7 Things That Build Up Your Electronic Press Kit
An Electronic Press Kit (EPK) is a critical component of your branding strategy. It is proof that digital transformation is driving the evolution of age-old PR practices. In the days gone by, if your business wanted to create news stories around the brand, and its product offerings, it needed to either send hard copies containing company information, product updates, etc. to the PR agency or media. Subsequent digital transformation meant that a business could send a USB stick with all the details.
Today, the press kit has evolved into a digital avatar. The press kit on a business’ website contains all content that a media professional will need to create a story around your brand. The content that is a part of the EPK kit differs across the businesses, the PR spend of these businesses, target media, and of course, the business size.
What is an EPK?
An EPK is a press kit that contains all kinds of digital content revolving around your company. It is a collection of company bio, team information, brand logo, press releases, videos, audio and anything and everything that will help understand the company better and create a brand-centric story.
A typical EPK will be hosted on your website and this kit will contain a variety of content assets in diverse formats. So, you can create slide decks, have some information on PDF files, and also have certain information in multimedia format. It is essentially a one-stop comprehensive resource for all company information.
It is accessible, extensive, historical, and current, easily shareable and its look and feel, voice, and tonality all align well with your brand visuals.
But isn’t my website my EPK?
This might be a question uppermost in your minds. Is a website amongst the many electronic press kits examples? Well, yes and no. If you are thinking purely from the business information point of view, yes, an agency can look for company/product/service information from your website. So, in that sense, it can be called a component of your EPK.
However, you might want the media to portray your business in a certain way, and probably also include certain facts, figures, statements and more in their news stories. This information might not be available on your company ‘About Us’ page or elsewhere on the website. Or it might be difficult to find. This is why you will need to create a ‘company bio’ specifically for the press kit, that offers all the information you want to get out to the target audience.
A company’s EPK kit tries to make it easy for the media to access company information, and it’s a win-win for you as well. You are able to ensure that the key messaging isn’t lost amidst all the white noise out there. You are telling them “This is the information you must get out”.
What Makes Up Your EPK?
Let’s take a look at the various components of your EPK:
1. Company Bio
Company information is absolutely critical. The media must have a very clear idea about what your company is all about – what is it that you do, why you do it, and how you do what you do. It needs, to have a little bit of history behind your company, the number of customers, geographical footprint, product/services, and anything that you believe must be showcased in a news story.
Ideally, the company information must be as brief as possible, so that there is no confusion regarding the information that must be accessed.
2. Leadership Bios
You need to provide information about the people in charge. You will achieve two objectives with this – this information offers insights into the leaders who are the driving force behind the company and their experience and expertise (this builds credibility); secondly, it makes it easier for media to identify the right people to get quotes from or ask relevant question to.
3. Logos and logo usage guidelines
Any media story about your brand might require the use of your logo or any other company artwork. This also means you need to provide usage guidelines or this artwork. You don’t want to end up in a scenario wherein a story contains the wrong logo (with wrong color schemes) or an older logo version that is no longer being used. It is imperative that all the artwork that is a part of your press kit is media ready, which means it can be used without any modifications whatsoever.
4. Previous Press Coverage
One of the EPK examples of a great press kit is Subway’s Pressroom.
It has a selection of recent press releases, which talk about the company’s recent growth, sponsorship, and product releases. As a business, you must ensure that you pick the most prominent press releases out of all the press releases and as your company grows and news stories around your brand continue to grow, just keep the most current releases. Also, make sure that the media can make sense of the press release easily – the right heading is a must.
5. Videos
Click on ‘video’ in the Press Resources tab in Samsung Newsroom and you go to:
There is a huge list of videos that you can watch (don’t worry, plenty of English videos too!) that offer plenty of product information. There are also other interesting videos that the company has created for branding purposes and driving engagement. These videos can also include event participation videos or of occasions when your business or business heads have won an award or have been interviewed or more. Again, this is one of the ways, you make it easier for the media to access pertinent information for the story they are coming out with.
6. Contact Information
This is a no-brainer isn’t it? You need to give the names of people who the media can contact, if they need more information regarding a story they are doing, or basically pitch a story idea. This really makes things more streamlined for the media as well as your business. You have a set of people who are given charge of media communication. On the other hand, the media has a set of people they can immediately connect with.
7. One-Stop Resource for All Company Information
The Pfizer press kit is one of those perfect electronic press kits examples because it gives you an overview of all that needs to be a part of the press kit, especially when it comes to a giant-sized company. So, you have information like a fact sheet, the leadership team, product info, the pipeline, and much more. Once you are here, you might not need any more information from the company perspective. Everything’s here.
Conclusion
Electronic press kit inclusions can be tailor-made to suit your company’s requirements. So, you can include event participation information, ‘in the news section’, podcast, and anything else that you think makes sense. But there is no doubt that your business needs an electronic press kit, as a part of its PR strategy. Even if it’s a relatively small business, don’t ignore your EPK.
