Press Release Headlines: Formulas, Examples and a Checklist
The formulas, rules and tests for writing a press release headline editors understand in a glance, with before-and-after rewrites and a copyable checklist.
A good press release headline names the company, uses an active verb and states exactly what happened, ideally with one specific number, in about 12 words or fewer. Journalists decide whether to open a release from the headline alone, so it has to be understood instantly, not merely noticed. This guide gives you the formulas, the patterns that fail, before-and-after rewrites and a checklist to run before you send.
Key Takeaways
- The core formula: company name + active verb + what happened + one number if you have it.
- Aim for roughly 6 to 12 words, or 70 to 100 characters, so it survives email previews and search results.
- Clarity beats curiosity. Teasers, questions and adjective piles are the most common reasons headlines get skipped.
- Use one number, and only if it is the news. Put the second number in the subheadline or lead.
- Draft 10 or more versions, then run the stranger, newspaper and deletion tests before choosing.
What a press release headline has to do
A press release headline has one job: state what happened clearly enough that a stranger understands it without reading anything else. That sounds modest, but it rules out most of the habits people bring from other kinds of writing.
A blog headline tries to make you curious. An ad headline tries to make you want something. A press release headline tries to be understood. Curiosity actively works against you here, because a reporter scanning dozens of releases in a morning will skip anything that makes them do extra work to find out what the news is.
In practice the headline carries three roles at once:
- The gatekeeper. It often becomes the subject line of your pitch email and the first line an editor sees in a wire feed. If it does not register immediately, nothing below it gets read.
- The summary. It must compress the entire release into one line. If a reader saw only the headline, they should still know the news.
- The search title. Once published, it usually becomes the page title of the release, which is what search engines and news aggregators display.
Reading behavior on screens backs this up. In the Nielsen Norman Group’s long-running studies of how people read on the web, 79% of test users scanned any new page, and only 16% read word by word. A headline that only makes sense on a careful second read is, for most readers, a headline that never gets read.
The core headline formula
Almost every headline that works follows the same four-part pattern:
[Company name] + [active verb] + [what happened] + [optional: the one number that matters]
Keep it under about 12 words. The company name tells the reader whose news it is; the verb tells them what kind of event it is; the object tells them the specifics; the number tells them the scale.
Working examples
- Meridian Logistics Opens Second Warehouse in Joliet
- Kettle & Co Raises $2.4 Million to Expand Refill Network
- Halden Group Names Rachel Osborne Chief Operating Officer
- Verano Foods Moves 60% of Long-Haul Freight to Rail
- Northline Coffee Opens First US Roastery in Portland
Each names the company, uses an active verb and states a fact. A newspaper could run any of them unchanged, which is the point. All companies in this guide are fictional examples; you can see several of them as full releases in our press release examples.
Three more formulas for specific situations
The core formula covers most news. These three variations help when the story is mainly about impact, a metric or a problem being solved.
1. Action plus impact. Use when the event matters mainly because of what it changes.
[Company] + [action verb] + [product, deal or milestone] + to + [specific result]
Example: Solara Grid Acquires Prairie Panel to Add Solar Installs in Three Midwest States
2. Data-driven. Use when a number is the whole story: users, revenue, a survey finding.
[Company] + [reaches, passes, finds] + [number or metric] + [timeframe or context]
Example: FinTrail Passes 1 Million Active Users in First Quarter of 2026
3. Problem-solution. Use when the reader cares more about the problem than about your company.
[Company] + [launches, introduces] + [solution] + for + [specific group with specific problem]
Example: ClearVisit Launches Telehealth Service for Rural Clinics Without Specialists
Notice what all three have in common with the core formula: the company still comes first, the verb is still active, and the result is still concrete. “To solve the rural healthcare gap” is a mission statement; “for rural clinics without specialists” is a fact.
