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PLEASE NOTE: This course is for in-company groups of four or more attendees only.
- Live, trainer-led training
- Can be run in person OR remotely, in the virtual classroom
Course overview
Creating sharp and compelling press releases that will get journalists’ attention is key to gaining press coverage. It’s a challenging skill, with many parts to master. But doing so will be hugely valuable to you – and your organisation.
This interactive and practical training – developed with both journalists and PR professionals – will show you how. You’ll learn everything you need to know in order to write effective press releases, understand what journalists are looking for and employ strategies that give you the edge.
We’ll show you how to recognise ideas that truly qualify as news and how to turn these into great stories.
You’ll learn how to craft succinct and readable content and write subject lines, headlines and intros that grab attention. You’ll understand the vital components and structure every press release needs. And you’ll discover the other crucial strategic steps to take, including planning media campaigns, building contacts and liaising with the press.
- This is live, trainer-led training.
Who's It For?
Our press-release writing courses are ideal for comms or marketing teams, PR professionals or anyone tasked with writing press releases.
What you'll learn
By the end of the training, you will know how to:
- identify ideas that are genuinely newsworthy
- understand what journalists are looking for in a press release (as well as all the ways to guarantee the release will be ignored or deleted)
- use the crucial structure every press release should have
- write succinct, readable and engaging content
- craft headlines, subject lines and introductions that grab the attention of time-pressed readers
- nail the right tone and language
- source and use powerful quotes to add authority and bring the story to life
- ensure your grammar and punctuation are accurate, to keep from falling at the final hurdle
- find target journalists, build contacts and liaise with the press (including through social media and the delicate art of selling in)
- plan and launch effective media campaigns across different channels to support and supercharge your press releases.
Study method
- In-class
- Virtual
- Blended
- Online
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Duration study load
- 1 day
Course features
All attendees will also receive our unique pre-course writing analysis. This covers 15 different areas of writing skills and helps us ensure the training meets attendees’ precise writing needs, while allowing for rapid, targeted improvements.
Additional information
Frequently asked questions
Can the training be tailored to us specifically?
Definitely – in fact, bespoke group training is the main thing we do. One course programme doesn’t look exactly like what you need? No problem. We can combine elements from any of our courses to fit your needs exactly.
Your course can also be part of a blended programme that will support your team in changing their writing for good.
Note that our scheduled course materials cannot be tailored in the same way as our bespoke training. But our trainers will always adapt their delivery based on the individual writing samples which attendees send beforehand – as well as on what people share during the day.
Is the training suitable for non-native speakers of English?
Our courses aren’t ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) courses. They’re not designed to introduce new second-language speakers to the basics of the English language. What they are about is the best ways to use the English language to create effective writing in the professional world.
But our trainers’ experience does mean that they understand and can support the typical challenges learners of English face.
Many of our trainers have experience as ESOL or TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) teachers, and enthusiastically welcome the presence of non-native speakers on courses. Not least as this tends to best represent our workplaces in our globally connected world!
In short, non-native English speakers with a proficient grasp of English will certainly benefit from the courses, even in some ways that native speakers don’t.
Why are group sizes in courses so small?
We limit the number of attendees on our live in-person or remote courses to ten. The reason is simply that we find people learn best in groups of no more than eight to ten.
Having larger groups affects how long activities take and changes the group dynamic: it can discourage shyer attendees from taking part and limit sharing in discussions.
Effective training happens through active learning, including supported (and tailored) practical elements. Increasing the group size compromises how personalised and practical courses can be.
I’m dyslexic – will this course be OK for me?
Yes, certainly. Dyslexia affects around one in ten people, so we often have attendees with dyslexia on our courses.
All of our trainers have received training from the British Dyslexia Association. They are also very experienced at adapting their approach in any course to the needs of the individual learner.
And we produce the materials for each course ourselves, which means we can make accommodations to help. This includes providing manuals printed on coloured paper or a PDF ahead of the day. For in-person courses, we can also provide coloured reading aids.
It’s entirely up to you whether you mention your dyslexia during the training. Some attendees do, some don’t. It can help the trainer to be aware, though, and you’ll have the opportunity to share the information in the run-up to the course. Your trainer will keep it confidential, and you can decide whether you’d like to talk about it during the course.
About Emphasis Training
Writing is still the leading form of communication. Even in today's workplace, most employees will spend 50–70% of their working week on written communications, whether that’s writing board reports that drive decisions, pitches that win business, or strategies that lead. Yet, as a skill, writing is the form of communication that gets the least attention.
At Emphasis, we are writing and communication experts, and we understand why more than 70% of businesses list communications as their key challenge. We show people how to communicate through this critical medium that is so often ignored. We teach them to use up-to-date tools like AI to bring out the best in human writing. And we reveal the crucial part writing plays in all communication – how it connects to how you think, talk, and – ultimately – succeed.
Emphasis has been training companies and individuals in how to make their writing work for over 25 years. Our methods are supported by neuroscience and psychology research on how humans really take in, process, and react to information and how it’s communicated.
