The template
Copy this. Replace everything in brackets. Keep it to one page.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[Company] launches [product], [the specific thing it does that nothing else does]
[One line of subhead: who it is for and the measurable outcome.]
[CITY], [Date] — [Company], [six-word description of the company], today launched [product], [what it does in one clause]. [The single most surprising true fact about it, with a number.]
[Paragraph two: the problem. What people did before this existed, why that was expensive or slow or unreliable, and roughly how many people have it. Two or three sentences, no adjectives.]
[Paragraph three: how it works, in the terms a technically literate reader would use. Name the mechanism rather than the benefit. Include the limitation you are prepared to state publicly.]
"[Quote from the founder. One idea. Something you would say out loud rather than something a communications team would approve.
Avoid the words excited, thrilled, delighted, revolutionise and proud.]" said [Name], [title] of [Company].
[Paragraph four: proof. A customer using it, a benchmark with its methodology, a number from a pilot. If you have a named customer quote, it goes here and it outperforms anything the founder says.]
"[Customer quote, if you have one. What it replaced and what changed, with a number.]" said [Name], [title] at [Customer].
[Paragraph five: availability. Where to get it, what it costs, what happens next, any dates that matter.]
About [Company]
[Two to three sentences. Founded when, by whom, what it does, funding if relevant and named investors, headquarters. This is the boilerplate and it should be identical everywhere it appears.]Media contact
[Name], [email], [phone]
Press kit: [URL]###
What each section is doing
- The headline is the only part with a high chance of being read. It needs the company, the product and the differentiating fact. A headline that would fit fifty other companies has failed.
- The first paragraph has to survive being the only thing read. Everything essential belongs there, which is the inverted pyramid the whole format is built on.
- The founder quote is the weakest element in almost every release and the most fought over internally. Journalists skip them because they are almost always the same sentence. Making yours specific and slightly uncomfortable is the cheapest way to be quoted.
- The customer quote is the strongest element and the one most releases omit because it takes three weeks to get approved. Start asking early.
- The boilerplate matters more than it looks. It gets copied verbatim into syndicated versions and into the systems that later answer questions about your company, so the description in it becomes the description of you. Keep it identical everywhere. Why consistency here compounds.
- The ### marks the end. It is a convention from wire copy and its absence signals that nobody on your side has done this before.
What happens after you send it
Here is the part the other template pages skip, and it is the part that decides whether the week was worth spending.
A release sent cold to a wire service is a filing rather than a pitch. It gets syndicated to a set of sites that republish automatically, which produces links and a search footprint and close to no readership.
Journalists at publications you would actually want do not monitor the wire for stories; they work from relationships, from beats they already cover, and from things they saw people talking about.
Which means the sequence most teams run is backwards. The release is written first, sent, and then everyone waits.
What actually produces coverage is a story a journalist was already interested in, at which point the release becomes the reference document they work from: the facts, the spellings, the quotes they can use without a call, the numbers they can cite.
That is a real job. It is a different job from generating interest, and confusing the two is why founders describe press releases as having done nothing. The longer version of this argument.
When it earns its place
Four cases, and outside them it is a document you write because it feels like the thing to do.
- You have a journalist who has said yes. Then it is essential, and it should be in their inbox before the call.
- Procurement or enterprise sales. A buyer running a security review wants evidence the company is real and durable. A dated release with named investors does work no post can. Where credibility artifacts matter.
- A funding round with obligations. Investors frequently expect one, and occasionally a term sheet requires it. Write it well, since it is going to exist regardless.
- Building a citation footprint. The syndicated copies are largely unread by people and are read by the systems that answer buyer questions later. Treat that as the return rather than pretending anyone opened them. What placements are now worth.
Whether to pay for the wire
Paid distribution puts your release on a syndication network. What you get is a set of near-identical copies on sites of varying quality, a batch of links, and a permanent record with a date on it.
What you do not get is readers. Nobody browses a wire service. The honest framing is that you are buying a dated, findable record, and that has a real use: it makes the announcement checkable months later by a procurement team, an analyst, or a retrieval system assembling an answer about your company.
Price it as infrastructure rather than as reach, keep the copy factual enough to survive a reader who recognises the format, and label anything sponsored where the publication's policy requires it. A release written as a plain description of what your product does outperforms one written with a superlative in the headline, in both directions.
What to run alongside it
The release is the reference document. It is not the launch, and a launch that consists only of a release reaches the people who were already going to find you.
The version that works puts the same substance where your buyer actually is, on the same day. The founder posts it in their own words, the claim gets carried by accounts that audience already follows, and the release sits behind all of it as the thing anybody can check. That ordering matters: the post creates the interest, the release survives the scrutiny.
Which of the two you fund first depends on what you need. If you need a procurement-safe artifact, write the release. If you need people to know the product exists, the release is not the instrument, and the launch strategy page covers what is.
Questions we get asked
How long should a product launch press release be?
Between 300 and 500 words, on one page. Everything a journalist needs to decide whether to care sits in the headline and the first paragraph, and length past that reduces the chance any of it gets read. If you need more room, the extra material belongs in a linked press kit rather than in the release.
Does a press release still get you coverage?
Rarely on its own. A release sent cold to a wire service is a filing rather than a pitch, and most coverage comes from a relationship or from a story a journalist was already working on. The release earns its place as the reference document everyone works from once somebody has decided to care, which is a real job and a different one from generating interest.
Should we pay for wire distribution?
Only for a specific reason: a regulatory or contractual obligation, an investor who expects it, or the syndicated copies that make a company findable later. Treat those copies as a citation footprint rather than as readership, because the syndicated pickups are largely unread by humans and are read by the systems that answer questions about your company.