Day 19 – Press Releases
Online press releases are slightly different to conventional offline press
releases. Conventional press releases are targeted at encouraging a journalist to
reprint part or all of your release in their publication. However, in addition to
targeting journalists, an online press release also needs to focus on two other
areas:
1) The end reader – your target market may end up reading your online press
release on a press release website.
2) Search engine optimization – many press release websites have significant
authority with search engines because of the volume of original material
which is regularly published. Because of this, an online press release
should be structured in an optimized manner.
Online press releases should also help you by increasing your brand awareness,
and increasing your number of leads.
Online press releases as part of your internet marketing strategy
An online press release can be one of the most effective methods of promoting a
new website. And one of the great things about an online press release
submission is that it doesn’t have to cost anything near to the cost of submitting a
press release through a conventional PR agency.
An online press release doesn’t have to be completely unique, but it should have
a unique angle, something which will encourage journalists to consider
republishing a segment from your release.
If writing a press release is your forte, you may well find that just half an hour per
week focused in writing and submitting press releases could be an extremely
effective form of internet marketing.
5 online press release tips
The following are 5 characteristics which embody an effective press release…
1) Have a great, eye catching title – and include your keyword phrase
Your headline needs to be targeted at journalists, end readers, and search
engines. In other words, in needs to be engaging enough for both journalists and
other interested readers to be encouraged to read further – and it needs to
include a keyword phrase that you deem suitable for the story.
2) Briefly describe the story in the first two lines, again including your keyword
phrase
The first two lines of your press release should contain absolutely no waffle. It
should try to summarize your whole press release story while also including a
reason to read further. Finally, in should also include the same keyword phrase
that you included in the title.
3) Keep all paragraphs short and to the point
All the paragraphs from your press release should be as simple as possible, with
no more than three or four lines per paragraph. It is difficult for a reader to
browse through long bits or chunks of text online, and journalists are even more
likely to stop and move on to the next release if they perceive yours to be even
the slightest bit dull. Eliminate anything that doesn’t contribute to your story.
4) Include a call to action
A well-constructed press release will have two distinct calls to action for a
journalist. Firstly, an easy-to-capture section within your press release of which
the journalist use as a section within one of their own articles. Secondly, a source
for more information on the specific subject matter being discussed in your press
release.
You also need to include a call to action for readers who are interested in your
subject matter on a personal level. To achieve this, you need to include a rather
subtle mention of not only you and your company – but also what your company
does.
An example of a call to action which may be of interest to both journalists and
readers would be something like an invitation to read a full report on the subject
matter discussed in the press release.
5) Include a non-HTML URL link
It’s extremely important to include a non-HTML full http:// version of your URL
in your online press release. This is your domain name with http:// and perhaps
www. (depending on your chosen website address format) in front of it. The
reason being, if journalists or bloggers republish your press release online, quite
often, this URL will automatically be converted into a live link.
Where to publish – PRWeb
Probably the biggest press release site in the world is PRWeb (Figure 6.1).
PRWeb is good for a broad range of press releases as it has a wide audience of
journalists and end readers interested in a broad range of subject matter.
PRWeb basic visibility package: $80
The $80 PRWeb press release option provides you with a reasonable level of
visibility. As well as making your release available to Google News and Yahoo
News, it gets syndicated to up to 5 industry specific targets and 2 regional
targets. This syndication allows you to gain visibility in front of journalists who
have specifically requested to be made aware when a press release from those
industry sectors have been published.
PRWeb have thousands of journalists worldwide who are subscribing to the
various industry and regional channels, ensuring that you have an increased
chance to get your story in front of the most relevant pairs of eyes.
At the time of writing, PRWeb have 4 different levels of press release
distribution. These services range from $80 to $360.
I would recommend for you to try the $80 press release distribution service
initially. I wouldn’t recommend going for the higher cost distribution services
until you can prove to yourself that the PRWeb service will offer a positive
outcome for your region and industry sector.
