Below is a complete product launch announcement, formatted the way a newsroom expects it. Copy it, swap in your own names and numbers, and you have a working draft in ten minutes. Everything after this press release example explains what each block does, how long it should run, and where writers lose the reporter.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rivermill Coffee Launches a Home Roaster That Finishes a Batch in Nine Minutes. The Kettle One brings small-batch roasting to a countertop machine priced under $300.
MADISON, Wis., March 3, 2026- Rivermill Coffee today launched the Kettle One, a countertop roaster that takes green beans to a full city roast in nine minutes. It ships March 24 and sells for $279 through the company store and select specialty grocers.
Home roasting stayed a hobbyist habit because most machines need 25 minutes a batch and vent smoke into the kitchen. The Kettle One uses a sealed drum and a catalytic filter, so it runs on a standard outlet, no hood. Beta testers roasted four batches a week, up from one.
“People quit home roasting because of the cleanup, not the coffee,” said Dana Ortiz, founder and chief executive of Rivermill Coffee. “We built the Kettle One so the whole ritual fits inside a coffee break. Nine minutes in, you are grinding.”
Each batch takes half a pound of green beans. Rivermill will sell a green coffee subscription alongside the machine, starting at $22 a month. Preorders open March 10 at rivermillcoffee.com.
About Rivermill Coffee
Rivermill Coffee is an independent roaster and equipment maker founded in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2019. It sells green coffee, roasted beans, and home roasting hardware to about 40,000 customers nationwide.
Media Contact
Priya Raman, Director of Communications
(608) 555-0142
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That is the whole shape. Headline, subhead, dateline, a lede that answers the five Ws, two or three body paragraphs, one quote, a boilerplate, a media contact, and three hash marks. Most releases run 350 to 500 words and fit on a single page.
Anatomy of a release, part by part
Every block above does one job. Here is each one, the length it should run, and the mistake that shows up most often.
| Element | What it does | Length rule | Most common mistake |
| Headline | States the news in words a stranger understands | 65 to 100 characters | Writing a slogan instead of the news |
| Subhead | Adds the detail the headline could not carry | One line, under 140 characters | Restating the headline in new words |
| Dateline | Fixes the news to a city and a day | City, state abbreviation, full date | An undated draft that goes stale in an inbox |
| Lede | Answers to who, what, when, where, and why | 35 to 55 words | Opening with company history |
| Body | Supplies the facts holding the lede up | 150 to 250 words, 2 to 3 paragraphs | Adjectives instead of evidence |
| Quote | Gives a reporter a voice to lift into the story | 40 to 80 words, one or two speakers | A quote no human would say aloud |
| Boilerplate | Describes the company in a block editor paste unchanged | 50 to 80 words | Rewriting it so no two versions match |
| Media contact | Makes the follow-up call possible | Name, title, email, direct phone | An info@ address and no phone number |
| End mark | Tells the desk the copy stops here | Three hash marks, centered | Leaving it off, or adding notes below |
Two rows deserve extra attention. The boilerplate is the one block editors reuse word for word, so it should match how you describe yourself everywhere else. Write it once against the creative branding that resonates with your audience, then paste it unchanged.
The media contact block is where small companies quietly lose coverage. A reporter on deadline calls once. An info@ inbox with no phone number means the story runs without you in it.
Key Takeaways
- Lead with the news, never with the company.
- 350 to 500 words, one page, no attachments heavier than a link.
- One quote that a real person would say out loud.
- Boilerplate and contact block stay identical every time.
- Alone, the document earns nothing. The pitch email is what gets it read.
- Three hash marks close it. Nothing goes below them.
Two More Press Release Example Formats to Copy
A product launch is the easy one. Funding rounds and hires use the same skeleton with the emphasis moved.
Funding Round
Lead with the amount and the investor. Reporters filter by number, so the figure belongs in the headline.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Halden Robotics Raises $14 Million to Put Inspection Drones Inside Grain Silos. PORTLAND, Ore., February 11, 2026- Halden Robotics has closed a $14 million Series A led by Cascade Ridge Ventures. Two Fields Capital joined, along with eleven farm operators who already fly its drones. The money doubles the engineering team and funds a service depot in Kansas. Silo inspection still sends people up ladders into confined spaces.
Halden’s drone maps the interior in 12 minutes and flags wall damage without anyone going in. Halden charges per site, starting at $4,800 a year, and works in nine states. Press Release Example Farmers were not asking us for a drone,” said Marcus Halden, chief executive. “They were asking to stop sending their nephews up a ladder. The drone is how we answered.”
