Use Free Publicity to Build Recognition and Sell More

Are you taking full advantage of the free publicity available to you? When was the last time YOU sent out a press release? What’s YOUR opinion of media releases? Do you have a media section (or page) on your website?

I’ve harnessed the power of publicity to promote all kinds of products and services in more industries than I can count. I still use publicity efforts to promote my Direct and Internet Marketing services, along with campaigns to promote my clients’ products (and that has lead to millions in sales each year).

Putting free publicity to work as part of your marketing campaign is much easier than most people think. Why? Because there are thousands of print and online magazines out there starving for content. There are millions of Internet sites craving for new content too.

Note the word “content” in that last sentence. The content of your publicity piece has to be of value to their readers or else forget it. If it reads like a commercial or blatant ad for one of your products, no one is going to devote coverage to it.

Before we go any further, let me make a subtle but important distinction. When I refer to either a press release or a media release, I’m referring to the same thing. If you want to get nit-picky a “press release” is sent to print publications (magazines and newspapers) while a media release is sent to non-print media outlets (TV, radio, and Internet sites). But for the purpose of this blog, we’ll consider the terms are interchangeable.

Just a few years ago, if you wanted to benefit from sending out press releases you had to identify media outlets, and then try to entice an overworked and underpaid reporter or editor to pick up your story. It could be a long and arduous process. Even if you hired a PR firm, you still were stuck trying to target journalists and media outlets to select your stories. I’m glad to say that’s not the case today.

Now you can benefit from online media sources that post and distribute your press releases to millions of prospects instantly. And that’s what I want to discuss today—new and faster ways you can use to become a publicity powerhouse!

The main difference from then to now is that before you had little to no control over what stories ran and how much of the story actually got published. But today, thanks to online PR services, your press releases automatically become web content, which means it has a much better chance at automatically becoming news and getting read by prospects.

When my company recently launched a new membership website called ProfitRichMarketing.com, we had to focus on a publicity campaign. We wanted to drive traffic, generate leads, gain subscribers, and get higher rankings in the search engines so prospects could find us when they searched for specific keyword terms.

The process started by creating the publicity plan. Our goal was to reach business owners, marketing directors, entrepreneurs, sales people and anyone else who wanted to learn how to promote and use marketing methods effectively. We knew our prospects weren’t searching to join a content membership site, but that they were searching for solutions, tips, tactics, strategies, and techniques related to marketing, sales, promotion and publicity. So we created press releases and articles that were newsworthy, and filled them with keyword-rich search terms. We made sure to include hyperlinks back to us; and added a tagline about our company.

The most effective way to get your release published is to simultaneously place it on your own website and then send it to a press release distribution service. I’m sure you understand the concept of posting it to your site–just get your webmaster to create a section on your site with clear navigation and links with the keywords, titles, and topics of your release.

Next, you’ll want to utilize a press release distribution service. Keep in mind that they fall into two categories, each with their own benefits. First are distribution services that specialize in getting your releases out to lots of different Internet sites, which helps you reach thousands of people almost instantly because listings get automatically sent to Google News, Yahoo News and others. Your search-engine rankings improve too when you include hyperlinks back to your site from your releases because in-bound links are a weighted component of the search-engine rankings algorithms.

The other type of distribution service focuses on getting your release into the hands of broadcast and print reporters. While some services claim to do both, usually you’ll have to use more than one service and track the results. While I don’t endorse any particular service, you can find several services on Google or Yahoo just by searching for “News Release Services.”

That’s enough information about publicity for this blog. Hope you found this helpful. Remember that there are many ways to promote and market yourself or your products—with solid content and some persistence you can connect with prospects quickly and consistently, as often as you want.