This column will be a recurring feature of the IMA eNewsletter, isolating one lesson learned at IMA while working on projects for our clients. This month’s lesson: press release treatment in a Web site.
 
Lesson #1:  Press Release Treatment in a Web site
Press releases are often placed within a Web site without regard for how they will ultimately be used. If they are simply a record of hard copy releases that went out to the news media, then it is acceptable to place them within the framework of your Web site, and have them print out with all the navigation intact. But if, as we’re finding among our clients, the trend is to send a link to the Web site version in an eMail message to your media contacts, or to provide a link from your home page to them, in the hopes someone will see them, then we find that publishing the press release within the context of the site is less usable for the reader.
 
We found a solution for this when we were creating our own Web site. Because we wanted the site to page rather than scroll, we found the space for our press releases too confining. By removing the release from the site navigation, and placing it instead in a separate browser window through simple Javascript, we found a model that many of our clients are finding useful.

Journalists and others can simply print out the press release (or other media kit collateral) and use them as print materials. Because they are so attractively designed and use the organizational branding, we find many of our clients use these rather than Microsoft Word versions of their press releases, allowing them to have a single source for releases.

And, of course, for sales people who spend time out on the road, it is incredibly useful to be able to call up media material and print it out from anywhere they might happen to be.