Pressetext.europe (pte) is a news agency for journalists, opinion leaders and decision makers. As a modern news service we report on the new hi-tech, media, business and lifestyle industries. More than 70,000 subscribers get sent pressetext articles by e-mail - these numbers are steadily increasing.

Around 60 to 70 articles are produced by pressetext each day. From these articles the community of pte readers are then sent all those that correspond to their areas of interest by e-mail. The subscription can be filtered by subject area or by keywords. Around 60 percent of the articles are produced by independent economy and science journalists and are labelled with the abbreviation "pte". Approximately 40 percent are genuine company press releases. (Labelled with "pts")

We are represented with websites in the entire German-speaking sector: http://www.pressetext.at in Austria, http://www.pressetext.de in Germany and http://www.pressetext.ch in Switzerland. On these sites the leading journalists in Austria, Germany and Switzerland research up-to-the-minute news in the areas of economy, finance, technology and communication. In addition, our news is also published on international platforms like Yahoo, Google, Wallstreet:online etc.

Pressetext offers companies, associations and political organisations the chance to send their own press releases in original wording to our subscribers - goal-orientated and precisely by topic, subject area, channel and/or country. The purpose of this handbook is to show you how to use this platform to the best of your ability, send press releases online independently and reach 75,000 journalists and opinion leaders in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the process.

Press Release Form - how it works

As a regular distributor at pte you receive a so-called distributor account with a user name and password. With this you can place your press releases (and e-mail advertisements) online by yourself and send them to pte subscribers whenever you want. If you are a one-off distributor you can send your press information as a "single press release".

Regardless of whether they are part of a distributor package or a single press release your press releases are both:

1. put on the pte homepage online and
2. automatically sent by e-mail to our subscribers following publication on our website

Furthermore, you can attach photos, graphics or PDF documents to your press releases, which you can produce in advance and "freeze" until a certain release date. Although they are then saved in our system, they are only first published on the date you selected.

You can find press release forms that are accessible to everyone on our websites: http://www.pressetext.at (for Austria), http://www.pressetext.de (for Germany) and http://www.pressetext.ch (for Switzerland).

The layout of our homepage is the same for all three countries. At the top of the page you will see a highlighted grey menu bar with the icons "subscription", "press release", "press dates", "photos", "archive", "products" and "contact". Simply click on "press release", and then on "submit press release" and -voila - there is our press release form, without even needing to enter a user name or password.

Entering a Press Release

You can enter your press release here. Use the preview button to see how your press release will appear on the web. Clicking on "send" initiates the sending process. If you wish to include a photograph, please upload it beforehand using the photo service. Note: Distributor package required.

Please fill in all fields on the form - only in this way can it be ensured that your press releases reach your target audience in the best possible form.

Select first the country that you would like to send your press release to. In doing this, you determine which subscribers will receive your press release - whether it be only our Austrian subscribers, only our German subscribers, only our Swiss subscribers or all of our subscribers. Therefore you can send your press release to one country (e.g Austria only), to two countries (e.g Austria and Switzerland) or to all three countries. Next to this you will see automatically how many "points" your press release will cost: 1 country costs 1 point, 2 countries costs 1.5 points and 3 countries costs 2 points. That is to say a single press release to one country costs 250 Euros, to two countries costs 375 Euros and to all three countries costs 500 Euros.

These prices are valid for single press releases. Should you wish to send at least ten press releases in a year and become almost a regular customer with us, then purchase a so-called distributor package. This naturally makes the whole thing cheaper per single press release and has yet more advantages. But you can read more about that in the chapter "How to order your press release".

After you have selected the country, select the channel that your press release will appear in. Please be careful here that your classification with regards to content is correct. Just because you are a computer, IT or hi-tech company, does not mean that hi-tech is automatically "the right channel for you". For example, your company's yearly budget would belong in the business channel, as would press releases about career promotions or management vacancies in your company. Therefore, when choosing a channel for your report, always think to yourself: What's the heart of the story about? Important: You can only put your press release in one channel.

