Journalists covering a story don't always have the luxury of interviewing executives or waiting for responses from busy PR teams. A press kit helps them easily find essential information like your company's size, headquarters location, and product offerings. It also houses visual assets like company logos, product photos, and headshots of key executives, which are perfect for illustrating articles.
Press kits offer on-demand resources for journalists, and more often these days, influencers. Depending on your business scale, you may have a single comprehensive press kit or create targeted kits for specific products or sub-brands.
Table of Contents
What Is a Press Kit?
Why Press Kits are Essential for All Businesses
What Are the Most Important Elements of a Press Kit?
Designing a Great Press Kit
How to Create a Press Kit for Your Brand
Optimizing Your Press Kit’s Performance
Tracking the Impact of Your Press Kit
Big Brand Press Kit Examples
How Meltwater PR Solutions Help Build Press Kits
What Is a Press Kit?
A press kit, also known as a media kit, is a digital toolkit designed to streamline media coverage of your business; a package of information and resources that provide journalists with all of the essential information they might need when they are including your organization in a story.
In the past, press kits were physical packages of documents and images, and in the early days of digital they were electronic files sent out on physical CD ROMs, because print-quality image files were too big for slow internet speeds.
But today they typically live online for easy access, usually in an area of the corporate website specifically created for members of the press. Some companies also provide downloadable versions containing images and a PDF outlining key information all in a single file. Regardless of format, a press kit is a central hub of media-friendly resources.
Why Press Kits are Essential for All Businesses
A press kit isn't just helpful – it's a strategic necessity for brands seeking coverage.
Firstly, a press kit will streamline your PR activity by seamlessly providing journalists with the information they need, instantly. Journalists face relentless deadlines and are often working under pressure, so your press kit is their go-to for essential company information and approved visuals. Without that easy access to information and resources, they may skip your brand in favor of a competitor that's easier to cover.
A press kit helps you to keep a tighter control over your narrative, providing the media with a single source of truth about your brand. You’re better able to ensure accuracy and consistent messaging by providing up-to-date facts, figures, and the imagery you want representing your business in the kit. If journalists need to look elsewhere to get information or images for your business, there’s a good chance what they find will be out of date or just inaccurate.
Finally, a well-prepared press kit helps you to build relationships and credibility with members of the press. Journalists appreciate brands that respect their time. Providing quick access to resources establishes trust and paints your business as professional and media-savvy. This positive reputation can significantly influence future coverage decisions.
A press kit is more than just a collection of resources. It facilitates positive media coverage, establishes your brand's authority, and strengthens relationships with journalists, all of which are crucial advantages for any business seeking visibility.
What Are the Most Important Elements of a Press Kit?
Your press kit serves as a vital reference point for journalists and influencers. Here's a breakdown of what to include:
Press Kit Information
- Mission Statement: Articulate your organization's purpose.
- Company Facts: Size (by number of employees and/or revenues), locations of your headquarters and other key facilities, countries of operation.
- Products/Services: Clear description of your offerings.
- Areas of Expertise: Highlight your specialized knowledge and capabilities.
- Brands: List all the brands under your corporate umbrella.
- Company History: Concise timeline of key milestones.
- Leadership Team: Names and titles of top executives.
- Contact Information: Designated media contact details.
- Social Media: Links to official social media profiles.
- Legal & Regulatory Information: Include as required by your industry/market.
- Press Center Link: Ensure clear navigation if your press center exists separately.
Press Kit Resources
- Photo Library: High-resolution images of executives, facilities, products, and relevant visuals.
- Logos: Various sizes/formats (print and digital) of your company logo.
- B-Roll Video: General-use video clips showcasing your business.
- Case Studies: Highlight your most compelling success stories.
- Testimonials: Positive quotes from clients, partners, media, and influencers.
Designing a Great Press Kit
A professional looking press kit isn't just informative, it's user-friendly. Here's how to strike the right balance:
Make clarity of purpose your main priority by opting for a clean, uncluttered design. Put essential information (especially contact details) front and center, with clear navigation for the rest. Remember that journalists value speed and ease of use over aesthetics - there’s no point having a beautifully designed press kit if it’s frustratingly difficult to find the resources people need in a hurry.
Your press kit must work seamlessly on smartphones and tablets because if it only works on desktop computers you’re going to alienate a lot of journalists. Media professionals are often on the go, so mobile access is key.
Put yourself in the shoes of a journalist, include what they need, and make it easy to find.
