I mentioned in my last post that there is one simple trick that you can do to hugely increase the chance that your press release will be picked up by the media, and here it is:

Pick up the phone. 

If you want great traffic, backlinks, branding, and exposure all over the internet, then online press release distribution sites are a great solution.

But if you have a story that genuinely has a newsworthy angle, you need to take things a step further and make a list of all the potential media outlets who might be interested in your story, and contact them.

Or hire a publicist/press release professional to do it for you. 

You need to talk to someone in the newsroom, find out who the right editor or reporter is to submit your press release to, and how to do it – fax? email? What day? How much lead time do they need?

Then you need to get your press release to them.

Then if you don’t hear back after a few days you need to follow up with a polite telephone call.

Personal contact makes all the difference in the world; odds are not great that the media outlets who would be interested in your news, are scouring the web at the exact same time that you placed a story on a free press release distribution site. So you need to follow up with some effort. It can take time, persistence, patience, finesse, and a thick skin, but getting actual media coverage is worth it’s weight in gold. 

Final note: not all press releases/stories have an angle that’s going to interest the media, although you can often find an angle or create an angle. 

Bookmark It

I have updated the list of free press release distribution sites that I use. Some formerly free sites started charging a fee, some were too annoyingly finicky and quirky and buggy so I removed them rather than tear my hair out every time I wanted to submit a press release, and then I found a few new ones to replace old ones that I removed from my list.

And if you know of any good free press release sites that are not on this list – please let me know! 

These are all sites where I have successfully created accounts and submitted press releases – there are a couple of dozen sites where I spent a lot of time trying to create an account or trying to submit a press release and was not successful. Needless to say, I left those sites off the list. 

So these are the ones that actually have worked for me. 

Are free press release sites worth your time? Based on my experience and my clients' experience, I would say most definitely. 

Advantages of free press release sites: They are a fast, free, easy, way to get your message and your company name all over the internet. Some of them are fairly high page rank which passes along some good link juice. I've gotten my clients 6 of the top 10 Google listings on the front page of google, for the keywords we selected, using free press release sites. (There's never a guarantee of this, of course; Google does what Google wants.)

Disadvantages: Many (but not all) of these sites require you to create an account, which is time consuming and tedious the first time around. Think half a day, at least, of sitting there entering in all your information, waiting for the confirmation email to show up, clicking on that link so you can enter your press release, etc. Also, these sites don't allow you to use anchor text, although you can of course put your website's URL in them, so you still get backlinks. And most of them don't allow you to include pictures or video; for that you have to use a site like www.prweb.com. 

All of the free sites have options for you to pay amounts ranging from $3 to hundreds of dollars for instant placement rather than waiting a few days, better exposure, HTML links in your press release, etc. I have not yet experimented with those to see what the results would be. 

So, without further ado, here is the NEW, UPDATED list of free press release sites that I am currently using: 

http://www.ecommwire.com – only for stories about ecommerce

 http://www.downloadjunction.com/submit_press_release – for press releases about software

http://www.techprspider.com

http://www.prhwy.com

http://www.pressabout.com  

http://www.pressmethod.com 

http://www.1888pressrelease.com 

http://www.i-newswire.com 

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com 

http://openpr.com/

http://www.clickpress.com  

www.onlineprnews.com 

http://www.freepressindex.com 

http://www.free-press-release-center.info 

http://www.prurgent.com 

http://www.prlog.org 

http://www.pressexposure.com 

www.pressabout.com

http://www.free-press-release.com 

http://www.pagerelease.com 

http://www.pressreleasepoint.com  

http://www.bignews.biz  

http://www.newswiretoday.com 

http://www.pressrelease.com.np/submit-release/ 

www.prfocus.com 

http:pr-usa.net 

 http://www.usprwire.com    

www.ukprwire.com 

Bookmark It

 Here is the standard information that press release distribution sites require:

• Company name
• Company URL
• Contact person’s name, title, email address, telephone number
• Company physical address
• Photograph of company contact person, or company president, or new product, logo, etc., if desired – not a requirement but nice to have
• A short blurb about the company, 2-4 lines is fine. This can be about the history of the company, location of the company, what the company does, what distinguishes it and makes its products or services special.
• A brief summary of what the press release is going to say. This is generally featured on the press release distribution site’s home page, along with dozens of other summaries, so it should be compelling and well written. It should not repeat the first paragraph of the story; it should summarize in two or three sentences what the story is going to say.
• The body of the press release – should answer the standard who, what, where, when, and why questions.
• It should have at least one quote from someone at the company talking about why this news matters – if you are releasing a new product, say what’s great about it. If you have received an award, thank the people at your company and the award givers and talk about what it is about your company that caused you to win the award. If you are announcing a merger, provide a quote about how this merger will help you better serve customers from both companies.
• It can’t read like an advertisement.
• When you are writing a press release, even about you and your company, you need to write it in the third person.

