What Goes in a Press Kit (With Examples)

A press kit is one place where a reporter can find the facts, pictures and contact details needed to write about a business without sending a string of follow-up emails. For a small firm it is usually a single page on the website with a downloadable folder. It holds a fact sheet, a short company description, the latest announcement, a handful of good photos, brief bios of the people who might be quoted and a named contact. The sections below take each part in turn, show how it looks for different kinds of business and explain how to stop it going stale.

Press kit or media kit?

The two labels are often used interchangeably. Some people keep "media kit" for the advertising pack that a publication or creator sends to would-be sponsors, with audience details and rates, and use "press kit" for the material a company prepares for journalists. A shop, studio or service firm hoping for coverage needs the second kind, whichever word it prefers. Choose one label and use it everywhere, from the footer link to the folder name, so nobody has to guess.

The core contents

Part	What it holds	Why a reporter wants it
Fact sheet	Founding year, location, owners, what you sell, opening hours, a one-line description	Quick checks without a phone call
Boilerplate	A three-to-five sentence "about" paragraph	A ready summary to paraphrase
Latest news	The most recent announcement plus a short list of earlier ones	Context and a reason to write now
Images	Product, premises and team photos; logo files for light and dark backgrounds	Usable visuals on deadline
Bios	Short profiles and portraits of the founder or spokesperson	Correct names, titles and spellings
Contact	A named person, email, phone and the hours you answer	Someone real to reach

Writing the fact sheet

Treat the fact sheet as a reference card, not a sales leaflet. Short labelled lines work better than paragraphs, and adjectives such as "leading" or "innovative" add nothing a journalist can use. Useful fields include:

• Legal and trading name, and how the name should be written
• Address or service area, and the year the business opened
• Owners or directors, with their roles
• What you make, sell or do, in plain words
• Notable milestones you can back up, such as a move, an expansion or an award

Keep it to a single page. If a fact might change next month, either leave it out or date it.

The boilerplate paragraph

The boilerplate is the short description that sits at the end of every announcement. It should say who you are, what you do, where and for whom, in a tone close to how you would describe the business to a neighbour. The same paragraph closes every press release that editors actually read, so writing it once for the kit saves time later.

A sample for an imaginary bike workshop: "[Workshop name] is an independent bicycle repair workshop on the north side of town, founded by two mechanics who wanted repairs explained in plain English. It services road, commuter and children's bikes, runs a monthly basic-maintenance evening and offers collection for customers without a car."

Images that get used

Photos are the part of a kit most often opened. Offer a few strong options rather than a whole archive: one or two of the premises, a few of products or work in progress, and portraits of the people named in the bios. Provide both landscape and portrait crops, name files descriptively and add a caption and photo credit for each. Make sure you hold the rights to everything you share, including pictures taken by a freelancer.

Portraits should look like they belong to the same business. If your team page already uses a consistent style, reuse it; the piece on headshots for personal and business branding covers keeping a set of faces coherent.

Press kit examples by type of business

A neighbourhood café

Fact sheet with hours and seating, the boilerplate, a note on what is baked on site, three interior photos, two of signature dishes, a portrait of the owner and a line on any community events the café hosts.

A one-person design studio

A short bio that doubles as the company description, a selection of project images with client permission, a list of the sectors served, a portrait and links to any talks or articles the designer has given or written.

A local trades firm

Service area and the trades covered, relevant memberships or accreditations you can verify, before-and-after photos with customer consent, a team photo in work clothes and an out-of-hours contact for urgent media questions.

Where to host it

Most small firms put the kit on a page called "Press" or "Media", linked from the footer. Let visitors view everything on the page and also download a zipped folder. Avoid hiding it behind a sign-up form: a journalist on deadline will move on rather than fill one in. A PDF version is handy for attaching to emails, but the web page is easier to keep up to date.

Mistakes that make a kit useless

• Low-resolution or heavily filtered photos
• A generic inbox with nobody named behind it
• Announcements that are two years old shown as the latest news
• Marketing slogans in place of facts
• Missing spellings of names, products or places

Does a small business really need one?

Not on day one. It becomes worthwhile once you start contacting reporters or expect them to come to you, for example ahead of an opening or a launch. When you pitch a local journalist, a link to the kit in your signature answers most of the questions that would otherwise come back.

Keeping it current

Put a review in the calendar every quarter and after each announcement. Swap out old photos, update the fact sheet, check that the contact person still works there and add the newest release to the top of the list. A kit that is accurate and easy to use quietly tells a journalist that the business behind it will be easy to work with too.