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About this lesson
Press releases should be a fundamental part of your marketing strategy. When done right, press releases are a very effective way to market your company, promote your brand and sell products with a small cost to your company.
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Quick reference
Using Press Releases as a Marketing Tool
Press releases should be a fundamental part of your marketing strategy. When done right, press releases are a very effective way to market your company, promote your brand and sell products with a small cost to your company.
When to use
You should publish press releases regularly every time you feel you have valuable information to share with your audience.
Instructions
- Establish a personal relationship with key journalists, editors and publishers: this will allow you to submit your press releases regularly. Over time, this will become a marketing tool.
- Keep journalists, editors and publishers engaged with your company’s news by making it worthwhile for them: publish news relevant to them, adhere to their guidelines and display that you are an expert in your field by keeping up to date with the latest trends.
- If you publish a good press release (via the media or directly either on your website or on your preferred social media platforms), people will naturally want to link to it, thus increasing the amount of links to your site.
- An outstanding press release is a “link bait” as it stands a high chance of being linked to blogs, social media and news websites. The coverage of your business will automatically grow.
- It is also important to make sure that your website has a tab or section dedicated to press releases to allow visitors to your website to access all your previous and current press releases, because most publishers, editors and journalists find this helpful to verify your press release and get background information. This will also increase the professional profile of your company, which will benefit your brand in the long run.
- 00:05 Now there could be some new reasons why people would want to
- 00:08 use press releases in their business.
- 00:11 As a marketing consultant, I wanna talk to you a little bit about
- 00:14 how it can benefit us, If we use it as a marketing tool.
- 00:19 Press releases should really be a fundamental part of marketing strategy.
- 00:23 When it's done right, press releases are a very effective
- 00:27 way to mark your company and to promote your brand.
- 00:30 And you can really increase sales with a relatively small cost to your company.
- 00:35 So how has the marketing potential of press releases then come about?
- 00:41 Thanks to the Internet, now a days businesses and high profile people and
- 00:46 influencers or musicians, dancers, actors, sports people.
- 00:51 All of them got direct access to a broad range of media through
- 00:55 which they can grow and maintain their audience or their customer base.
- 01:00 So if you publish a good press release, then people will naturally want to
- 01:04 share it on social media or link to it for as a for example.
- 01:09 So an outstanding press release can really be acting as what we call link bait
- 01:14 because it stands a high chance of being linked to by blogs and
- 01:18 social media news websites.
- 01:20 So this coverage will do a lot for your business both in the long term and
- 01:24 short term.
- 01:25 Still, because we've got direct access to the Internet, it doesn't mean that we
- 01:30 should abandon good relationships with journalists or editors and publishers.
- 01:34 Although the Internet has given the businesses of today
- 01:37 a greater international impact.
- 01:40 Still, keeping personal contact with the media is crucial
- 01:43 to getting your story featured on magazines and newspapers in your field.
- 01:48 This will also allow us to reach different groups of people, and
- 01:51 I'm sure that in order for your company to boom,
- 01:56 you want to really reach as many people as possible.
- 01:59 So, it's never enough the amount of press that we receive.
- 02:03 We really want to maximize our success rate with the media.
- 02:06 So, establishing this personal relationship with key editors and
- 02:10 publishers is going to allow you to submit your press releases regularly
- 02:15 to a variety of them.
- 02:16 And so overtime this becomes a useful marketing tool.
- 02:20 However, to keep the journalists engaged with your company's news,
- 02:25 we're going to need to make it worth worthwhile for them.
- 02:28 And here are some suggestions, just three suggestions to maximize your success.
- 02:34 Make sure that the press release can be relevant by
- 02:37 actually identifying the journalist and
- 02:39 the publishers who are interested in the news surrounding our business niche.
- 02:43 Also ask them directly what their criteria would be for
- 02:47 a good press release to ensure that yours will actually fit to their needs and
- 02:52 to their publication style.
- 02:54 Closely adhering to these guidelines
- 02:57 will increase our success rate when we submit an article.
- 03:00 Then, demonstrate expertise by only writing press releases about
- 03:05 the latest trends and things that it’s gonna be considered newsworthy.
- 03:08 Because the more press releases that you send that can be relevant
- 03:12 while written in up to date, the more likely that the publisher and
- 03:15 the journalist will be looking forward to your next press release when you send it.
- 03:20 So, the result then would be that you can gain recognition as a leading
- 03:24 expert in your field who will always have the latest information at hand.
- 03:30 It's really good to have a dedicated press release tab on your website.
- 03:35 So think about this for your own company.
- 03:38 Is this facility available at present, can we improve it?
- 03:42 It's important to make sure that your website have got this tab available,
- 03:46 at the bottom of your site.
- 03:47 All big companies do this.
- 03:49 Coca-Cola is a leading example in this respect.
- 03:51 This is three main benefits to the company.
- 03:55 Firstly it's going to allow visitors to the website to access all our previous and
- 03:59 all of current press releases.
- 04:01 And then most publishers, and editors, and journalists,
- 04:04 is going to find this a useful source when they verify a press release and
- 04:09 when they research for some more background information.
- 04:12 Also by having this section on your website that's dedicated to press
- 04:16 releases, you're actually sending a more professional impression
- 04:20 to both the customers, and to the media and
- 04:22 this will certainly benefit you brand in the long run.
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