When you provide this information to a professional press release writer – for instance, the experienced journalists at www.thepressreleasesite.com – they will be able to craft it into a compelling and attention grabbing press release which will present you in the best possible light. 

Bookmark It

Press releases are much more widely read, and have a much better chance of being picked up by the media, if they are timely and relevant. 

One of the best ways to make them timely and relevant is to take a current news trend or event and tie it in to your press release somehow. 

 1.) The job market. If you have created any kind of internet marketing product which allows people to make money from home or work from home, for instance, you can tie it in to the fact that many people have lost their job or are in fear of losing their jobs, and need to replace lost income. Get some stats on the current unemployment rate or numbers of people laid off in the last year to back it up. 

2.) The real estate market. If you have a product that deals in virtual real estate, for instance, talk about how the real estate market is suffering but virtual real estate market is booming. If you have investment opportunities that offer a better return than real estate, emphasize that. If you have products that could help real estate agents make a sale, or training courses geared at helping real estate agents find jobs in other areas, now’s the time to pitch them. 

3.) The holiday season. Do you have a way for people to save money during the holidays, to earn more money during the holidays, to stay safer on the road during the holidays? I wrote a press release for a client that ran before Thanksgiving; he manufactures trailer hitches which reduce trailer sway. We talked about how more people are on the road during the holidays, hauling trailers, and offered safety tips geared specifically to them.

Can you offer a holiday special on your products and tie it in to the economy – you recognize that money is tight for many people, for instance, so you are offering a super special deal to your customers this year? Do you have any products that can be given as gifts, that help families stay closer together, etc.? 

4.) New Year’s Resolutions. Do you promote or sell fitness products, debt consolidation, weight loss products, stop smoking products, dating sites? …these address most of the items on people’s New Year’s resolution lists.

5.) Travel. People are staying closer to home to save money. Can you steer them towards really good travel bargains? Can you focus on the trendy new "staycation" concept and show them how to enjoy the sights they’ve never seen in their own home state? Can you pitch a mini-vacation package and explain how it’s cheaper than a traditional vacation? 

Bookmark It

So you own a business, and you would like some press coverage about that business.  

When I was a reporter, there were long stretches of time when there was no breaking news at all and I needed to find something to write about, to justify the paycheck and access to free coffee that my bosses grudgingly doled out. And believe me, every business in town would like to be featured or quoted in a positive light in the newspaper. 

However, this didn’t mean that I would pick just any business to write about for my editors. 

Here’s one example of a business owner who called me up and managed to get some free publicity and also do a good deed: after a storm, a lot of scam contractors were going around preying on desperate homeowners, taking their cash, often thousands of dollars, and then vanishing or doing little or no work and leaving the area.

So a guy who really was a licensed contractor called me up and suggested I do a story on contracting scams to look out for,  and how to verify that someone is a legitimate contractor, and offered himself as a source. I did a little checking, found out that he really was a licensed contractor – you don’t take anyone’s word for anything when you’re a reporter – and did a story and quoted him, along with a few local officials.

Why did I pick him out of all the other businesses who would have loved to be featured in the paper?

Well, why are you reading this post? 

Because I am offering you free, useful information.

I picked him  for the same reason. I quoted him because he had information that gave genuine value to our readers.

So when you are thinking of approaching a newspaper, radio station, or TV station, remember that they truly don’t care less about your business. They care about giving their customers valuable information. You need to come up with that spin, that angle, which provides value to their customers. Read the news, see what’s happening in your area, figure out what the readers or listeners or views problems are, and offer a solution – and you are liable to be the one that the reporter or editors picks out of the faceless crowd of "write about me! me me me!" businesses. 

Bookmark It

I’ll make this post short and sweet: 

List Of National Awareness Months

What can you do with this list, in your efforts to publicize your own business/product/service? Pick a charity to promote and donate a percentage of your profits to that charity, during that charity’s National Awareness Month – breast cancer awareness, Type 1 Diabetes Awareness, etc. 

And of course, send out press releases about it, to solicit more donations and drive more sales. 

Or – just post a link to a different "awareness month" cause on your site every month, with a donation button for the cause, for good Karma and community goodwill. 

And here’s a second list, with a sense of humor:

http://aware.easilyamused.org/ 

 And here’s another one:

U.K. List of Festivals and National Awareness Months

Bookmark It