Headline templates by announcement type
| Announcement | Template | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Funding | [Company] Raises $[amount] [round] to [use of funds] | Kettle & Co Raises $2.4 Million Seed Round to Open 30 Refill Stations |
| Product launch | [Company] Launches [product] for [who / what it does] | Arbor Software Adds Offline Mode for Field Engineers |
| New hire | [Company] Names [Name] [Title] | Halden Group Names Rachel Osborne Chief Operating Officer |
| Partnership | [Company] and [Partner] [do specific thing] | Verano Foods and Central Valley Rail Shift Freight Off Highways |
| Expansion | [Company] Opens [site] in [city], Adding [number] Jobs | Northline Coffee Opens Portland Roastery, Adding 18 Jobs |
| Award | [Company] Named [award] by [organizer] | Fairweather Dental Named Practice of the Year at Midwest Care Awards |
| Research | [Company] Survey Finds [finding] | Ledgerly Survey Finds 41% of Small Retailers Offer Pay-Later |
| Recall | [Company] Recalls [number] [product] Due to [hazard] | Brightwell Home Recalls 18,400 Space Heaters Due to Overheating Risk |
For funding in particular, the amount and lead investor are what business reporters search their inbox for; our guide on how to announce funding covers what else belongs in the first paragraph.
How long a press release headline should be
Aim for roughly 6 to 12 words, which usually lands between 70 and 100 characters. That range is long enough to name the company and state what happened, and short enough to read in a glance.
There are practical reasons for the limit. Email clients cut long subject lines in the inbox preview, especially on phones. Search engines trim long titles too: Google’s documentation on title links says there is no fixed limit on a title’s length, but the displayed title is truncated as needed, typically to fit the device width. If the news sits at the end of a long headline, it is the part that gets cut.
If you cannot get under 12 words, you are usually trying to fit two facts. Keep the one that is the news and move the other into the subheadline. The body has its own length conventions, covered in how long a press release should be.
Verbs, voice and the words to cut
Use active voice
Active voice puts the company in front doing something, which is both shorter and clearer than passive constructions.
- Passive: A New Partnership Was Formed by Solara Grid and Prairie Panel
- Active: Solara Grid Partners With Prairie Panel on Midwest Solar Installs
Pick a verb that names the event
“Announces” is the weakest verb available, because every press release announces something. Replace it with the verb that describes what actually happened.
| Instead of | Use a specific verb |
|---|---|
| Announces funding | Raises, closes, secures |
| Announces new product | Launches, releases, adds, ships |
| Announces new executive | Names, appoints, hires, promotes |
| Announces location | Opens, expands to, moves to |
| Announces deal | Acquires, signs, partners with, wins |
| Announces results | Finds, reports, passes, reaches |
Cut the hype
Words like revolutionary, groundbreaking, world-class, industry-leading, cutting-edge and first-of-its-kind (unless you can prove it) make reporters trust the rest of the release less. The same Nielsen Norman Group research found that promotional language adds a cognitive burden, because readers have to filter out the exaggeration to reach the facts. Exclamation points do the same damage. If the news is strong, a plain statement of it is stronger.
Five headline patterns that fail
1. The adjective pile
“Leading Industry Innovator Unveils Revolutionary New Solution”
Nothing here is checkable or specific. Every word could describe any company doing anything. Adjectives in a headline usually signal that there is no fact strong enough to state plainly.
2. The curiosity gap
“You Won’t Believe What This Startup Just Did”
This can work in a social feed and fails with editors. Withholding the news from a document whose only purpose is delivering the news defeats itself.
3. The abstraction
“Company X Announces Strategic Initiative to Drive Growth”
A strategic initiative is not an event. Something concrete happened underneath it: a hire, a site, a product, a contract. Name that instead.
4. The buried subject
“In a Move That Signals Continued Regional Expansion, Meridian Opens New Site”
The news arrives at the end, which is also where truncation strikes. Cut everything before the company name and the headline improves at once.