The same goes when choosing the subject area - the only difference being that here, as opposed to the channels, you are spoilt for choice. You have a total of 14 (double) subject areas to choose from, e.g companies/finance, computers/telecommunications etc. Unlike the channel selection, you can select two (double) subject areas - when sending press releases to subscribers, it is irrelevant which subject area you choose first and which subject area you choose second. Furthermore, selecting two subject areas doesn't have any additional costs. So take advantage of our generous offer :) You can find out how many subscribers you reach at any one time and in which subject areas on our homepage - simply click on the current subscriber numbers at any one time on our homepage and it will take you to the statistics, broken down into journalists/opinion leaders, countries and even subject areas.

Location: Please enter the location here at all times (the system won't allow you to send the press release otherwise). The journalistic rule applies here: Enter the location of the event and not where you have written the article. A press spokesman for a Berlin company will not always write "Berlin" as the location if, for example, a new office was just opened in Unterföhring. Specifying the exact location allows the readers to gain quick initial information of where the story is taking place.

Title: The most important part of the press release

The title is the most important part of your entire press release and requires your undivided attention. The title plays a decisive role in whether readers will click on your press release on the homepage or whether your press release will be read as an e-mail by our subscribers. Incidentally, the title is the part of the text that subscribers read in the subject line of the e-mail. Therefore it is essential to get straight to the point and grip the reader. Quite simply, you have to achieve the impossible - a succinct, concise report that should contain the "whole story" and yet be short and precise. "Impossible", you say, "and pigs might fly!" "Our stock in trade", we say.

The content criteria aside, there are a few form criteria that should be taken into account first of all:

1. Keep it short and sweet: This isn't just because Internet users want to be able to read everything at a glance. There are also technical reasons - titles that are too long (as previously mentioned, the title appears in the subject header of your e-mail to the subscribers) will simply be broken off and arrive in the reader's mailbox in a distorted form. Our system has an automatic limit, which means the title can't be too long: You can enter 60 characters - any more and it doesn't work. No title should be longer than that anyway.
2. Formatting: Please whatever you do, don't use formatting. Our system automatically uses bold type for the title and for good reason we ask you to refrain from using all other types of formatting. Italic, for example, is as frowned upon by journalists as CAPITAL LETTERS or s p a c e d print. Furthermore, (and many experiments have proven this) texts in these types of formatting are significantly more difficult to read.
3. Punctuation: Titles are concluded without any punctuation - that means no full stop after the title, no question marks (after all, the title should give answers and not pose questions) and no exclamation marks (this is considered by journalists to be the sign of a advertising text and not of a serious press release). Exception: If you are using a quote of a (hopefully) famous celebrity as the title, this may be in quotation marks.

Content Criteria for the Title

1. Keep it short and sweet: As you can see, we're repeating ourselves, but it can't be said enough. The need for conciseness of the internet user, as well as for technical reasons, demands a great deal from you with regards to content: How can I say what I want to say in a maximum of 60 characters?
2. Be specific: The title should convey the main content of your press release. Thus, not: "Software AG presents balance", but: "New Security Solutions bring Turnover Plus". "Company A and Company B agree to co-operate" doesn't really reveal anything - there are many ways to co-operate, and the reader, an unknown, impatient human being, wants to know the manner of this co-operation straight away. Something like "A authorises B to produce mobile phones" would be better.
3. Use the active voice: Titles do not always have to contain a verb, however, when it's practical to use one then it is recommended to do so. Verbs make a title more interesting and naturally should be used in the active form and not the passive form. By the way, this doesn't just apply for the title but for the entire article. Active wording is considered to be more fashionable and conveys more information in a quicker way. For example: "Software AG is being taken over" (Passive form - we don't get to find out who is taking over the company). Better: "IT Solutions takes over Software AG" (Active form - the reader can identify the agent in the title straight away).
4. Be topical: This doesn't just belong in the big book of truisms. According to the old journalistic rule, the topicality of a title shows itself in the grammar. Write your title as a rule in either the present tense (e.g "XY is new Manager of Software AG) or the future tense (e.g XY to be new manager of Software AG) and avoid the imperfect (e.g XY became new Manager of Software AG) in the title altogether (this also applies for the subtitle and in the introduction of your press release). The imperfect makes the title look "old" for grammatical reasons.