It’s important to invest in high-quality visuals, especially if you’re hoping to get featured in print publications. But even online media values high-quality photography. Provide professionally shot photos in both print- and web-ready formats, and make sure to offer a variety of imagery for every potential citation, including executive headshots, as well as photography of your products and workplaces.
An effective press kit facilitates your media coverage goals by streamlining the journalist's experience. Clarity and accessibility are paramount.
How to Create a Press Kit for Your Brand
Building an effective press kit doesn't have to be overwhelming, just follow these easy steps and you’ll have it done in no time:
- Plan Out Your Content Inventory: Start by listing everything your kit should include (refer to the component list above for guidance). Tailor the content to your target media – who are the journalists and influencers likely to cover your brand, and what kind of assets are they most likely to need?
- Gather Your Assets: Use a spreadsheet or project management tool to track what you already have and what needs to be created (case studies, visuals, etc.). Assign deadlines and responsibilities for generating new content, and as the content is either created or located, make a note of where it can be found within your chosen project management tool.
- Involve the Web Dev Team Early: Your web development team will be critical to the success of this project, so make sure they are on board early and fully understand the specific requirements of an online press kit. Remember, these are the important factors: simplicity, accessibility, mobile-friendliness, and SEO (so your kit is easy to find if journalists are googling you).
- Make it Easy to Find: Once live, make your press kit easy to find on your website – don’t just add it to a tiny link in the footer (you’d be surprised how many brands do) but put the link somewhere a time-pressed journalist can find it without tearing their hair out. Once your press kit is live, make sure to let people know about it. Email it to the journalists and influencers who you already work with, add a link to the email signatures of everybody on the PR team, and make sure to include it in all of your other press materials.
Tip: Learn how to leverage a media database to build a list of journalists, how to pitch your press release to journalists, and how to write a press release.
Optimizing Your Press Kit’s Performance
Your press kit isn't just a one-time creation; it's an ongoing asset that drives coverage. Here's how to ensure it works hard for your brand:
Keep it updated with any new information and assets that are important to your business. New products, leadership changes, updated company stats, anything significant that’s changed at the organization should be promptly reflected in your press kit to maintain accuracy.
To help make this happen, make sure that your press kit is embedded in the day-to-day workflow of the PR and comms function so that it doesn’t get forgotten about once it’s built. Include it in all relevant communications, such as press outreach, and influencer collaborations. When you’re planning campaigns and routine comms activities, always include a line item for updating the press kit.
A regularly updated, well-promoted press kit isn't just a resource; it's a powerful tool for streamlining media relations and generating positive coverage for your brand.
Tracking the Impact of Your Press Kit
Tracking your press kit's success will help you gain valuable insights for improvement, as well as justifying continued investment in it.
The easiest way to get a clear picture of how the press kit is performing is to use web analytics. This will show you how many people are using the kit, and which resources are getting the most attention from journalists, so you’ll have an idea of what additional assets are worth including in future.
All of the data provided by your press kit analytics can be added to your routine PR reporting, giving you more ammunition to showcase your team’s success to stakeholders.
Big Brand Press Kit Examples
Let's take a look at some inspiring press kit examples:
Adobe's Press Kit
As you would expect from Adobe, the brand’s press kit is a great example of slick design. All of the information a journalist could need is provided in an easy-to-navigate area of the corporate website. Alongside facts, figures, and media assets, you’ll also find the latest news releases.
Visa's Press Kit
Visa’s press kit shows how easy it is to point journalists to exactly the right information when you’re a global company with different media information for different markets. There’s a wealth of useful information and resources on the page, and a simple, highly visible drop-down menu lets you find the right media contact for your region.
Lego's Press Kit
Another exercise in simplicity, Lego’s press kit contains almost all of the essential information for journalists in a single page, with clear links to additional resources. This highlights the point that a press kit shouldn’t be overly elaborate - just keep it simple and make everything easy to find.
How Meltwater PR Solutions Help Build Press Kits
Meltwater’s suite of solutions includes a range of PR and social media tools that can help create a successful press kit. Our Media Intelligence suite and Social Listening suite will make sure you always know when your brand is featured in legacy or social media, so you can quickly add high-profile coverage to the press kit. It also empowers you to identify coverage that includes inaccurate information or outdated assets, so you can direct the authors to your press kit.
Our Media Relations suite and Influencer Marketing suite streamline the management of PR outreach campaigns, and you can include your press kit in these activities to be sure that your contacts always have access to the most up-to-date information about your brand.
To find out more about how Meltwater can help with your PR efforts, book a personalized demonstration today:
