Are You Missing Out On Press Release Opportunities
By Stu Leventhal ~ Webmaster/Editor
If you or your business has news to tell people, you want to use a press release to announce that news to the media! The media: newspapers, radio shows, magazines, trade journals, TV shows… all need to be told about the good things your company is doing. The media can spread the word fast for you and save you lots of advertising money.
Got a new product launch; send out a news release. Hire a new executive with a great track record and an impressive resume of successes; tell the world that you feel your newly hired exec is going to revitalize the company and make your brand number one in the industry again.
The media can also improve your brand image by for instance highlighting how your company is contributing to environmental cleanup issues or helping the poor and disadvantaged sectors of our society or giving to charity. Good news coverage can reach more people than you can with paid ads and will make your brand more recognizable and more familiar to people that otherwise might be hard to reach with your traditional messaging and marketing programs.
Tell people how wonderful your company is and some may listen, most tune out. But when a respected news commentary or news columnist says something nice about you or your company, lots of people take their word for it. We all know that you have a lot at stake when you shout your own praise; the cheering just seems more sincere when someone else says it about you. When a celebrity news program host says they buy their clothes at your shop or frequent your restaurant business will go up.
Bear in mind that commercials you pay to air but news is free publicity for you. But just because news is free, does not mean that you should not spend some money on a news release strategy. You should set aside a budget for creating some news worthy events and be planning to create news worthy stories as part of your business marketing strategy.
I am not talking about making up fake news where you or your company is the star but yes, there needs to be a plan in place to keep your company name, products and brand consistently in the public eye, being talked about. Your company will not make the news often enough unless you are actively trying to get into the news!
Now you should also understand that the news can be a deficit for your company too, such as when you or your brand has done something wrong. Sometimes an employee, for instance, says something that is taken the wrong way and the media blows it up. This can turn the public and customers against your brand.
But since, news releases are sent by you to news agencies thus you can control how the message gets out by putting a nice spin on even the worst story about your company. It is not always wise to say nothing when your company is under fire; a press release can be used to turn the public’s opinion back in your favor. A well written press release may gain your company some sympathy from customers and the society as a whole. It’s called damage control.
You do not want to spam news agencies with sales pitches disguised as press releases. The news release is used to announce a story, important happening or upcoming event…NEWS! When you are advertising something you are expected to pay for a commercial or buy ad space. Each time your ad airs, you get a bill to pay. Do you really have the money to beat up your competition via buying more commercials than they run? That will get very expensive.
News in this day and age can go viral on social media and gets spread all over the place. Thus the top companies know how to keep their companies and their brands in the news.
Remember, journalists, editors, news show producers even bloggers want your help providing them with stories that their viewers, audience, readers want to hear about. It is difficult to keep coming up with new ideas for a TV or radio show. Podcasters too have to continually come up with new things to say and cover but they are working with low budgets and small staffs so they cannot often get out there and break news stories.
The point is; if you can spin your company’s news into something interesting and you know how to craft an exciting news release, there is a good chance that you will get some coverage and free publicity.
Lots of things your company does on the regular are news worthy but nobody ever hears about them. If for example, you give your employees a companywide pay raise during a poor economy that announcement can be of great public interest. If your company’s sales doubled over last year’s sales that’s exciting news too! When you hire twenty five new employees, you are creating jobs and that’s too is news.
Use your common sense; the media will not run a story that they feel is going to bore their audience!
How long has your company been in business? Perhaps you will be celebrating your ten year anniversary and can spin that into a news story. Maybe your CEO is having an anniversary for being the company leader for the past five years or a key employee; like your head chef is celebrating fifteen years with the company. Maybe your company introduced a revolutionizing product or service ten years ago that is still popular today… That’s all news!
Think creatively, for instance your company may not be hiring 100 new employees in a huge expansion but perhaps your neighborhood bakery has grown steadily over the years and today you hired another new kitchen worker bringing the total staff to 25 employees. If you opened the business seven years ago with just you and your spouse as the only employees and now you have 25 people on your crew that is the making of a great local news success story. Job creation always plays well in the news!
Some other things that make for good news stories are:
The object of a good news release is to create buzz and have your company on everyone’s tongue, being talked about in a positive way.
Got a new product launch; send out a news release. Hire a new executive with a great track record and an impressive resume of successes; tell the world that you feel your newly hired exec is going to revitalize the company and make your brand number one in the industry again.
The media can also improve your brand image by for instance highlighting how your company is contributing to environmental cleanup issues or helping the poor and disadvantaged sectors of our society or giving to charity. Good news coverage can reach more people than you can with paid ads and will make your brand more recognizable and more familiar to people that otherwise might be hard to reach with your traditional messaging and marketing programs.
