Publicity begins within and then you take it to the public. You need to identify what it is you want to say about your company. How do you describe yourself? What specific service/product do you offer. Drill it into your staff, create scripts for your sales people and then you are ready to take it to the public. The last thing you want to do is have a public face and a private face. You want everyone in your organization (including your outsourced workers) to be on the same page and know what you do and what to say if asked.
Now you can start writing your press releases. If you aren’t good at writing them, perhaps someone in your organization can write them for you or you can outsource it. But beware. Public Relations firms cost an arm and a leg. You can outsource to our firm or many others that offer basic press release writing services and submission services for a few hundred dollars, as opposed to several thousands for a Public Relations firm. Most PR firms also are newbies when it comes to search engine optimization. I write press releases for several companies, and one of the biggest areas I focus on is creating search engine optimized text in the header, sub header and body. I do my keyword research and select the most powerful words for the release. So, whoever you hire, be sure they are SEO savvy and will do the keyword analysis and integration into your PR copy.
Standard submissions start at around $80 with PRWeb.com and you can attach PDF’s, brochures, pictures and other ancillary items to the release. I sent out one release for an Italian distributor of cosmetics over 3 years ago. I had my contact info on there and I still get emails and phone calls from editors looking to write a story or businesses looking to sell their products. Press Releases are amazing if they are written well and submitted well. Submission is the key to a good press release. Not only do you have to fill in all the fields you can so you don’t miss any opportunity, but there are several areas that I have realized give more bang for the buck. One area is submitting to RSS feeds. RSS is Real Simple Sindication. It is a news wire source in electronic format. Always choose this as one of the distribution options. It is very powerful.
After you set up your press release, don’t forget to send it to your staff. You definitely want your staff to know what you are publicizing. The last thing you want is a client to ask a staff member about something they read in a press release or a followup story and have your staff be unaware of the information. For example, let’s say you publicize the acquisition of a top flyer sales person. A client says, “hey I know Johnny X when he was with xxx and I see you guys got him.” Your staff should be prepared with a proper response, “Yes, Johnny is quite a catch. We were very happy when he joined our firm. He is a great guy, and provides great customer service–something we strive for.”
Publicity involves much more than just press releases. However, a press release is the first place to begin your campaign. You should write on anything that is important to your firm. Any award, new hire, new product, new website, new focus, new anything that is newsworthy should be publicized. If you can produced 4 press releases a month you are really gearing up a quality publicity campaign. Almost every company should be able to do 1 press release per month. If you don’t have anything worth publicizing, get to work! Alot of awards are very winable if you just put in half an effort.