About Halden Robotics
Halden Robotics builds confined space inspection drones for agriculture and heavy industry. Founded in 2022, the company is based in Portland, Oregon.
Media Contact
Ellen Boyd, ellen@haldenrobotics. example, (503) 555-0119
###
Executive hire
Nobody outside your industry cares that you hired someone. They care what the hire signals. Say that in the second paragraph. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bellhouse Grocers Names Aisha Thorne Chief Operating Officer
DES MOINES, Iowa, January 20, 2026- Bellhouse Grocers has named Aisha Thorne chief operating officer, effective February 2. Thorne joins from Meridian Markets, where she ran store operations across 41 locations.
Thorne will oversee supply chain, store staffing, and the chain’s move into same-day delivery across its 12 largest markets.
“Aisha has run bigger and messier operations than ours, and she made them calmer,” said Ray Bellhouse, chief executive. “That is the job here for the next three years.”
About Bellhouse Grocers
Bellhouse Grocers operates 63 grocery stores in Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri. The family-owned chain has been in businessn business since 1958.
Media Contact
Tom Ngata, press@bellhousegrocers. example, (515) 555-0173
###
What a journalist actually does with it in 2026
A press release is raw material, not a story. Reporters scan the subject line, the headline, and then about two lines of the lede. That decision takes seconds. What happens next depends on the beat. A trade editor may run your lede and quote almost intact as a brief. A national reporter takes one fact and calls about the part you left out. Quotes and boilerplate survive into print more often than anything else you wrote.
Two things changed recently. Search engines and AI answer tools now surface this copy directly, so your lede has to make sense with no page around it. Wire distribution alone rarely produces coverage either. Reach comes from reporters you contacted by name, so one announcement works best inside a wider PR and marketing plan.
The Pitch Email That Carries the Release
Here is the part most guides skip. Your document is the record. The email above it is what a human reads and answers. Keep the pitch under 120 words. Name the reporter, name a piece of theirs, say why it fits their beat, then make one ask. Paste the copy below your signature rather than attaching it.
Subject: Nine-minute home roaster, Madison startup, ships March 24
Hi Julia,
You covered the countertop fermentation boom back in January, so this may land in the same spot. A Madison company called Rivermill is shipping a home coffee roaster that finishes a batch in nine minutes, sealed, with no kitchen hood needed. Current machines take roughly three times as long.
Full text below. I can get a unit to you this week, and Dana Ortiz, the founder, has 20 minutes free Thursday or Friday.
Want the unit?
Priya
Formatting Rules that Decide Whether It Gets Read
- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE still goes at the top, left-aligned. Swap in an embargo line when the news is dated: “EMBARGOED UNTIL 9 a.m. ET, March 3, 2026.”
- AP style governs news releases. Numbers under 10 are spelled out; job titles are lowercase unless they sit before a name; states are abbreviated the AP way.
- Write in the third person. No “we,” no “our exciting new.”
- Assets belong in a linked folder, not an attachment: photos at 300 dpi, a logo, a headshot, and any print piece such as a booklet built for the campaign.
- Close with ### or the older -30-. Both tell an editor that nothing was cut off.
Four Mistakes that Get a Release Ignored
- No news in it. A rebrand, a new website, or a “proud to announce” milestone is not an event. Editors delete these unread.
- Sent to everyone. A blind list of 300 addresses reads as spam, and reporters notice.
- News buried under context. If paragraph three holds the news, nobody reaches it.
- Unreachable sender. A missing phone number kills more coverage than bad writing.
Your Next Step
Press Release Example: Take the launch sample above, swap every proper noun for your own, then cut a fifth of the words. Read the lede aloud. If it sounds like an ad, no boilerplate rewrite saves it. Then pick five reporters you actually read, and write each a short note above the copy.
Frequently Asked Questions
350 to 500 words for a launch or a funding round. Stretch to 600 or 800 only for a merger, a recall, or something genuinely complex. Past one page, you are writing the reporter’s story for them.
Use it for structure, not sentences. Duplicate wording across the web hurts you in search, and an editor who has seen the phrasing before stops reading. Keep the skeleton; replace every noun.
Yes. Its real job is telling the desk that nothing is embargoed, which matters more than the tradition does.
It marks the end of the copy. Wire desks needed proof that nothing was lost, and the habit stuck.
A wire puts your announcement on syndicated sites and into search results, where investors and customers find it later. It rarely makes a journalist call. Pay for the wire if you want the public record, and spend your hours on named reporters if you want the story.