5. The missing company
“New Warehouse Opens in Joliet”
Whose warehouse? A headline that leaves out the company loses the one branded search term it was going to earn, and forces the reader to open the release just to learn who it is about.
Where the number goes
If you have a number, use it. Numbers stand out visually in a list of text and give an editor instant scale. But use only one, and only if it is the news.
| Without a number | With the number that matters |
|---|---|
| Kettle & Co Raises Seed Funding | Kettle & Co Raises $2.4 Million to Expand Refill Network |
| Meridian Opens Second Warehouse | Meridian Logistics Opens 40,000-Square-Foot Joliet Warehouse |
| Verano Foods Shifts to Rail Freight | Verano Foods Moves 60% of Long-Haul Freight to Rail |
| FinTrail Hits User Milestone | FinTrail Passes 1 Million Active Users |
Two numbers in one headline is one too many. Pick the one that is the story and put the other in the first paragraph. And every number must be supportable: if the body cannot back up “cuts costs by 50%,” the headline will cost you credibility the moment a reporter asks for the source.
The subheadline
A subheadline (sometimes called a deck) is optional. It is one line, sits under the headline, and should add a fact rather than restate the headline.
Meridian Logistics Opens Second Warehouse in Joliet
The 40,000-square-foot site doubles the company’s Midwest capacity and adds 26 jobs
If your subheadline only rephrases the headline, delete it. It costs attention and gives nothing back.
Capitalization, punctuation and style
Both title case and sentence case are accepted in press releases. Title case (capitalizing major words) remains common on wire services; sentence case reads more like modern news. AP style, which most US newsrooms follow, uses sentence case for headlines: capitalize the first word and proper nouns only. Whichever you pick, use it consistently across every release, because inconsistency is more noticeable than the choice itself.
A few punctuation rules keep headlines clean:
- No exclamation points. They read as promotional and many editors strip them.
- Colons and dashes sparingly. A colon can separate a program name from the news, but a headline that needs one often has two ideas in it.
- Numerals, not words. “3 Plants,” not “Three Plants,” in most headline styles; AP headlines use numerals too.
- Single quotation marks in headlines if you follow AP style.
- No ALL CAPS beyond acronyms. It reads as shouting and hurts scanning.
Before and after: eight headline rewrites
These rewrites show the formula applied to weak headlines of the kind that fill inboxes every day. Each “after” version names the company, uses a specific verb and states a checkable fact.
| Before | After | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| A Local Company Announces a Groundbreaking New Solution for Software Development | Ridgeway Code Launches AI Code Review Tool That Flags Security Bugs Before Merge | Named the company and the product; replaced hype with what it does |
| Exciting News: We’re Growing! | Northline Coffee Opens Portland Roastery, Adding 18 Jobs | Stated the actual growth event and its scale |
| Halden Group Welcomes a New Member to Its Leadership Team | Halden Group Names Rachel Osborne Chief Operating Officer | Named the person and title |
| A New Partnership Was Formed Between Two Industry Leaders | Verano Foods Signs Three-Year Rail Deal to Cut Truck Freight | Active voice, named company, stated the term and effect |
| Is This the Future of Refill Shopping? | Kettle & Co Raises $2.4 Million to Expand Refill Network | Replaced a question with the news |
| Fairweather Dental Honored With Prestigious Award | Fairweather Dental Named Practice of the Year at Midwest Care Awards | Named the award and who gave it |
| Ledgerly Releases Its Annual Small Business Report | Ledgerly Survey Finds 41% of Small Retailers Now Offer Pay-Later | Led with the finding, not the document |
| Important Safety Information Regarding Brightwell Heaters | Brightwell Home Recalls 18,400 Space Heaters Due to Overheating Risk | Stated the action, number and hazard plainly |
One pattern stands out: almost every weak version describes the company’s feelings about the news (exciting, proud, honored, welcomes). Every strong version describes the news.
