When you are the news and not the ads you have a direct line of communication with your prospective buyers. One way of doing this is through well thought out and written Press Releases.
Unfortunately, the subtle art of writing a press release is greatly underrated.
Press releases are like resumes. You rarely get any real benefit from just sending them out with the expectation that the offers, calls or whatever will come flooding back to you.
There are just far too many out there in the marketplace. Check any of the release sites and you will find a daily mountain of press releases; all vying for the limited attention spans of newspaper and online media editors.
The best use of them I am aware of is as a follow up to media contact. When you are pitching for an interview, an article spot or as an expert. A tool to support what you are pitching, to showcase your expertise, and hopefully to talk about one of your success stories who is lining up to tell others how great you are.
Press releases require captivating headlines, a compelling initial paragraph, a flowing and interesting storyline, and a call to action - no matter how subtle. Once they are picked up then they can become the source of another press release on top of that.
There are a lot of sites that will distribute your press release, but only a few that will actually help you to craft it for best circulation possibilities. One I stumbled across recently is PressReleaseSolutions.com , a site I aim to test run in the next couple of weeks.
The more you aim to be the news, rather than the ads, the more likely you are to get the attention of your intended audience. And the more collateral you have out there in the reputation sphere, the more likely you are to be on the tip of their minds.
