A press kit should include a short company boilerplate, a fact sheet with real numbers, leadership bios with high resolution headshots, product or service descriptions written as facts rather than marketing copy, logos in multiple formats, recent news, and a named media contact a reporter can actually reach. The point of all of it is to let a journalist write an accurate story without emailing you first. Most press kits fail at that one job, either because they read like a brochure or because nobody has touched them since the headshots were current.
What is a press kit, and who is it actually for?
A press kit, also called a media kit, is the set of facts and assets a journalist needs to write about your company without having to ask you basic questions first: what you do, who runs it, what the numbers are, and what a usable photo looks like.
It is written for one reader: someone on deadline who has never heard of you before this morning and will not hear from you again if the kit wastes their time. That reader is not your prospective customer and not an investor. A press kit written to impress either of those audiences, with soft claims and no numbers, is the wrong document for the job.
Cision's 2026 State of the Media Report, based on a survey of 1,899 journalists across North America, EMEA and APAC conducted in January and February 2026, found that 66% of journalists rely on PR-provided content, including pitches, releases and media kits, as a source of story ideas. The same survey found 72% of journalists say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant to their beat. Those two numbers together describe the opportunity and the problem: journalists are open to using what you send them, and most of what gets sent is not worth their time.
What should a press kit include?
The core list, in the order a journalist is likely to look for it:
- A boilerplate. Two or three sentences stating what the company does, when it was founded, and why it exists. This is the paragraph a reporter copies into the bottom of a story without rewriting it, so it needs to already be accurate and dull rather than promotional.
- A fact sheet. Founding date, headquarters, headcount, funding or revenue stage if you disclose it, key product names, and markets served. Numbers, not adjectives.
- Leadership bios and headshots. A few sentences per executive on background and relevant expertise, plus a high resolution and a web resolution headshot for each, with a photo credit if one applies.
- Product or service descriptions. What it does and who it is for, written the way you would explain it to a reporter on the phone, not the way you would write an ad.
- Logos. Multiple file formats, including a vector format like SVG, with basic usage guidance on spacing and color so your logo does not show up stretched or recolored in print.
- Recent news. Your last few announcements or a link to your newsroom, so a reporter can see what you have already said publicly before they call.
- A named media contact. A real person's name, a direct email, and ideally a phone number. "Media inquiries" with no name attached is a dead end for anyone working against a clock.
A press kit that is missing the fact sheet or the named contact is not a shorter version of a complete kit. It is missing the two things a reporter is most likely to need in the first thirty seconds.
How long should the boilerplate actually be?
Short enough to paste into a story unedited. Two to three sentences is the working range most newsroom-facing guides converge on: long enough to say what you do and why it matters, short enough that a reporter does not have to trim it to fit a word count. If your boilerplate needs a paragraph to explain what your company does, the problem is the positioning, not the word limit.
Keep a second, longer version, three or four sentences with a bit more background, for feature writers who want more than a wire-style mention. Both versions should say the same thing; the longer one just says it with more context.
Where should a press kit live, a page or a PDF?
A permanent, dedicated page on your own site, not a PDF you email on request. A static PDF goes stale the moment someone changes title, a round closes, or a logo gets refreshed, and old PDFs keep circulating on reporters' hard drives long after you have stopped sending them. A press kit page can be updated in minutes and never needs to be resent.
Structure the page so a reporter can scan it without downloading anything first: headings for company facts, leadership, product information, and media assets, with the text itself readable on the page rather than locked inside an image or a download. That matters for a second reason now too. Text that sits in actual HTML, not inside a graphic, is also what a search engine or an AI system can read when it is deciding what to say about you. A PDF-only kit is invisible to both.
Keep a downloadable PDF or a zipped folder of assets as a convenience for someone who wants a single file to attach to their own draft, but treat the web page as the source of truth and the file as a leave-behind.
What goes wrong with most press kits?
Three things, in order of how often they show up.
The first is marketing language where a fact belongs. "Industry-leading" and "cutting-edge" tell a reporter nothing they can print, because any claim of that kind needs a source behind it before it survives an editor's read. A fact sheet that says "3 offices, 40 employees, founded 2021" does more work than a paragraph of adjectives.
The second is assets nobody has touched in a year. A low resolution logo, a headshot of an executive who left the company, or a fact sheet with last year's headcount tells a reporter the company either does not care about its own materials or is not paying attention. Either read costs you the mention. Review the page at least once a quarter: check that every headshot matches who currently holds the role, that the numbers on the fact sheet are current, and that every download link still opens.
The third is building a brand new kit for every pitch instead of maintaining one page. That habit guarantees inconsistency: a different boilerplate in every outreach email, a different headcount in every deck. One maintained page, linked from every pitch and every release, keeps the facts the same no matter who on your team sends the email.
Source: Cision's 2026 State of the Media Report press release, linked in the article.
Do journalists actually use the materials you send them?
Yes, more than most founders assume, which is exactly why the quality bar matters. Cision's report puts PR-provided content, releases, pitches and media kits together, ahead of other sources for where journalists say their story ideas originate. That is not a guarantee any individual reporter will use yours. It means the format is not the obstacle. A journalist who already treats PR materials as a normal input will open your kit if the subject line and the first line of your pitch earn the click; what happens after that click is entirely about whether the page in front of them answers their questions or wastes their time.
That is also why a kit cannot do the work of a pitch. Writing a pitch a journalist will actually read and building the media list you send it to both come before the kit matters at all. The kit is what a reporter checks after your pitch has already earned fifteen seconds of attention, not what earns the attention in the first place.
How is a press kit different from a press release?
A press release announces one specific, time-bound thing: a launch, a funding round, a partnership. A press kit is the standing reference material behind every release, pitch and interview you ever send. You update the release once and archive it. You update the press kit continuously, because it is the thing a reporter checks before, during and after every story they write about you, not just the one tied to this week's news.
A company that only has releases and no press kit forces every reporter to reconstruct basic facts from scratch each time. A company that only has a press kit and never sends releases has nothing to tell anyone is happening right now. You need both, and they serve different moments in the same relationship.
The direct answer, for anyone who read this far
A press kit needs a short boilerplate, a fact sheet with real numbers, current leadership bios and headshots, logos in usable formats, recent news, and a named contact, hosted on one page you actually keep current rather than a PDF you forget about. It will not get you covered on its own, but a reporter who is already interested will decide how seriously to take you based on what they find when they check.
If you want a press kit built around the story a journalist is actually likely to cover, not a brochure with your logo on it, get in touch and we will show you how we would build yours.
