News Release cover letters are a no-no.
Programmers ask me if the press releases that we send to the editors should be personalized. While personalization is becoming an increasingly important component of software marketing, the answer to this question is almost always "no".
From a technical perspective, it's easy for me to personalize the press releases that I send to the editors. My email software lets me do sophisticated email-merges, and I can include any field from my database. I've even taken the time to "genderize" the editors' names. John Smith's email can say "Dear Mr. Smith:", Joan Smith's can say "Dear Ms. Smith:", and Lee Smith's can say "Dear Lee Smith:".
Before email press release submission
Before I introduced my email press release distribution service in August of 1997, developers asked me a very similar question: "Should I include a cover letter when we postal-mail my press release to the editors?"
The answer is an emphatic "no" if you have nothing exciting to say in your cover letter. You hurt yourself by saying "Dear Mr. Smith - We're excited about our new software release, and we feel that your readers will like to hear about it, too. We would appreciate your including our write-up in your New Product Announcements. If we can send you any additional information, please call or write."
The editors know all of this information. That's why you're sending them a press release. There's no need to put the press release in context. By adding this superfluous information, you're inserting an additional 50 noise words between the editor and the important message that you want them to read. Don't do it.
The rare exceptions to this rule involve situations where you can influence the editor to use your press release by pointing out facts that wouldn't be relevant to the press release itself. For example, if you're marketing a programmers tool and you've spoken to the editor about including a code snippet. Or if you're sending a press release about a home inventory application, you might want to include a cover letter that mentions the number of home fires and burglaries that occur each year. Or if you're introducing a version of your software whose major appeal is a GUI in a number of languages, you might want to include a cover letter that specifies the percentage of the editors' readers who use this collection of languages.
Don't personalize your press release
Unless you have a strong message that you can't weave into the body of your press release, don't include a personalized cover letter.
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