Subtitle

Essentially the same goes as for the title. The subtitle should be a supplement to the title and not a repetition. As a basic rule-of-thumb: Words that are in the title may not appear in the subtitle.

Text in the Press Release Form

Theoretically you can enter ten pages of text in our press release form. However, in principle we recommend limiting press releases to a maximum of 3,000 characters (roughly equivalent to 1.5 pages of A4). Anything longer than this will generally not be read - not even by the most benevolent of journalists. Far too long press releases also lead to far too long e-mails to our subscribers, which, instead of being an advantage to them, tend to annoy them. And last but not least: Every report of an event must be able to fit onto 1 - 1.5 pages.

When writing the text in the press release form, avoid all types of formatting, as it nullifies the advantage of digitally transferred information - that is to say the advantage journalists have when interested in certain information of being able to simply use copy and paste and send it straight to the printer. You're hardly going to find an article in a serious newspaper that suddenly has italics, capital letters or spaced print in the middle of the text. So don't give in to the temptation to show to the whole world just what your word processing program is capable of.

By the way: If you write your articles using Word and then copy the text into the box, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this (it's probably the most practical way) - just make sure that justification and hyphenation are both turned off before doing so, as these can result in the text looking unattractive and hyphens cropping up in the middle of a line.

Make your text pleasing to the eye - divide your text into paragraphs sensibly. Separate paragraphs by an empty line. As for the length of each paragraph: they shouldn't be too long, but also not too short (when being used by other journalists for publication in a newspaper this can lead to awkward looking column breaks, which experienced printers call "widow" and "club" lines - a widow line is the last line of a paragraph that is the first line of a page, whereas a club line is the first line of a paragraph that is the last line of a page).

If you are including URLs in the text, please note that they are only active in our system if the entire URL is written, thus http://www.pte.at and not www.pte.at.

Content Criteria for the Article Text

The most important information must not be the "culmination" at the end of your press release - it belongs at the forefront of your text at the very beginning. You must convey the most important information, the heart of the story, right at the beginning of the press release. The whole story should be in the first paragraph, which we call the lead, in a condensed form. Here the classic 5 W's should be answered (Who has done what, where, when, why and how?). It is also particularly important to explain the objectives and purposes of the article in the first paragraph.

To put it a different way, the composition of good press releases is the exact opposite of the way scientific work is arranged. With scientific work, the theory behind an investigation or research is always explained at the beginning and the results are then found in the conclusion. However, press releases must be arranged in a way completely opposite to this - the results of the research should be found immediately at the beginning of the press release, with the explanations of how these results came about and the theory behind it coming later on in the press release.

Generally you should arrange your press release by the principle of "decreasing importance". Thus, the most important information in the first paragraph, the second most important piece of information in the second paragraph, the third most important piece of information in the, yep you guessed it, third paragraph and so on. Journalists interested in your article who wish to use it should be able to start at the bottom of it and work their way up, crossing off paragraphs as they go, without losing any important information in the process. It could be the case that one journalist will want to use your whole article and make three columns from it, another will only have two columns free and shorten it accordingly, whereas another may only have space for one column and will only use the title, subtitle and lead text.

Talking of the title and subtitle: Don't forget to "lift the lid" on these in the text. Any information in the title and subtitle should be elaborated on later in the text (not simply copied - but the general gist at least).

