Writing Press Releases
How to Get Free Publicity
Writing press releases is a great small business marketing strategy. Use the guidelines posed in the questions below and learn how to get free publicity. When it comes to marketing your business with this and other publicity methods, there are various ways you to to about it. A popular option is to pay for advertisement in a newspaper or somewhere online. You can also do something newsworthy that will cause the very same people to mention your business or product for free.
Writing press releases that are well received and publicized often have the same effectiveness as an advertisement costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. And depending on the nature of your product or service, you may even be able to garner national exposure in addition to local media coverage.
As with other areas of your business, it is helpful to take the time to sit down and define your publicity goals for how to get free publicity and map out a plan to achieve them. Here are the questions that will help you get started in the right direction.
1. What overall marketing objective do you want to accomplish with writing press releases?
Your answers could be anything from increasing sales, introducing a new product or service, or building overall awareness of your company – or any combination of these or other objectives.
2. Who do you want to reach with your public relations campaign?
As with your other small business marketing strategies, define a “target audience” and know beforehand exactly who you want to see or hear your marketing message. Are these people within a certain geographic area? Do they share a common demographic such as age, sex, or income level?
3. What message do you want to send to your target audience?
This message may change with writing press releases you send, but they will typically focus on either a specific product or service you are trying to promote, or may be more general in nature and focused on activities within your community.
4. What media do you plan to focus on?
This will depend mostly on the target market you defined earlier. If for example you are trying to get the attention of business owners within your area, submitting a press release to a local business journal or website would most likely be more effective than submitting it to the local newspaper that everyone in town reads.
5. What actions do you want the people who see your message to take?
As with any other type of advertisement, be specific and tell people what you want them to do after they see your message called the most wanted response. Do you want them to call or visit your website? If you are supporting a community wide event such as a fundraiser for a local charity, you will need to give them the details about the event such as where it will be held and who they need to contact if they need to register for anything in advance.
Answering the above basic questions honestly and accurately will give you a basic foundation in place for an effective public relations campaign. Writing press releases need to be well written to learn how to get free publicity and used as an effective small business marketing strategy. If you need some help, please let me know.
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