I get a really cool newsletter from Christianity Today Magazine called the “CTEYE On Marketing” that I recommend you check out. One of their articles in todays edition “Getting Your Story in Print: How to Publish a Press Release” focused on how businesses can take advantage of press releases to get cheap or free publicity and attention. There are great tips in the article for either first time PR publishers who don’t know how to get started or for experienced marketers who just need a guide to make sure they are being as effective as possible.

Should you publish a press release? Here are the situations that Christianity Today recommends that you should consider publishing a press release about:

▪ Awards and accomplishments-including product launches, research results, charitable gifts, goals reached and more
▪ Special events or milestones-anniversary, open house or other public event, fundraising campaign, sponsorships, seminars/lecture/conferences, and other special happenings or events
▪ Business changes-including new appointments, retirements, expansion/downsizing, new products or services, new contracts, customers, mergers/acquisitions, sale of business, relocation, name change and other announcements relevant to the public.
▪ Business promotions-trade shows, contests, offers, celebrity endorsements, free stuff and more
▪ Crisis communications and issues management-while your tendency might be to “so silent,” getting your version of the story to the public when there’s a serious problem is often a good policy.

The team at Christianity Today supplies some tips on formatting, do’s and don’ts, etc to help you get the most from your press releases. Check it out:)

God Bless,

Wade

I had a little chuckle this morning as I was goign through my stack of 30 something press releases I get in various verticals from PR Web.   A company that shall remain nameless went to the effort of putting together a nice (although overly lengthy) press release.

I decided that their product and site were worth looking into so I clicked on their link and …….. was prompted for a login and password.

I’m assuming that they want people to learn more about their company and products.  I also assume they’d like to sell some products.  Kind of hard if I can’t even hit their brochure site.

Press Releases are a great way to get the word out on products and can get you some nice Google Juice if the right folks pick them up.   They also tend to persist in Google for a while, so they are “long tail friendly”

If you are going to use them, do yourself a favor.

1.  Keep them reasonable in length.  Focus on a point or two and then call folks to action

2.  Make sure your links work - otherwise, I think you are wasting your (and more importantly) your prospects time.

Nothing is as frustrating as getting excited about finding out more about a product, then hitting a dead end.

God Bless,

Wade