Any additional information that you would like to include, such as company history, general company information, the last balance or any other finer points, can be added at the end of the press release. Or even better: you attach a link to the article, which allows any interested reader quick access to information made available by you on your homepage.

Avoid using personal forms of address in press releases, as well as in the title, subtitle and main text. After all, you're writing a press article and not a personal invitation.

Contact persons: Please fill this in too (our system plays up if you don't) and give a name, telephone number and e-mail address. The contact person doesn't necessarily have to be the author of the article - it would be advisable to give a contact person that can be available to journalists and other interested persons for further information.

Preview, Send and Cheerio!

If you have entered everything, go to the preview, enter your user name and password and you can see how your press release will look like online. If you like what you see, click on send - in this instant your article is online on our homepage and is sent to pte subscribers via the e-mail service after ten minutes at the most. If you don't like what you see and would like to correct something, go back before clicking on send and make the appropriate modifications.

"Freeze" reports

If you are going to be absent or away on business and would like to pre-produce your press release, you can "freeze" your article in advance - it is then put onto our system and is only first available online at a date chosen by you and sent to our subscribers. Simply click on the box next to "Release time and date" where "immediately" is, which will open up a pull-down menu where you can select a day of release. You can fix an exact release time and date of your press release by selecting the month, year, hour and minutes in the boxes beside it. Following that, click on preview as before, fill in a user name and password and send the article.

The Editing Service: Our Editorial Staff write your Press Releases

If all of that seems too difficult, complicated or time-consuming - no problem. If you want, we can take on the "journalistic work" for you, write your press release and adapt ourselves to your needs in the process. That is to say, if you have finished a text to a large extent, and just require the editing to be done and a title, subtitle and a suitable first paragraph to be written, then our professional journalists can take care of it. Likewise, if the entire press release has to be written or any research on it is necessary, you can assign this work to our experienced editors.

Logically, the price of any of these assignments completely depends on the time and effort needed to complete them. More information at: http://www.pressetext.at/produkte/redaktionsdienste/

E-mail Advertisements from your Desktop

If you would like to reach our subscribers simply and effectively with a precise advertising message, pressetext has just the thing for you - the product is called "E-mail Advertisements from your Desktop". http://www.pte.at/emailad.mc Customers can place their e-mail advertisements in the so-called daily digests (the collective mails that our subscribers receive day after day) directly from their very own computers. At present, pressetext sends out around 200,000 of these digests every day - this number is rising.

This is how your advert could look in the e-mail that our subscribers receive:

How to Order your Press Release (how to get your user name and password)

Der herkömmliche Weg: Einfach anrufen. Die Mitarbeiter unseres Sales- und Marketingteams entnehmen Sie den Homepages der einzelnen Länder, jeweils unter Kontakt.

Tel. No's in Germany: (+49)
(0)228/3918156 (Bonn)
(0)89/7901597 (Munich)
(0)611/26777-26 (Wiesbaden)
E-Mail: verkauf@pressetext.de

Tel. No in Austria: +43 (0)1/81140
E-Mail: verkauf@pressetext.at

Tel. No in Switzerland: +41 (0)43/4772010
E-Mail: verkauf@pressetext.ch

The online way: On the homepage simply click on "Products" and under "products and prices" go to "distributor package". Here you can order both distributor packages and single press releases. Simply click on the corresponding package size or, in the case of a single press release, under "single press release" click on "1 country", "2 countries" or "3 countries", fill in the customer form and you will get your very own distributor account and be able to send single press releases. Send the text of a single press release by e-mail to redaktion@pressetext.at. As soon as they have been given a user name and password, distributor package customers can put their press releases on our system themselves. An advantage for the purchaser of a distributor package: Your company's name and logo appear automatically in the press releases. Distributor packages are ideal for people wishing to send at least ten press releases via pressetext a year. Attractive discounts are offered with the packages, making the press releases considerably cheaper than sending them as a single press release.