Headlines, search and email subject lines
Because the headline becomes the title of the published release, it affects how the page appears in search. You do not need to force keywords into it. A headline that names the company and states a specific event naturally contains the terms people search for, such as the brand, the product, the city or the type of deal. Write for the journalist first; the search benefit follows. If you want to go further, our guide to press release SEO covers titles, URLs and anchor text on the published page.
When you email the release to a reporter, the headline often doubles as the subject line. It can be the same or a slightly shorter version, but it should still lead with the news rather than with “Press release:” or “For your consideration.” The pitch around it matters too; see how to pitch a story to a journalist for the rest of the email.
How to write and test your headline
Draft 10 to 15 versions
The first headline you write is rarely the best. Write the release first, then draft at least 10 headline options using different formulas: one core-formula version, one led by the number, one led by the audience or problem. Reading them side by side makes the clearest one obvious. Some people also write the headline last for this reason: it is easier to summarize news you have already explained.
Run three tests before you send
- The stranger test. Show the headline alone to someone outside your company. Can they say what happened? If they have to ask a clarifying question, the headline failed.
- The newspaper test. Could a publication run it unchanged? If it would need rewriting to read as news, rewrite it yourself first.
- The deletion test. Remove every adjective. If the headline still says what happened, the adjectives were decoration. If it collapses, you had a description, not a headline.
A/B test when you can
If you send pitches through email software, you can test two versions: send one headline as the subject line to a small part of your media list and the second to another part, then use the one with the higher open rate for the rest. Treat the result as a hint rather than proof, since small lists produce noisy numbers. On an evergreen published release, you can compare click-through for different titles in Google Search Console over several weeks.
Press release headline checklist
Copy this list and run every headline through it before distribution.
Headline checklist
- Company name appears, ideally as the first words
- Uses an active, specific verb (not “announces”)
- States what happened in plain words a stranger would understand
- Includes one number, if a number is the news
- About 6 to 12 words, roughly 70 to 100 characters
- No hype words: revolutionary, groundbreaking, world-class, industry-leading
- No exclamation points, questions or ALL CAPS
- Consistent case style (title case or AP sentence case)
- Every claim can be backed up in the first paragraph
- Subheadline, if any, adds a new fact
- Passes the stranger, newspaper and deletion tests
The headline is one part of a larger document. The first paragraph must deliver on it, the quote should add a reason or decision, and the boilerplate closes with who you are. Our full guide on how to write a press release puts all the parts together with a template.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should a press release headline be?
Aim for about 6 to 12 words, or roughly 70 to 100 characters. That is enough to name the company and state what happened while staying readable in an email preview or search result. Extra context belongs in the subheadline or first paragraph.
Should the company name be in the headline?
Yes, almost always, and ideally at the start. It tells the reader whose news it is and gives the published page the branded term it will be found by later. A headline that describes an event without naming the company gives up both.
Title case or sentence case?
Either is accepted. Title case is still common on wire releases, while AP style uses sentence case for headlines, capitalizing only the first word and proper nouns. Choose one and keep it consistent across all your releases.
Can I use a question as a press release headline?
Almost never. A question withholds the news, which is the opposite of what the format is for. Even research releases that answer a question work better stating the finding.
Can I use punctuation like colons or dashes?
Sparingly. A colon or dash can separate a program or event name from the news, but if a headline needs one, check whether it is trying to say two things. Avoid exclamation points entirely.
How do I optimize a press release headline for SEO?
Name the company, the product or event and, where relevant, the location, and put the most important words first so truncation does not cut them. Make sure the headline matches the release content. Avoid repeating keywords, which Google’s own title guidance advises against.
Should I write the headline first or last?
Many writers draft a working headline first to stay focused, then rewrite it last once the release is finished. Writing it last makes it easier to summarize the news accurately in a few words.
Before you hit send
Read your headline one more time as if you had never heard of your company. If it tells you who did what, with one concrete detail, it is ready. When the full release is ready too, you can publish it on a permanent, indexed page through Concierge Wire’s press release submission.
