Strategy
Part of Press release or service notice? Choosing a format for routine updates
Press release distribution planning template: route rows and reversal
A blank press release distribution planning template for one England announcement: one row per candidate route, plus cost, acceptance and reversal fields.
Use one row per candidate route, the baseline included, and write the reversal plan before anything is sent. Square brackets are buyer-owned fields, not sample answers. Leave a field open rather than inserting an invented target, deadline, price, service level or audience response.
What to take away
- Give every candidate route its own row, including the manual baseline.
- Keep submission, acceptance, syndication, indexing, publication, attention, readership, traffic and commercial effect as separate states.
- Do not combine route rows into a score until their functions are comparable.
- Independent editorial coverage is not a deliverable controlled by the buyer or transmission supplier.
- Write the stop condition and rollback route before the send, not after a problem.
Fill the route table one candidate at a time
Complete one row per candidate, starting with the manual baseline: buyer newsroom and authorised manual activity. Using the same fields for every route shows what each one can evidence and what it cannot, before any comparison is made.
| Field | Buyer entry | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| Route category | [owned newsroom / direct outreach / technical transmission / paid placement / monitoring / earned editorial] | One category; a route that spans two gets two rows |
| Immediate function | [ ] | The one thing the route does at once |
| Payer and commercial unit | [ ] | Who pays and what the contract counts |
| Recipient or endpoint definition | [ ] | The exact recipients or endpoints, not a general audience |
| Deliverable and status vocabulary | [ ] | What the route promises and what each status word means |
| Evidence returned | [ ] | The record the route gives back |
| What the evidence cannot prove | [ ] | The states the record does not reach |
| Rights and personal-data roles | [ ] | Who owns the assets and who controls personal data |
| Correction, withdrawal and exit | [ ] | How an item is corrected, pulled and exported |
| Proceed, revise or reject | [ ] | The decision, with its reason recorded |
Keep the states apart
The objective must describe an event the buyer or supplier can evidence. Submission, endpoint acceptance, syndication, indexing, editorial publication, attention, readership, traffic and commercial effect are separate states, and the row should name the one that its evidence actually reaches.
The Magenta Book is HM Treasury guidance on evaluation in government, covering its scoping, design, conduct, use and dissemination. Use its evidence discipline in the fields on evidence, not as proof that this announcement caused anything.
Do not combine the rows into a score until the functions are comparable. A technical receipt and a newsroom page do different jobs, and independent editorial coverage is not a deliverable controlled by the buyer or the transmission supplier. For the choice among routes, see the planning guide on distinct channels.
Cost and acceptance fields
Record the cost and the acceptance event in the same record as the route, so the money and the proof are read together.
- Currency, VAT basis, unit and period
- [ ]
- One-off and recurring buyer costs
- [ ]
- Internal labour definition
- [ ]
- Acceptance event and evidence owner
- [ ]
Take the VAT basis from the supplier's invoice. On HMRC's VAT guidance, invoices must include the VAT number and display the VAT separately, so a quote that shows one blended amount leaves the basis open. A blank announcement budget can take these figures once they exist.
Reversal fields
Fill these before the send. A stop condition written afterwards only describes a problem that has already happened.
- Stop condition
- [ ]
- Containment action
- [ ]
- Rollback or correction route
- [ ]
- Restart authority and evidence required
- [ ]
- Export, deletion and continuity evidence
- [ ]
When the stop condition is met, the sequence is short:
- Stop the affected route and no other.
- Containapply the containment action and keep the records.
- Roll back or correct through the named route.
- Restart only on the authority recorded, with the evidence required.
Sign-off
The approval owner signs only after every applicable gate has an owner and a record. The team roles page says who holds release, facts, corrections, rights and privacy, and the evidence gates say what each must show.
This template remains a publication-hold planning aid, not a completed legal, privacy, accessibility, security, tax or procurement assessment. A public business contact is not automatic permission for direct marketing, so the personal-data row follows the ICO guidance on data protection.
Before you act
- Complete one route row per candidate, including the baseline.
- Name the state each row's evidence reaches, and the states it does not.
- Leave a field open rather than inventing a target or deadline.
- Take the VAT basis from the invoice and record the unit and period.
- Write the stop condition, containment action and rollback route.
- Record the restart authority and the export and deletion evidence.
Common questions
What does the template say about combining route rows into a score?
It says do not combine the rows into a score until the functions are comparable. Each candidate gets its own row, including the baseline, and the last field records proceed, revise or reject with the reason.
Why does each row ask what the evidence cannot prove?
Each route returns a record that reaches one state, such as endpoint acceptance, and stops there. Naming the states it does not reach stops a technical receipt being read as publication, readership or commercial effect.
When should the reversal fields be filled in?
Before the send. The stop condition, containment action, rollback or correction route and restart authority are written first, so that a problem is met with a recorded plan rather than a decision made under pressure.