Press releases you send via pte stay saved in our database "forever" and can be accessed at any time by using the full-text search. This is where package purchasers have it even easier - on our homepage under "Press release / distributor" they can find a list of all the press releases they have sent via pressetext to date, thus pressetext practically provides an electronic archive for your press work.

You can order our editing services at http://www.pressetext./produkte/redaktionsdienste/ , and e-mail advertisements at http://www.pressetext./produkte/emailwerbung/

How to send your photos and graphics

Low-res (low resolution) photos: You can attach a photo to the press release here. The photos are highly compressed (72 dpi, gif format, max width or height: 300 pixels) and merely serve as an illustration to your press release - they are not printable. If you want to add a low-res photo to your press release, it is advisable to use Photoshop to adjust the photo until it fits the specifications mentioned above and then save it onto your hard drive (e.g under "my files"). Compose the article as previously mentioned and in the grey highlighted field "image/text combinations", click on "add low resolution image to the press release". Click on preview and enter your user name and password. A browser window will now open up where you can save the pre-prepared low-res photo from your hard drive. Clicking on "continue" will take you to a page showing the completed press release with the attached photo. Note: If, in the preview, an open browser appears at the bottom of the press release, you will have to go back and select your low-res photo again. Once you have done that, simply click again on send.

High-res (high resolution) photos: You can send up to five high-res photos with your press release. High-res photos are also printable (jpg format, 300 dpi, max. width or height: 2100 pixels). Please adjust all photos using Photoshop until they match these specifications and then save them onto your hard drive. To upload high-res photos onto our server and send via pressetext, you have to use the so-called photo service (this is very important!) before sending your press release. You can find this on our homepage under "send a press release" - simply click on "photo service".

Fill in the image name and image text (the image name should be the name of a person or product mentioned in your press release and the image text should be a quote from your article) and upload either a high-res photo or picture from your hard drive onto our server. Please note: Every time a high-res photo is produced, a low-res photo is automatically created for display on the Internet. Following this, click on "photo" or "graphics" and then on "send". The system will then require your user name and password again. From now on, this photo or any other photos or graphics will be able to be found on the pte server.

Once the photo has been saved onto the server, enter your press release on our homepage as previously explained and this time click on the highlighted grey box entitled "add high resolution image(s) to the press release". Click on preview and you will get a selection menu showing all the names of the pictures you have put on our server. Click on the relevant photo(s) or graphics and then on "continue" and "send". Your press release and photo(s) will now be online.

If you have added several photos to your press release, you will see the photo that you clicked on first when you view your press release online. Clicking on "show photos" will take you to a screen with all the other photos you uploaded onto your server. Journalists wishing to print any of these pictures can do so easily by clicking on the photo in the relevant article on our homepage and downloading it. Any downloaded picture can then be edited using Photoshop if required. Incidentally, photos in high-res quality can be used without any problems by practically all newspapers and magazines.

Finally - the pte server also allows you to transfer pdf files, e.g if you want to attach financial statements or charts to your press release.

And..that's it

We don't know if you now know everything about our technical options, if we've taken too much for granted or have been blind and overseen some things, or have done completely the opposite and, in making the effort to explain anything and everything at length, have bogged ourselves down in details. We can only hope that we've found that happy medium between banality and professional information and are on the way to helping you produce an efficient piece of presswork. We appreciate any feedback, criticism or suggestions (praise too). Should anything still be unclear, everything can be found on our homepage. Besides that, there's still the good old telephone. All the pressetext employees in Berlin, Munich, Bonn, Wiesbaden, Zurich and Vienna are always happy to give any further information.

Goodbye!

How it looks I: pte article online (without photo)

How it looks II: pte article online (with low-res photo)

How it looks III: press release with high-res photo

Before Downloading: The preview shows the photo in low-res with the image name and text - one click on "download press photo" and there's the high-res picture