing.
It's also useful for people that have their listing written
in another language and want it translated.
And then I speak a bit about the team of travel writers.
So we've got a great team of travel writers.
So I thought it was good to include
some information about who they are.
So the traveler editor, he used to be at "Wallpaper,"
and some great freelance journalists.
And then lastly, there's just a bit
of information about how Airspruce
can help with other writing jobs.
So in the second paragraph of the press release,
I talk more about how Airspruce works and what's involved.
In the next paragraph, I talk about what exactly
people get for their 50 pounds, so what
the writer will do to their listing.
In the next paragraph, I talk about who Airspruce
is ideal for, so for people that maybe
don't have the time or the writing skills
to create their own listing.
In the next paragraph, I talk more
about the team of travel writers and what
their positions are or were.
And in the final paragraph, I talk
about how Airspruce can help in other ways, such as creating
a house manual for guests on Airbnb.
At the end of the press release, make
sure you have the word "Ends," and then
beneath that a Notes to Editors section.
In this section, just include your contact information.
So if a journalist wants more information,
or has questions, or wants images,
they can contact you really easy.
In this section, you could also include a little summary
of your startup or business as well.
After you've created your press release,
then you can put together a list of the journalists
that you want to send your press release to.
And in this, it's really important
to make your list of journalists very relevant
for your press release.
So if your startup is food related,
you don't want to be sending your press release to a sports
journalist.
And it will annoy journalists if they
get press releases that aren't relevant to them.
So there are some tools for finding journalists,
such as JustReachOut, which is a new tool that you can use.
With JustReachOut, you can search
for journalists that write about particular subjects.
You could also use Twitter.
So you can search for publications on Twitter
and find contacts that way as well.
So there are different ways.
And then once you have your list,
if you're sending out the press release by email,
then I would recommend writing individual emails
to the journalists with just a short email about the startup,
about what you're sending, a snappy subject
line about what your press release is about.
And then attach the press release in PDF format
to the email so they could easily then open it and print
it off if they want to read it later.
It's good news at the moment, because there
are a lot of new tools out there that
make contacting or reaching out to journalists a lot cheaper
than it's traditionally been when you had to hire a PR
consultancy and spend a lot of money doing that.
So some new tools that I would recommend
are GoPRit, which is a startup.
And you can send email pitches to select journalists
about your startup.
And you can also send tweets out to those journalists,
which is great.
There's another good one called JustReachOut,
which helps you find journalists that
write about a particular subject.
And then you can also contact them.
So this is great when you create your list of journalists
that you want to send your press release to,
because you can find ones that are really
relevant for your startup and your story.
Another good one is pr.co, which can help you create and write
a press release and send it out.
And that's an overview of how to write a press release,
and how I wrote a press release for Airspruce.
And I hope it's helpful for all of you.