Where else to publish your press release?
For UK targeted businesses, another website to publish your press release on in
PressBox. All through not as wide-reaching as PRWeb, the PressBox
service is completely free of charge to use, so it’s certainly worth a go.
Again, like PRWeb, journalists can subscribe to PressBox category feeds, which
means that you’re able to target your press release to journalists interested in
specific industry sectors.
PressBox can be used to release press releases
Tracking the success of your online press release with Google Alerts
It’s important not just to write what you think is an excellent press release,
submit it to all the top online press release services and site back to wait until
your website traffic pours in.
Online press release marketing can sometimes appear to be fickle when trying to
determine why it has or hasn’t been a success. You have to be able to analyze
what the reason behind a particular press release’s success was, so that you are
able to replicate the success in the future.
One of the ways that you should be measuring the impact of your release is
through a service called ‘Google Alerts’. Google Alerts is a service where Google
will alert you as soon as a particular term is published in a news story on the
web. This means that if you put the title of your press release as your alert term
in Google Alerts, Google will send you an email with a link to that story as soon
as it finds it.
If you use your press release heading as your Google Alert, then the chances are
that this will be one of the only stories with that heading, meaning that you
shouldn’t receive many false alerts.
Comparing the success of online press release distribution services
If you decide to use different press release websites at the same time (to try to
achieve the maximum possible distribution volumes for your online press
release), you need to know which service has proven to be the most valuable.
In order to be able to be able to compare the success of multiple press release
distribution services, there are 2 tools that I would recommend you to consider.
The first option to implement is to amend a sentence within your press release
very slightly before submitting the different versions to different release services.
Once submitted, you set up a Google Alert for each of the different phrases and
take note of which version is republished more often.
The next method of tracking the success of a press release distribution service is
to use a different call to action in each version of your press release. For instance,
if you have 2 different website addresses you can give a different address in each
of the different press release versions – and then track to see how many visits
were received to each web page.
The importance of the personal touch
Once you start to use Google Alerts on a regular basis, and you start to submit a
few press releases, you’ll hopefully start to view a variety of different
publications which reprint your material.
You should contact these publications directly to try and create more of a
strategic relationship with them, aiming to submit your press release to them on
an individual basis rather than through a third party, so that you build your own
portfolio of people that want to accept your press release in the future.
By developing a personal relationship with these publications, you’re making it
more likely for them to think of you in the future when they need a quote from
your industry sector. You’re also reducing your reliance on the press release
distribution sites, potentially saving you future PR costs.
Online press releases not a direct replacement for offline press releases
Although online press releases can be a very important part of your internet
marketing arsenal, this tool may never totally replace the knowledge that a local
or industry focused PR professional can provide you with.
An online press release strategy should be viewed as an augmentation to an
offline PR strategy, and not a direct replacement of conventional press releases.
However, it should be remembered that online press releases also offer the
significant additional benefits of search engine optimization and automated
tracking.
- Online press releases are a great way of generating awareness and traffic
directly to your site. By including a non HTML URL link with http:// you can
also improve your off-site search engine optimization as some republishing
sites will automatically convert that website mention into a live, SEO friendly
link.
- PRWeb is the largest and most popular website for submitting online press
releases. Selecting the $80 service should be sufficient for your initial needs;
although if you find that it’s successful you should then test the higher-cost
services.
- Include a descriptive title for your online press release that includes a
keyword phrase.
- The first couple of sentences of your press release should be short punchy,
provide an overview to your whole story and also include your keyword
phrase.
- Always include a call-to-action for journalists as well as your end readers. This
could be in the form of additional information or a free related report
available at a website address.
- Use Google Alerts to track the success of your press releases. You will be able
to view who is publishing your article and you can use this to build direct
relationships with publishers for the future. You can also use Google Alerts to
test the effectiveness of different online press release distribution services.
- Online press releases aren’t a replacement for conventional PR agencies – they
should be viewed as an augmentation of this service