Make Your News Release Boilerplates Work for You
The boilerplate – you know, that “About Us” paragraph at the end of a typical news release – is more important than you might think, which is why you want to do it well.
Think of it as a Goldilocks thing. You don’t want your boilerplate too long or too short. Too generic or too jargon-laden. You want it … just right.
The real news in any news release is of course in the body of the document, which describes your new product or service, your new client, or other positive development that you want the media and your customers to know about. But the boilerplate can cap all that off by allowing people who may not know that much about your organization to find out a bit about you.
How about an example of a good boilerplate, from our client eCU Mortgage:
About eCU Mortgage
eCU Mortgage LLC is a licensed mortgage company offering a full range of mortgage solutions to Texas credit unions. Our mission is to provide outstanding service to members and clients with a team of experienced mortgage professionals who are dedicated to providing customized, comprehensive financing and personalized service. eCU Mortgage, NMLS# 1071847, is a subsidiary of First Service Credit Union of Houston and is located at 16430 Park Ten Place, Houston, TX 77084. Visit us at www.ecumortgage.com or call 877-541-1810.
83 words that describe what the company does, where it is based, and where to find out more. Nicely done. We prefer keeping boilerplates under 100 words, because brevity and conciseness are always in fashion.
Technology companies tend to favor overly long boilerplates, up to and exceeding 200 words, which are not only too much to take in, but often make the boilerplate longer than the news itself. Many publicly held companies are forced into crafting interminably long boilerplates, but that is due to the fact they are covering themselves for disclosure and other financial rules and regulations. Those can’t be helped.
But if you’re a privately held company, resist the urge to use your boilerplate to tell all about your history, your entire product line, and who your customers are, and then include every potential search engine key word twice. If you summarize effectively, you entice people to want to find out more about you, making it more likely they will indeed visit your website or call you.