The boilerplate is the short “About [Company]” paragraph at the end of a press release. It is the most reused and least thought-about part of the document — written once, pasted onto every release for years, and often quietly wrong by the time anyone rereads it.
It is also the part journalists lift verbatim when they need a sentence describing who you are. Worth twenty minutes.
What a boilerplate contains
Three or four sentences, four facts:
- What the company does, in plain language, for someone who has never heard of you
- Since when — the founding year
- Where it is based and where it operates
- Scale — customers, staff, locations, or volume. One number is enough
That is the whole brief. Anything else — mission, values, vision, awards from 2019 — is padding that reduces the chance of the paragraph being used.
A working example
About Meridian Logistics Meridian Logistics is a third-party fulfilment provider serving UK e-commerce retailers. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Salford, the company operates two warehouses in Greater Manchester and employs 94 staff.
Two sentences, 34 words, four facts. A journalist can drop that into an article unchanged, which is exactly what you want.
The same company, done badly
About Meridian Logistics Meridian Logistics is a leading provider of innovative, customer-centric fulfilment solutions, dedicated to empowering businesses through best-in-class logistics excellence. Our passionate team leverages cutting-edge technology to deliver unparalleled service and drive transformative outcomes for our valued partners.
Forty-two words and not one checkable fact. What does the company do? Where? How big? A journalist cannot use a single sentence of this, so they will write their own description — and it may not be the one you would have chosen.
The words to delete
If any of these appear in your boilerplate, cut them and see whether the paragraph still says anything:
- leading, premier, world-class, best-in-class, award-winning
- innovative, cutting-edge, next-generation, revolutionary
- passionate, dedicated, committed
- solutions, empowering, leveraging, transformative
- customer-centric, holistic, seamless, end-to-end
The test: could a competitor put their name on your boilerplate and have it still be true? If yes, it describes a category, not a company.
Where it goes and how it is formatted
At the end of the release, after the final body paragraph and before the media contact block. Headed “About [Company Name]” so it is visually separate from the news.
If two companies are involved — a partnership, an acquisition, a joint announcement — both get a boilerplate, in the order they appear in the headline.
Keeping it current
This is where most boilerplates go wrong. The numbers in it are facts with a shelf life, and a release stating you employ 40 people when you employ 94 is a small credibility problem in a document whose whole purpose is to be believable.
Review it whenever any of these change:
- Headcount, customer count or location count
- What the company actually sells
- Head office
- Ownership, after funding or acquisition
Practical habit: reread the boilerplate every time you write a release. It takes ten seconds and it is the only reliable way to catch a number that quietly went stale eighteen months ago.
Writing yours
Fill this in and stop:
About [Company Name] [Company Name] is a [what you do, in plain words] for [who you serve]. Founded in [year] and headquartered in [city], the company [one scale fact: serves X customers / operates X sites / employs X people].
If it runs past 50 words, something in it is decoration.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a press release boilerplate be?
Three or four sentences, roughly 30 to 50 words. Long enough to carry what the company does, when it started, where it is based and one measure of scale. Past 50 words you are almost always adding adjectives rather than facts.
Where does the boilerplate go in a press release?
At the end, after the last body paragraph and before the media contact details, under a heading reading “About [Company Name]”. Keeping it visually separate signals that it is background rather than part of the announcement.
Should the boilerplate be the same on every release?
Yes, and that consistency is the point — it becomes the standard description of your company across every published release. Change it only when a fact in it changes, not to suit each announcement.
Can I include a link in the boilerplate?
One link to your homepage is normal and expected. Do not use the boilerplate to carry additional keyword-rich links to commercial pages — it is one of the clearest signals that a release was written for links rather than for readers.
Do two companies both need a boilerplate?
For a partnership, acquisition or joint announcement, yes — each company gets its own, in the order they appear in the headline. Agree the wording with the other party before publishing, because a boilerplate they disagree with will be corrected publicly.
Next
The boilerplate is one of seven parts. Our guide to writing a press release covers the rest with a template, press release headlines covers the part editors read first, and press release examples shows six complete releases. When yours is ready, submit it.