Tell people how wonderful your company is and some may listen, most tune out. But when a respected news commentary or news columnist says something nice about you or your company, lots of people take their word for it. We all know that you have a lot at stake when you shout your own praise; the cheering just seems more sincere when someone else says it about you. When a celebrity news program host says they buy their clothes at your shop or frequent your restaurant business will go up.
Bear in mind that commercials you pay to air but news is free publicity for you. But just because news is free, does not mean that you should not spend some money on a news release strategy. You should set aside a budget for creating some news worthy events and be planning to create news worthy stories as part of your business marketing strategy.
I am not talking about making up fake news where you or your company is the star but yes, there needs to be a plan in place to keep your company name, products and brand consistently in the public eye, being talked about. Your company will not make the news often enough unless you are actively trying to get into the news!
Now you should also understand that the news can be a deficit for your company too, such as when you or your brand has done something wrong. Sometimes an employee, for instance, says something that is taken the wrong way and the media blows it up. This can turn the public and customers against your brand.
But since, news releases are sent by you to news agencies thus you can control how the message gets out by putting a nice spin on even the worst story about your company. It is not always wise to say nothing when your company is under fire; a press release can be used to turn the public’s opinion back in your favor. A well written press release may gain your company some sympathy from customers and the society as a whole. It’s called damage control.
You do not want to spam news agencies with sales pitches disguised as press releases. The news release is used to announce a story, important happening or upcoming event…NEWS! When you are advertising something you are expected to pay for a commercial or buy ad space. Each time your ad airs, you get a bill to pay. Do you really have the money to beat up your competition via buying more commercials than they run? That will get very expensive.
News in this day and age can go viral on social media and gets spread all over the place. Thus the top companies know how to keep their companies and their brands in the news.
Remember, journalists, editors, news show producers even bloggers want your help providing them with stories that their viewers, audience, readers want to hear about. It is difficult to keep coming up with new ideas for a TV or radio show. Podcasters too have to continually come up with new things to say and cover but they are working with low budgets and small staffs so they cannot often get out there and break news stories.
The point is; if you can spin your company’s news into something interesting and you know how to craft an exciting news release, there is a good chance that you will get some coverage and free publicity.
Lots of things your company does on the regular are news worthy but nobody ever hears about them. If for example, you give your employees a companywide pay raise during a poor economy that announcement can be of great public interest. If your company’s sales doubled over last year’s sales that’s exciting news too! When you hire twenty five new employees, you are creating jobs and that’s too is news.
Use your common sense; the media will not run a story that they feel is going to bore their audience!
How long has your company been in business? Perhaps you will be celebrating your ten year anniversary and can spin that into a news story. Maybe your CEO is having an anniversary for being the company leader for the past five years or a key employee; like your head chef is celebrating fifteen years with the company. Maybe your company introduced a revolutionizing product or service ten years ago that is still popular today… That’s all news!
Think creatively, for instance your company may not be hiring 100 new employees in a huge expansion but perhaps your neighborhood bakery has grown steadily over the years and today you hired another new kitchen worker bringing the total staff to 25 employees. If you opened the business seven years ago with just you and your spouse as the only employees and now you have 25 people on your crew that is the making of a great local news success story. Job creation always plays well in the news!
Some other things that make for good news stories are:
- When your company or any staffer wins an award
- You invent something or make a major industry changing product improvement
- The announcement of a unique, fun contest or even a sweepstakes with nice prizes
- The surprising results of a research project
- Has your company gone green yet? Taking steps to be more environmentally friendly is always worthy of some news media attention.
- Hosting a free ‘How-to’ workshop that is related to your products, brand or industry
- If you have some celebrity clout in your field then just announcing a personal happening in your life, even outside of being work related, can be news worthy such as you are getting married in May
- Landing a very important client can be news worthy especially if that client is a well-known celebrity.
- Winning a large government bid
- Just about anything new, unique and innovative is news, such as filing for a patent on a new invention or offering a new and unusual service
- Heck, just overhauling your website and adding some new features can make for a buzz worthy news piece!
- Certainly if you are doing anything big like moving your office or store to another town you would want to send out a press release with your new address.
- Have you considered working with a nearby school to offer some type of work study or internship program for their students? How about creating a contest for students to win a paid scholarship? Anytime you get involved with helping schools help out with educating our youth it is very news worthy!
- Donating your services free of charge for a worthy cause or helping out a disadvantaged person or family pro bono
- You can always announce a celebration because your company has surpassed an important milestone; sold 1 million of something, serviced 100,000 customers, the ten thousandth person just walked thru your front door…
- Have you considered announcing that you are available for interviews concerning anything related to your field of expertise? Many newspapers need a quick quote form an expert to round out their articles and they will call you up for a quote when they write about things you are an authority on.
- Making major renovations or improvements to your present company location or enlarging your place of business is news worthy
- Expanding into a new market
The object of a good news release is to create buzz and have your company on everyone’s tongue, being talked about in a positive way.
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