What is a press release?
A press release is a short, compelling story, to enrich the audience about something that you feel is news worthy about your business. Press releases are sent to targeted members of the media who will hopefully see a story worth writing about to further spread the good word that you are promoting. Your press release should contain all the essential information of who, what, where, when, and how. Most important for any press release is the why portion of the release so that the journalist can easily produce their own story from your press release.
How to submit a press release successfully
Below is an exert from what we do to determine where we should submit a press release for ourselves and for our clients. When you are making your decision look to where your industry is and choose those places that your business would benefit from.
- Choose where to send
- Send your release to your local media outlets.
- Daily newspaper in your community: Contact the City Editor or the editor in charge of the section that relates to your content.
- Weekly newspaper: Editor
- Magazine: Editor or Managing Editor
- Radio stations: News Director or PSA Director (if sending a public service announcement)
- TV stations: News Director
- Target newspapers, online newspapers or other media outlets in geographic areas where you want to expand your business.
- Submit your press release to key players in your field including noted bloggers and industry leaders.
- Find the e-mail address of important bloggers in your field and e-mail them copies of your press release.
- Look up the names of key people in your industry. For example, if you are a member of a trade association, then find the person in charge of media relations in your association. Send your press release to that person via fax, e-mail or snail mail.
- Use a distribution service (we have a large list below). If you don't have time to research outlets for your press releases, then work with someone who can help you.
- Note that free press release distribution services typically offer limited exposure. With a small fee, most PR distribution agencies will be able to get your press release to news wire sites as well as media agencies. Your goal is to reach out to as many people as possible. At the end of this article, you will find a list of reputable PR distribution sites.
Following the above you will get your word out there. That is the first step. The "follow-up" is the next critical factor in getting your good word out there. Call the people you submitted to and see that they received your press release. This has a few benefits. One, if they didn't you can send it, see if they read it, if the information leads them to want to know more you can further answer those questions, and you will stand a better chance of being heard with an article written about your good information.
Press Release Benefits
List of PR Service Websites
This by far is not a complete list of PR sites. If you are a PR site please use our contact form here with a short description of your PR service and we will update and modify this list.
- 1 888 Press Release - Free distribution, paid services gives you better placement and permanent archiving.
- 24-7 Press Release - Free release distribution with ad-support
- Click Press - Distributes to sites like Google News and Topix.net, Gold level will also get you to sites like LexisNexis.
- Express Press Release - Free distribution company with offices in 12 states.
- Free Press Release Center - Distributes your release, offers a web page with one keyword link to your site. Pro upgrade will give you three links, permanent archiving and more.
- I Newswire - Allows for free distribution to sites and search engines, premium membership differs only slightly in adding in graphics.
- Newswire - Newswire's Financial Distribution provides publicly traded companies the ability to reach a wide variety of trading platforms, investor network and financial channels. All options on Newswire are for paid inclusion.
- Newswire Today - All the usual free distribution tools, premium service includes logo, product picture and more.
- Online PR News - Online PR Media is the place where traditional media press releases are supercharged with multimedia, social media, and search engine optimization, to give you the most visibility for your news releases. Our SEO press releases, multimedia press releases, and newswire press release distribution put your news in front of the right people at the right time. Welcome, and enjoy the experience!
- Open PR - A truly open press release organization catered to growing business.
- PR - Not only will they distribute your press releases, but you can also set up a full company profile.
- PR Buzz - Completely free distribution to search engines, news sites, and blogs.
- PR Inside - European-based free press release distribution site.
- PR Leap - Free distribution to search engines, newswires, and RSS feeds. Fee based bumps get you better placement.
- PR Log - Free distribution to Google News and other other search engines.
- PR Urgent - Not only distributes your release, but attempts to teach you how to write one, and even offers downloadable samples for you to work with.
- PR Web - PRWeb is the leader in online news distribution and publicity. It offers various press release packages, enabling businesses of all sizes to increase the visibility of their news, reach new audiences, stand out in search, and drive traffic to their websites. PRWeb’s editorial team reviews, optimizes and distributes news releases to major search engines, journalists and bloggers.
- PR9 - Ad supported press distribution site.
- Press Base - Submit your release for free and get on their front page and the category of your choice.
- The Open Press - Gives free distribution for plain formatted releases, fees for HTML-coded releases.
Conclusion
There is a lot that goes into creating a press release as well as submitting it for exposure. We recommend allocation 6-8 hours for submitting your press release and then that same amount of time to handle any follow-up calls with them. Many times the follow-up will take longer than it does the submission process due to the follow-up being done by calling the company.
We love that our content writing staff has both traditional media and digital media experience as it allows us to properly help our clients achieve the best results on both. With as much time that it takes many businesses will opt to let companies like JM2 Webdesigners from Cullman Alabama help support their marketing needs. If you would like assistance in writing a press release, submitting a press release. You can reach us to let us take the heavy lifting while you focus on your business by emailing us at @BUSINESSEMAILADDRESS@, through our contact form here or by calling @BUSINESSPHONETOLLFREE@.