One of my clients has hired me to write press releases for the European market. As part of my research, I attended the PRNewswire webinar called “Communicating your message globally on a tight budget.” I believe that the webinar can be accessed in the PRNewswire archives, but here are some nuggets I came away with:

• Use shorter heads. In Asia, only the first 84 characters are seen. In Europe, only the first 156 characters are seen, with the exception of Holland, where only the first 34 characters are seen.
• Any quotes used should be local – from a rep in the country where your release is distributed. And having a local contact is very important
• Shorter word count is better. Instead of listing facts and figures, link them to a document on your site – and use the valuable space on your release to tell them why they should read them
• Maybe this goes without saying, but the release must be translated into the language of the country receiving it. Even foreign journalists who can also speak English are not comfortable following up on a release that is not in their native tongue
• If you’re sending a social media release with video, use native speakers, local music, and carefully consider colours and any possible taboo ramifications
• Add a glossary of terms to your Media Room/Press Room to assist foreign journalists in clearly understanding your intent. The glossary could include: product terms, technical terms, any word that could possibly be misconstrued, company names, names of executives

It’s clear that preparing a release for a global market is quite a different story. If you need some serious help mastering this new territory, you can try international@prnewswire.com, globalpr.org and ipra.org.

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1. Did it work? Tips on measuring the success of your online press release.
2. Why I like to use PRWeb for online press releases
3. Why free press release sites may be all you need