Free Advertising
As my recent survey of Aardvark readers confirmed, the most effective form
of advertising is getting a mention and a link in an online news story. Readers
said that they were many times more likely to click on such a link than
on banner ads.
But how do you get online news sites to write a story about your site?
Why you send out a press release of course!
Well I've got to say that it's not quite that easy -- but, when done correctly,
this can be a great way of getting some free advertising of the most
effective kind.
The first thing you must do is create or do something that's newsworthy. News
sites aren't going to bore their readers to death by writing a story about
yet another small online store selling craft products -- unless --
it's doing something really different.
As the editor/publisher of Aardvark I receive several
press releases every day and, although I tend
to publish all the relevant ones, it's not often that one moves me to
write a story or editorial about it. Many of them are also blatantly
commercial -- those ones don't even make it to the Aardvark Press Bin page.
I'm not going to go into the details of how to write a good press release,
there are many
4 other excellent resources
out there on the Net that will help you with that task. However,
as someone who has been the editor of multiple online news sites, I will
offer some of my own tips.
- Keep it short -- the likelihood that your PR will be read by a busy
editor is probably inversely proportional to the number of words it contains.
If an editor decides to run a story on your PR they'll contact you to get
extra information if they need it.
- Grab em by the throat -- on a busy day, even the shortest PR won't
make it past the editor's desk unless you're able to convince him within the
first sentence or two that there's a story here. In fact, the first thing
an editor wants to know about any PR is why it is newsworthy -- hence my
own PRs start with a heading: Why This Release Is Newsworthy, followed
by a single sentence that gives the reason.
- Make it easy -- editors and writers are busy people, if your PR
won't require major reworking to covert to a news story then you're more
likely to get some coverage on a busy day.
- Skip the fancy formatting -- most certainly ensure that your PR is well
laid out and easy to read -- but don't be tempted to use bolding, underline
and multiple fonts and sizes of text. KISS!
- Don't advertise -- nothing gets a PR binned quicker than a pitch
which is clearly just an advertisement. Remember -- it has to be newsworthy!
- Include the URL! -- yes, on a number of occasions I've received
PRs for a website that have not mentioned the URL where that site can be
found. If you're sending your PR by email, include a convenient link in the
body of the email.
Another thing to remember is that, since all editors and writers are overworked
and underpaid (trust me, I know), don't expect them to jump through hoops in
order to decode your email.
It's not smart to send PRs as MS Word document files -- not everyone believes
in the cult of the Gates and even if they do, MS Word files tend to slow down
the process by requiring a virus-scan and stripping of all your sill fonts
and formatting.
If you really feel that you must send your PR in MS Word format, please make
sure you include a plain ASCII text version in the body of your email as well --
and don't send an HTML-formatted email -- just use plain old text!
Don't forget to include your phone number -- if you do make it past the editor's
desk then chances are a writer will want to call and get more information.
Tomorrow I'll try to give you some ideas as to how you can turn a boring,
mundane announcement into an "event" worthy of a press release.
Continued tomorrow...
As always, your feedback is welcomed.
