The right epoch to make a fact sheet is any epoch you infatuation to ... a reporter upon a puzzling ... dont mind ... they just dont desire to think too hard. They usefully dont have t
The right times to create a fact sheet is any epoch you craving to spoon-feed a reporter upon a rarefied subject.
Reporters dont mind thinking, they just dont want to think too hard. They comprehensibly dont have the time. They are writing archives in a hurry. The accent is upon hurry.
PR Rainmakers take this and use it to their advantage.
Creating a fact sheet gives you more govern higher than the story that you will have without it. A reporter in a hurry is categorically likely to agree to your fact sheet and covert at least part of it into a section of the story.
The fact sheet offers the reporter a short-cut that few can refuse. for that reason give it.
There are four steps to creating a powerful fact sheet. They are:
Step 1: stockpile content.
Bring together every recent document your company has produced on the topic you want the reporter to cover. regard as being widening your net to enlarge documents produced by partnered associations, colleges, think tanks and even competitors.
Talk to the folks in your company who essentially know the subject. Focus not abandoned on the executives, but along with upon the grunts who in reality fabricate the accomplish and hence know it inside out. admit careful notes.
Think behind a reporter. What would a journalist habit to know? But as well as look for the surprising, the interesting or the unusual: things the reporter might not expect. affix these ideas as well.
Step 2: Organize and outline
Sort your guidance by subject. Some PR Rainmakers use binders or folders. Others use computer software. Go following all works best for you.
Lets say you represent a drug manufacturer who is issuing a further pill that instantly cures hives caused by consumption of MSG. Your content might augment the pills formula, the team that created the pill, the size of the companys investment, the potential announce for the pill, the nimble ingredients, the chemical nod to MSG in allergic humans, and on and on.
You want to receive each bit of useful opinion and put it once united information. offer each box of assistance a name: team, market, ingredients, and suitably on.
Your object is sort out your content until it makes desirability to you.
Next, on a sheet of paper or on a computer screen, you want to write a master list of the names of each box.
This will provide the basic outline for your fact sheet. restore the outline until the structure makes sense.
Step 3: Prune, complement and simplify.
The wish is, in few pages as possible, to build a fact sheet that hits the topics you desire to see in the reporters story.
Rule of thumb: At least five boxes, and no more than 10. Prune away until you achieve a number amongst those two.
Look for opportunities to adjoin boxes. For example, if you have some content sorted as executive team and marginal as research team, announce combining these into one box labeled team.
Also, you obsession to find ways to simplify complex ideas. Search for comparisons and analogies that will tell complicated processes. Transform jargon into English. Focus upon benefits, not features.
Trim, trim and trim some more. (When I started this article, there were eight steps. Now there are just four. Thats where you desire to go similar to this part of the process.)
If the subject is just too mysterious to abbreviate to a single page, declare creating more than one fact sheet. Just make sure each fact sheet focuses on a single aspect of the overall topic.
Step 4: Format and produce
There are as many ways to design fact sheets as there are topics. You will dependence to use your experience, creativity and common desirability to choose the one that best organized your material.
Try to keep the fact sheet to one page. definitely no more than three.
Use a readable typeface, such as Arial, in a 10 to 12 reduction typeface. Double spacing isnt necessary, but use a blank origin in the company of paragraphs.
The page should start in the manner of the word Fact Sheet, followed by a completely brief headline that explains the subject of the page.
From that tapering off on, behave considering your outline. Use a small header to introduce each box. decide using a bullet to entrance each paragraph.
Insert on your own the most interesting, most necessary or most relevant guidance you have to offer. Remember: Your job is to create it simple for the reporter to write the story.
Finally: Dont be afraid to steal a format you locate attractive. If you desire to breakdown the designs of 10 fact sheets that might work for you, visit http://www.prrainmaker.com/factsheets.html.
Copyright 2003 by W.O. Cawley Jr.
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