Skip powerpoints, discover the beauty of Mock Press Releases to pitch ideas

As a global company whose sales are currently poised to grow by 24 per cent, Amazon certainly has a lot of moving parts behind its success. For the world’s leading e-commerce company employing 20,000 people, innovation is at the heart of its business.

But have you ever wondered how ideas from thousands of people get processed?

A powerpoint presentation just doesn’t do it at Amazon. They rely on a unique technique — a press release.

The way Amazon prefers to hear and develop ideas is backward from the consumer. If the idea isn’t powerful and interesting enough with a strong proposition that can get customers on board, the idea isn’t worth it.

A press release works very well for this approach. Every employee of Amazon who has an idea, needs to research and develop it properly; and then write a “future” press release with the customer in mind.

It’s a practice that Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon started in the early days of Amazon; and it is still being practised.

Essentially, one needs to write the press release as if it is already launched in the market, and has seen success. It has a few core components:

1. Customer first: What is the need or problem that the customer is facing and how will your solution solve it? The press release needs to answer strong questions, show behaviour patterns, preferably with facts.

2. A smart goal: Say your product has launched 6 months ago, where do you stand today? The success written in the press release needs to be measurable; for example, your website has sold products to 10,000 customers or has seen a 50 per cent growth rate. Success needs to be specific and time oriented.

3. Challenges overcome: No launch is without hurdles, and these need to be detailed, measurable as well as understandable. There should be a clear link the idea’s possibility to generate these problems, as well as the solutions that help overcome it.

Of course you cannot simply write a press release without any basis. It has to be followed with facts and actually have the desired impact you are writing for.

However, a press release written in this manner is a good technique because it practically makes people think about the customer, with an aim to convince them. Moreover, an idea often seems great in the mind, but when you actually start putting words on paper, that’s when one begins to see the holes, and think about the various aspects that its success is dependent upon.