At the end of the day, we are all humans, and sometimes, we make mistakes. If you’re regularly putting out press releases, chances are that you’ll make a mistake at some point in time. It could be a minor typo that can go unnoticed or a major error in reporting. Either way, this is something you have to prepare for. 

The good news is that if you’re working with us here at XpressWire, you won’t have to deal with these issues alone. Here are the ways that we can help:

 

How Press Releases Work With XpressWire

The first thing you want to do is understand just how we tend to develop and circulate press releases in the first place. Generally speaking, there are two ways. The first is that you submit your own press release to us, and we simply distribute it to your sites of choice. We do a minor review before sending it out, but the bulk of the responsibility of proofreading is on the client. 

The other option is having our in-house team develop a press release for you. Not only is it written and reviewed on our end, but you also get to read and approve before it is sent out. In both cases, XpressWire will take care to prevent any errors. But as we’ve said, we’re all only human and sometimes, errors will occur even with care taken. If that does happen, here is what will be done: 

 

Identify and Analyze the Error

 

 

We’ve already pointed out that an error in a press release can be something quite minor or a major issue that could damage your business. So, the first thing we do is identify the error in question. If it is a small typo that is hardly noticed, it might not warrant further action. But if your business name has been misspelt or a launch date has been miswritten, we will try to correct it.

Once we have spotted the error, we will offer our professional opinion on whether or not to proceed further. But at the end of the day, you are the client and the decision of whether or not to correct the error is up to you. 

 

Create a Correction Note

If you decide to move forward with correcting the error, we’ll need to create a written text to this effect. If a part of the press release needs to be corrected, we’ll create a new document with the necessary changes applied. We will also write a disclaimer paragraph to address the error that can be published after the fact. The idea is that regardless of the decision on the website’s part, we already want to have new text for them to publish. This saves us any back-and-forth, and this is especially important for critical errors. 

This will be shared with you before we proceed to make sure that you’re happy with the correction and no new error has occurred.

 

Tracking Down Publications

Here at XpressWire, we’re big on organization, which is why we keep a spreadsheet of every order that comes in. This lets us track the publications it has been sent to, and what the publication status is. By looking through them, we can immediately pinpoint where the incorrect press release has appeared and then begin taking steps to correct it. Having these spreadsheets also means that we can track which publications have made the corrections and which we are still waiting on.

A link to these spreadsheets is sent to the customers so they can know, in real time, how the corrections are being made. All this saves us time with communication and keeps things transparent. 

 

Requesting Corrections

 

 

This is where things might get tricky. The ideal situation would be that we contact the publication, and the correction gets done. But the truth is that it is sometimes more complex than that. First, many publications tend to proritize putting out new press releases as opposed to revisiting older ones, so getting them to attend to the error might take some time. Some publications also have a time limit after which they don’t offer revisions. In some cases, there is a fee associated with making alterations after a press release has gone live. 

All of these are possible complications, but we put our best foot forward all the same. As a rule, we try to develop relationships with actual people in various publications instead of using generic submission systems. That way, we can get faster responses and have errors addressed well in time.

 

Approaching Compromise

As we’ve said, sometimes publications aren’t able to correctly correct press releases after a certain time, and while this is not overly common, it does happen. Luckily, we offer certain compromises. The publication might choose to put a disclaimer at the bottom or top of the press release stating the error in question. In some cases, they delete the press release entirely and publish a new one. In the event that there are too many issues with the document, this is what we would recommend. 

We also recommend correcting narratives outside of these platforms and instead, using the ones that you have control over. For example, you can put out a statement on your own social media pages clarifying the date or whatever else might have been misstated in the press release. This is especially important if we’re still waiting to hear back from the publications. 

 

Preventative Measures

While we obviously have things in place for errors in press releases, we are constantly refining our processes to reduce the margin of error. In addition to having clients review the final versions, we also have our in-house proofreading team review and confirm all details. 

 

Conclusion

An error in your press release does not have to be the end of the world. As long as you have us in your corner, we will address the issue, whether that is a document correction, putting out a disclaimer, or a new release altogether.