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Ten Commandments of Media Press/News Release Submittals for the Online World

Lee County, FL – May 2010 – Hospitality 1ST (http://Hospitality-1ST.com/), long considered to be at the forefront of Sales, Marketing & PR for the hospitality industry, regularly has over sixty press/news releases being submitted, per day, to its e-mail inbox. Most of these releases never make it to online production – those that do make it to their online archive have some very professional traits and characteristics.

Lou Taverna states, “The majority of submittals, via e-mail, can be classified as very unprofessional, the sender seems to have little knowledge of what’s really involved with formatting a release destined for the online world. Much of the content is lost among poor formatting and releases that have the look of an advertising template or sales flyer.”

Taverna offers these ten suggestions if you really want your materials to be respected and ultimately reach a much wider audience.

1. Be sure contacts mentioned (and person actually issuing release) are currently available (i.e. not on “vacation” status) when release is authored and sent via e-mail to the masses. Not only can this (vacation status immediately after release posts) be embarrassing but it is totally unprofessional and should be avoided at all times.

2. The release should immediately be available from the senders web site archive (if one exists). Issuing a release and not having it available for those whom prefer to view it online is time-consuming and frustrating. Your webmaster should be made aware of the copy immediately and an online page created well before the release is distributed via e-mail. Also, any release archive should be in descending order (i.e. most recent releases at the top of the web page archive).

3. E-mail from a verifiable e-mail account. Using a generic e-mail address discredits release. A respondent should be able to “reply” immediately to the release and reach a real person, not some canned response that basically says “this e-mail account doesn’t work and we prefer to waste your time.” Those using third-party vendors for release dissemination should pay specific attention to this detail.

4. All links should be fully formatted, including the use of (http://) with any/all web sites mentioned. Editors having to type http:// (7-characters) repeatedly, adds up to plenty of frustration when formatting releases. Did you know that most web sites don’t require the use of the “www.” moniker preceding the domain name? It’s more common than most know but must be verified prior to putting any domain in type. Try http://SportsTravelMagazine.com/ (SportsTravel Magazine) to see for yourself.

5. Releases should only be formatted in MS-Word (those files with a .doc or .docx extension). Microsoft has the coup on this, don’t fight it – accept it! PDF files are often bloated, can take an excruciatingly long time to download and if the recipient/editor doesn’t have the full Adobe Acrobat program they must resort to “copy & paste” for further online formatting, which can lead to numerous formatting errors.

6. The world is not entirely on Outlook/Outlook Express! Turn off HTML formatting in/with any e-mail program. Using tabs, indents, type larger than 10-points, or crayon-colored type – is utter nonsense and often looks childish.

7. Does anyone think typing a headline/title/subject (IN ALL CAPS) looks good? It doesn’t and does absolutely nothing to add to the readability of your release. If the release is destined for an online archive or hard-copy periodical the editor must now spend even more time formatting the release (see items 3, 4 & 5 above). The ALL CAPS insistence is a throwback to the dinosaur age. If a reader/editor can’t figure out what the headline or subject is then the original writer needs to re-think their entire document presentation.

8. Photographs, logos and other graphics should only be submitted in .gif or .jpg formats. “Tiffs” (or .eps files) are great for magazine productions but never used on web pages. Someone receiving a .tif file (usually file size is extremely large/bloated) must wait for the file to download, then the file has to be converted to a format suitable for web page formatting and generally resized, leading to possible loss of quality. The best solution is to offer an online archive of images or a third-party digital imaging service.

9. Sending attachments – without prior knowledge to the intended recipients – is rude and can consume vast amounts of resources on the recipient’s end. They will not think highly of you while their computer churns through an endless download of an overly bloated PDF file (see item 5, again) - even for those with broadband/high-speed access.

10. Never send to more than one recipient in the TO: line of your e-mail program (in fact this should be yourself or some other contact within the quoted company issuing the release). Multiple recipients should be listed {only} on the BCC: field, which will keep your list private. It makes no difference if you’re sending to “public officials” or e-mail addresses readily available on the Internet – never disclose another e-mail address unless specifically authorized by that person. There are no excuses for not following this tenth commandment – absolutely none! Those that rely on an “intern” for their e-mail dissemination are the worst offenders.

Hospitality 1ST (http://Hospitality-1ST.com/) hosts more than 80,000 weekly e-mail recipients and has authored a monthly newsletter since 1998.

For more information or posting specifications regarding hospitality industry press-news release placements, contact Lou Taverna via e-mail: and note “specs” on the subject line for fastest service, or you may phone him at 239-226-7886.

Note: Document may be copied, in its entirety, with credit to Hospitality 1ST and the author, Lou Taverna.