If you’ve spent any time on the business battleground, like it or not, you realize that advertising must be a major part of your success strategy. The problem with paid advertising is, to get your message out, you need to interrupt people. Think of it. If the airwaves are your medium, a TV or radio show must be interrupted in order for you to blurt out your message.
Get Outta My Face!
With print medium, your message is placed in the path of a reader’s eyes. Eyes that, over the years have been subconsciously trained to avoid all but the most intriguing messages.
And in the case of the Internet, pop-ups, float-ins, video and audio pitches, banner advertising and bulk email all make their attempts to grab your attention with interruptions to whatever it was you were on the Net for in the first place. People are reluctant to pay heed to messages affronting their personal time. That’s why it takes anywhere from seven to 20 paid advertising impressions for an advertising message to hit home.
Is there a better way to get your message out? YES. And the crux of the matter is this: Make your advertising message news. Getting your message explained by a newspaper, magazine, radio or TV station, or a respected Website gives you credibility. And here’s the kicker: if you haven’t interrupted the prospect that means they’ve actually chosen to read about you. There’s power in that.
The way to accomplish this is with a Press Release. Here’s how it works. You generate a newsworthy piece of information on your company and let the ‘media’ pick it up as a story. When your story is presented as news, people are more willing to take the time to read or listen to it. Of course, your product and how to get it is subtly mentioned in the story.
Wide Distribution
And here’s something you might want to take to heart. Distribute your press release to newspapers and other offline outlets such as TV and radio stations as well as throughout the online RP networks. And here’s something you might want to take to heart. Distribute your press release to newspapers and other offline outlets such as TV and radio stations as well as throughout the online RP networks. One pickup in a major offline venue can mean thousands of dollars in publicity and sales for your company.
Here’s the important thing to remember when writing any press release. When individuals consciously investigate your company via a story they remember your offer only if you’ve taken the time to make it worth remembering.
How do you make your product or service newsworthy? That has been the challenge of advertising people since the dawn of the profession. But it usually isn’t very hard. Take a dry cleaning business for example. How would you be able to make a dry cleaning establishment newsworthy, something a popular Website, a TV station or newspaper would be willing to report on?
Try Giving Away Money
Well, it’s been said it takes money to make money. This means you’ll need to invest something to get some attention. And with a carefully designed approach accompanied by well planned PR, you can have customers tripping over themselves to get to your offer. HOW?
Try this on for size: LOCO DRY CLEANER PLANTS TWENTY DOLLAR BILLS IN THE POCKETS OF PICK-UP DRY CLEANING. As a monument to their founder, Harvey T. Cleaner, who was often known as a prankster, Harvey Jr. is promoting the refurbished establishment by planting $20 bills in the clean laundry of random customers. So far Mary Q. Public, Frank K. Farnsworth, and Barney J. Blarney have all found crisp new twenties in the pockets of their clean clothes…
Take a look at this story. It has local and perhaps even national appeal. It’s news. It’s interesting. An editor in any venue with space to fill would be happy to have it. And most important, you’d probably be willing to read about it – and even tell a friend. And here’s the beauty part: it doesn’t cost the dry cleaner a cent in advertising if it’s presented as a press release.
Press Releases Propel Your Business Into The Spotlight
There are rules both written and unwritten about creating news releases. First, a press release must be written as news in a journalistic style. Then you’ve got to call attention to the story and show readers why they should bother to read about you. This comes by creating a great headline. I’ll refer to our previous example:
LOCO DRY CLEANER PLACES TWENTY DOLLAR BILLS IN THE POCKETS OF PICK-UP DRY CLEANING!
That’s a great headline but, I’ll admit, it’s a bit long. An even better and more to the point eye catching headline might be: LOCO DRY CLEANER GIVING MONEY AWAY! From here you can give the details. You’ve got about five seconds to catch your reader’s attention so don’t blow it.
The next thing you’ve got to do with your news release is let the reader know what the news is. In keeping with the journalistic style you do this with the Five Ws and an H. These are:
- Who
- What
- When
- Where
- Why
- How
If you expect to be picked up by any legitimate purveyor of the news, these components must be included. Editors won’t come to you looking for them unless you’ve got the cure for halitosis, body odor, or happen to know what Brittany is about to do.
Finally, and this is probably as important as any of the other points, keep it simple and brief. Use short sentences. Don’t embellish. If you stick to the facts, any editor can dress up your copy if it needs to be.
A good press release should be no more than a single page, double spaced. It should contain your letterhead, your location, such as Reno, NV. and the statement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. When it comes to an electronic release, limit it to 450 words. Any more and it’s likely an editor will trash it.
To sum it up, media outlets are looking for interesting, newsy stories for their readers. You can offer both with interesting and newsy press releases [http://www.userfriendlybooks.com/business/free-traffic-with-press-release] distributed both online and in the physical world.
Charles has been a certified hypnotherapist and a Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) since 2002 and has been involved with helping people since the late 1970s. After spending four years in the US Navy as a medic, he furthered his civilian career in healthcare as a registered nurse and still holds an active license today. He writes on business and personal development topics. User Friendly Books
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