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Press Release Press releases are a powerful tool for any online or offline business. Your blog, website, or any online business promotional efforts, can be multiplied many times over by being the topic of a news story.
A mention of you and your online business, in any of the online or offline media, will get your business story out to a wider audience than almost any other method.
By being the subject of a news story, your site and business receive an implicit endorsement, that no amount of money spent on advertising can match.
People tend to put more confidence in a business that is covered in a news article than they do in any paid advertisement. It should be part of your business promotional strategy to get your message into the various news media.
The established road into the news media is by way of a press release.
Your first step is to find a newsworthy story. In the news business, that is referred to as the "angle". To find a news angle, many people suggest thinking like a journalist.
An even better idea is to think like an editor. The publication editor will always want to know the news value of the story and its angle. It's up to you to provide it for them.
Send them a press release.
There are many story ideas lurking in your business right now. You may have a new product that serves a specific need. Your website may have been redesigned in a new and unique way. Your staff may have had additions. Your site may have some special holiday or seasonal value. You may be involved in some unusual promotional or charitable events. There is also the good old human interest story.
A press release is like a cover letter and resume for your news story. It is written like a news story. In fact, some publications will print your press release without alteration, but don't count on it. The best idea is to write it like a journalist would and review it through the eyes of the editor.
To start writing your press release, you must include some basic and necessary components.
Start with a headline. The headline is probably the single most important part of the release. It is the grabber. It makes or loses the sale. A busy editor, inundated with hundreds of press releases may not read beyond the headline.
Make it count. Words like You, New, How, Now, are especially important and will help grab the editor's attention.
Like the headline in a good sales letter, newsletter, or your website, spend the majority of your time on the headline. It can make or break whether your story gets included or not. A headline should convey the idea of the article and compel the editor to read on to the lead paragraph.
The lead paragraph will answer the classic five who, what, where, when, and why questions. It should flow smoothly from the idea conveyed in the headline.
The lead, as it's called, should answer directly to the headline. If it doesn't either the lead, the headline, or both should be rewritten to send the same message.
The main body of your press release appears in the middle, following the lead paragraph. Here is where you provide the supporting news story for your lead and headline. Be sure to include some quotes from the key people involved in the story.
Write the press release in the inverted pyramid style. By that, we mean place the most important information first, and the less important supporting information second. Use short sentences with action verbs.
Be sure your press release reads as a news story and not as a sales letter. If it sounds like sales literature, it will likely end up in the trash or delete file.
At the end of the release, be certain to have your name, phone number where you are available, and a link to your blog or website.
Your contact information should also appear at the top of the release, below the headline. There you would include your company name, your contact name, address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address, and your website URL.
Make yourself readily available and easily reached at all times to the media. If your release is not used, but you are easily contacted, you may still find yourself asked about other news stories in your industry.
If at all possible, get to know as many editors and journalists, who cover your industry and business in general. That familiarity, can get your press release noticed, and your name remembered, for other industry news stories.
Send your press release to the online and traditional offline media who cover news stories in your industry. If the news angle you have chosen has wider appeal, feel free to send it to other media who cover that news area.
Avoid sending your release to media who would have no interest in your story. Don't ever be seen as a spammer. Your future releases will invariably wind up deleted if you are regarded that way.
While everyone imagines their story in the big city daily newspapers, they are only the tip of the iceberg. For them, your best bet is the business or technology section.
Don't overlook small weekly newspapers. Their distribution is local and their readers are your potential customers. Often pressed for time and staff resources, they may publish your release as is.
Inundating the media with press releases has not been a good practice since shortly after Edward Bernays opened the first PR firm in 1919. Any competent PR person has known for years that garnering media coverage almost nevër directly happens due to a press release.
Let's talk about the evolution of the press release into a solid tool for helping organizations deliver key messages to multiple audiences in the digital age.
In the not-so-distant pre-Internet past, press releases were aimed solely at trade and consumer media outlets. The media acted as the gatekeepers, taking your information and making decisions about how, or if, to use it. Organizations today are able to bypass the media filter in a number of ways, thanks to the net.
Consider this: both journalists and consumers use the web for research. More than 550 million searches are done daily via the web. And, every month, US web-users conduct 27 million searches at Yahoo! News, Google News or other news search engines. According to recent surveys it is learnt that:
But you need to think differently about writing your releases in this new age. You can extend the power of your press releases beyond the media by positioning them for search engine pick up. In effect, your press releases become a long-lasting, online, searchable database about your organization.
Once properly written with both readers and search engines in mind, you need to distribute the release.
PR Web™ and PR Newswire are my two favorite ways to get the message out. Both services help you reach into the newsroom and beyond.
PR Web emails press releases daily to between 60,000 - 100,000 global contacts points. Journalists, analysts, freelance writers, media outlets and newsrooms, as well as your average web users are signed up to receive this information. Also, it distributes releases via FTP, XML feeds and through a network of its own websites. PR Web-related sites are in the top 2,500 most visited sites. Every release sent out through PR Web is optimized for search engines, and PR Web guarantees your release will be picked up by Yahoo!, which is the number one most visited website on the Internet.
The granddaddy of press release services is PR Newswire, which distributes directly into the central editing computers at daily newspapers, newsweeklies, national news services, trade publications and broadcast newsrooms. It reaches a total of 22,000 media points in the US alone. All releases are distributed to and archived in more than 3,600 web sites, databases and online services. Additionally, PR Newswire's website is in the top 2,000 most visited sites on the Internet.
Finally, let's take a look at the online media room. Its primary purpose is to provide journalists with easily accessible data about the organization, such as executive bios, earnings figures, key contacts and other solid, factual information. An organization also should place news releases hëre, particularly those aimed at key stakeholders like employees, strategic allies, and investors. Technology savvy consumers often visit online media rooms for the same reason journalists do: they expect to find factual information there.
Churning out releases and dumping them willy-nilly on the media is a dumb practice. But using releases as a strategic weapon to reach key audiences across the digital divide is smart PR. Practitioners who believe the news release is dead need to evolve, or they will be the moribund ones.
Visit the Web sites of all the major broadcasters and publications relevant to your product or service, or even just the local newspapers, compile a list of their contact e-mail addresses.
Then put together a press release. This should be of a standard format -
Plain text, with no attachments, and the usual conventions for a press release - begins, contact information, ends, notes for editors.Here's a template to give you the better idea -
http://www.marketingsource.com/press releases/releaseformat.htmlAdditionally Check Out Our RSS Feed on Various Topics such as Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Ways to Make Money On Line, and much More. The Feed is Updated every 3-4 Days.
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