The Power of Press Releases

Want publicity? Then produce press releases that help generate buzz in the marketplace! It’s a simple rule of thumb, but I’m very perturbed when people ask me if I ought to just keep writing letter after letter to editors and bug them until they don’t want me to see the light of day anymore!

Well, it’s not that difficult to get proper press coverage, especially for the internet.

First, let’s understand how it works. Online, there are portals known as newswires. They have contact with many newspapers, magazines and other websites that will publish their press releases. Occasionally, if a journalist runs out of things to say, he or she will likely look for press releases to see if there is anything that can fit the current news. This is where your story might be picked up and publicized.

Second, many people think of Press Releases as free search engine optimization. Unfortunately, that’s not really the case. Many people take this notion too far, and start using press releases to spam PR sites online. That’s probably the worst thing you can do. You really have to angle your press releases properly and help the writers get some kind of angle to give them a reasonable ‘what’s in it for my readers’. The truth is that there are many people who are spamming PR sites, and if this trend continues without proper ethics, there will be no more free sites. They will slap a fee on it and even then, people will continue to spam them. That’s not what I think is a good strategy.

To do a good press release online, all you need to do is to think of a good, neutral headline that might attract attention. Something like “Millionaire donates 50% of proceeds to charity” do attract attention. However something like “How to make a milion dollars without having to break a sweat” is just not acceptable. It’s in ‘copywriting slang’ and will never attract enough attention from any decent editor. They are likely to throw it out without a seconds’ notice.

You will obviously require a proper summary, where you put in a crisp and succinct overview of your article. For instance, following from the previous example:

“Millionaire Singaporean donates $400,000 to Cancer Children’s Society to build new facility for rehabilitation. Aid assists HCS with cost reduction, could lead to 15% reduction in premature deaths.”

That would be captivating. Tell the journalist or editor “this is the what.. read on for the why and the how”.

Then in your body, repeat what you have said in prose, with more details. It is preferable to interview staff or owners. This will add a human dimension to your press release. If you have time, add comments from people who may have a different opinion to balance out the release.

You can probably submit all your press releases manually, but if you are looking for a fast way to proliferate the web, you can actually use this very powerful software to automate over 80% of all the labor required for submitting press releases across over 15 different press release sites.