Write A Press Release Before You Build It

How to Write a Press Release for a New Product or Venture

The point of writing the press release in advance of building and launching is it flushes out assumptions and guides us to clearly communicate the purpose and need of this venture so you can clearly work backwards to achieve it.

High-Level Overview of the Press Release:

• What the product will do once built (Purpose)
• how it will solve a customer's problems (Need)
• satisfy the business case to meet the needs of all stakeholders (Value)

The 5 Details of your Press Release

You want to be able to articulate your message clearly and consciously within  2-8 sentences covering the following details:

1. Focus on the User, who is the customer (Their intrinsic values/Psychographics. You'll come back to this to answer if they are ready to adopt this solution as you’re asking for a behaviour change)
2. Address Pain Points (What is the actual problem you’re trying to solve and why is it important?)
3. What’s the solution (Explain it to the customer, not to yourself).
4. What Measurements  Matter (Quantitative approach of working backwards)
5. Communicate a real business case  (What is the Total Addressable Market (TAM), is it big enough to be worth doing? Is it aligned to your personal and team's values?)

Remember where there is the fluidity of speech and writing there is congruency and alignment with purpose.

″[It] is harder for the author, but it forces the author to clarify their own thinking... “It totally revolutionizes the way we do meetings at Amazon.”
- Jeff Bezos

This isn't a new approach but it's just a more formalized approach in an era of remote work and freelancers so we can really focus on what matters.

If you require additional inspiration look at my article on Manifestos. I share this because Press Releases are similar to Manifstos, they make you look at things from a larger perspective, the end in mind, the big picture. My big message is to get you to see the end in mind, and reverse engineer your life to match that. I say it often, why?

Marketing is saying it a 1000x different ways, a 1000x different times until people associate your solution to a specfic problem.  - Amar Virk

Powerful Manifesto To Inspire You To Write Yours

Develop a clear and concise message to articulate your vision to the world through your Manifesto. JFK, McLaren F1, Carl Segan, Marin Luther King Jr, Declaration of Independence, Charles Darwin, Buckminster Fuller & So on...

Amar VirkAmar Virk

Sample Template of Press Release

TITLE: [Company] announces [Product] to enable [Customer Segment] to [Benefit Statement]
Subtitle: [ Few more details]

[City, State]
[Intended Launch Date]

[Intro paragraph, 2-4 sentences clearly who's bein served and what's being launched ]

[Problem, - discuss the top pain points of the people you intend to serve]

[Solution, - describe how you solve each of the major problems]

[Quote by Founder/ Executive of Co. why they are tackling this problem]

[How the product/service works to develop the confidence to buy]

[Quote/ Testimonial by a customer of the product/service expressing pain point]

[Call to Action, To learn more, go to (URL/place to buy)]