Hi there 🙂 Two years ago in February, I posted 35 Money-Making Ideas, and one of them had to do with writing press releases.
I have some newfound knowledge to share with you concerning press releases and why they can help get more traffic.
What Is a Press Release
A press release, when it’s best, is an article written by yourself about yourself or your product.
Back in the old days, where newspapers actually were printed on paper, companies would send a press release to the newspaper to tell them about some news concerning their business.
Good journalists would obviously never use the press release as it was, but a lot of lazy journalists would.
So in order to make a good press release that the papers would press, it should be crafted as if a journalist had written it.
Not: “Our company bla bla bla”, but “Company XYZ bla bla bla”.
The manager could even express himself in the press release by pretending he had been interviewed: “Manager Fawlty laughs: ‘Yes, we’ve actually been very lucky with our tourists this year. One of them died. Twenty more to go.”
A good press release should be written in a clear and concise language and it shouldn’t be too long. It should, back then at least, also contain the name and phone number to the contact person so that the clever journalists could do some follow-up research. It should also focus on something new, and preferably unique.
But this book can teach you better than I can: [amazon asin=1600051545&template=thumbnail&chan=default]
Why Is a Press Release Still Relevant in 2013?
Apart from breaking your way into television studios and newspaper front pages, which happens rarely, a press release is still relevant.
Why?
Because people use the news to populate their blogs and Squidoo lenses with content.
Just go to a few lenses to check. You’ll find modules containing headlines and abstract from Google news, and a lot of Google news derives from press releases.
So there you go.
Just make sure to put your keywords in the headline and the beginning of your article.
Do you have any questions regarding press releases? Please ask in the comments. We once made several thousand dollars in 24 hours due to a press release.
I did a lens on press releases (http://www.squidoo.com/your-press-releases) a while back — reading this reminds me that I need to update that lens. Which reminds me that I need to deal with a retiring domain — I am letting my atechnicalwriter.com domain name go. If anyone wants it, it’s registered through godaddy and I can transfer it.
I am just babbling here — very happy at the effect of pushing out those 25 lenses.
Cheers
Joanne
Excellent lens about press releases, Joanne. And the press release example is so well-written. 248 words. Nice, short, and to the point. I’ll keep an eye out for updates to it.
Press releases are so overlooked. You have no idea how often businesses use them! Well you might, but others don’t. LOL!
I need to begin releasing these myself. Go back to my journalism roots! Thanks for the push Britt 🙂
LOL, Tiff, I know I use them far too little myself, which is stupid, because I know what a press release can do for a product.
With your background in journalism you have a huge advantage here. I’m glad I could “push” you 🙂
I have to agree — I still use press releases to announce new developments, although I very rarely mail them. Email seems to be the way to go, so busy webmasters can just copy and paste text that they want to include in their own blogs or websites.
True 🙂
But in case you have something really interesting, the printed press can do a lot for you. We’ve tried that. It was AWESOME 😀