Step 1 – Lists: Who do you want to send your press release to?

Here you are asked to pick a list or saved search of contacts that you would like to send your press release to. 

At the bottom of the page, you then have an Add Additional Email Addresses box, where you can add contacts not on your lists.  This can include other journalists and influencers, colleagues or anyone else you wish to send the email.

Note: Any emails put in this box will come out of your email allowance. 

Once you are happy with your selection, click the "Next Step" button at the bottom of the page. 

Step 2 – Content: Who is it from, and who can your contacts reply to?

Step two addresses the required information needed for your press release to meet the standards of regulations and laws around the world. 

The first field is what you want to name your press release, this can be anything as only you and your tagged colleagues can see this.  This is simply the name you give it so that you can find it in Agility at a later time. The second field is the Email subject line; this is what the contacts in your list will see.

Next you put the name of who the email is from.  This can be from you or someone else’s name if you are doing this on behalf of another individual. Then, put the email address that the contacts can reply back to and where all the bounce back emails will be sent.

As we are a global company, it is a requirement to state where this email is coming from, therefore your company address is needed. This is a mandatory field; you will not be able to move onto step three if this is not completed.

At the bottom of this page, you can choose when you would like this email to be sent. You have the option to either send it off straight away ('Immediate') or pick a date and time of when you would like it to be sent ('Schedule a time in the future'). 

If you choose to schedule a time in the future, you can fill in the below fields to specify that time. 

If you choose another time zone, you have the option to make that time zone default.

Note: Once you have selected a time zone, it automatically calculates the time you have chosen and when to send it out to that time zone so you don’t have to.

Step two allows you to go back to step one, cancel the whole distribution process, save this as a draft or move on to step three.

Step 3 – Content

Best practice is to create and edit your content directly in the editor, which gives you access to a selection of tools that enable you to format your content. You can include anchor links, images, tables and block quotes, as well as styling your content as you wish. We have added the ability to make your font-size responsive rather than static, by selecting an em unit for your text rather than the traditional static font-size.

If you do prefer to use content from a Word document that you have created, we do advise uploading it rather than copying and pasting it into the editor. As you may know, Word files are not designed to be mobile friendly and may contain formatting that  could negatively impact the success of your release. If you upload or copy directly from Word as opposed to creating the content directly in Agility, you may lose the mobile friendly benefits of using our responsive HTML editor. 

To upload a press release saved as a Microsoft Word document, please use the upload tool:

At the bottom of the editor is the signature that has pulled information from step two, as well as your account settings. This is mandatory as it is a legal requirement in many countries for electronic communication. It will state your name and reply to email address, the company name, the company address and the email address of the person logged into the account. 

Underneath this, then has the option for the contact to unsubscribe from receiving emails from your company. 

Just above the editor, you'll see the options you can use within the email to make it more personalized to each recipient, regardless of the scale of your outreach. 

Adding [FNAME], for example, into the body of your press release, will pull the contacts first same, so it could read “Dear Sam” or “Dear Susan”. If you have created an Outlet targeted list, then you can use [OUTLETNAME] to achieve the same thing, except this time it will say the Outlet name such as “Dear The Guardian” or “Dear GQ Magazine”.

If you're concerned about the appearance of your email on mobile platforms, please see this article as well:

You also have the option to attach files to your distribution, this can be found just below the editor. Note that the size of the attachment can be no bigger than 5 MB.

Once you have added your press release and added any attachments if needed, you can then send yourself a test email using the button on the side of the editor. 

Step 4 – Confirm: Are you happy with the information you’ve input?

This is your confirmation page, you can go through everything you have filled out and make sure everything is how you want it. If you do need to make changes, there are edit buttons on the right hand side of every section.  Clicking this will take you back to the relevant page to make changes. 

Note: You may notice the number of recipients decreases at this point. This is because, Agility removes duplicates from the targeted list. Meaning, if there are contacts with email addresses that appear more than once, Agility will delete the duplicates so that the contact only receives the email once.

After you have checked all areas, you then have the option to send other people the confirmation email to say this distribution has been sent. You will get the email by default. 

When you are happy with the whole distribution, you can then tick the check box, agreeing to either sending it out immediately or with the scheduled time and then press submit.