Dear [blank]:

Thank you for your untargeted pitch. I can see you don’t read my blog about PR and how to pitch. Although your brief mention of my most recent post shows you can indeed read.

Although I find your [boring news] fascinating, I don’t write about cars/dog grooming/IT. You would know that if you read more than one blog post of mine.

Perhaps you should read my blog. It gives great advice about how to pitch. Rule #1: don’t give a canned pitch to someone who works in PR. You will get called out. On the internet. By me.

Best of luck to you! Maybe I’ll see you flipping burgers soon.

Sincerely,

The Marketing Eggspert

What do you think? Too harsh??

I get releases that are simply a cut/paste of a press release. That has nothing to do with my interests. Trash. I get endlessly long email pitches that take forever to get to the point. Trash.

Here are 5 ways you can be sure to end up in the trash. If that’s where you want to be.

1. Don’t read the blog or website. You’re a busy person. Why bother reading the source you’re pitching? They’ll be interested in your fantastic news no matter what.

2. Cut and paste. Again, busy. It saves time to just cut and paste your pitch (including the snazzy Dear Editor title) for each email you send.

3. Make it long. The more info, the better, right? Besides, you’re such a good writer you know they’ll be hanging on to the edge of their seats until you get to the point…waaay at the bottom.

4. Don’t bother with goals. You just want to spread the world with your news, so coming up with objectives and goals for your PR campaign ain’t worth the trouble.

On the other hand, a well-crafted pitch gets my attention, even if I may not be interested in the subject. Take Natalie Sisson, of ConnectionPoint Systems Inc. She recently sent me this pitch.

Hi Susan

I read your Facebook pages blog sometime back and thought you’d be a super handy person to contact since you’re so clued up on Facebook, blogging and social networks. We’re a Vancouver startup that recently launched our Facebook application  FundRazr – the easiest way to collect money and manage members on Facebook. We believe we can change the face of fundraising and payments in social networks.

Is there anyway we can talk to you about our application and doing a story that would be interesting to your readers?

I’ve attached our latest press release so you can read more.

Thanks in advance

Natalie

Why I like it.

• Flattery works. She said she read some of my work. Then she said I’d be the best person to share this with. (watch my peacock feathers ruffle)
• She told me in 1 sentence what her company does. Rock.
• She politely asked if I’d want to share this info.

While this is a little off from what I write about, I did decide to include FundRazr in an upcoming post…because she pitched me correctly.

What did you learn from this?

Regular readers know that I talk about how to write a press release and what to do with it next. Press releases are still an important part to any PR and marketing campaign, but make sure you have a strategy as to what you want them to do. Here are some tips:

• Make a list of topics you can write about so that you have releases coming out monthly or more frequently.
• Spread them through Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.
• Write your release in terms of how it benefits your consumers.
• Write a headline that makes people want to read more.

For more great tips, as well as detailed instructions on how to write a press release, take my How to Write Killer Press Releases ecourse for just $20.

For some reason, this seems to be the hardest part for people. On today’s How to Tuesday, I want to help you decide on a topic for your release.

Why is it so hard to toot your own horn?

I guess when you’re in a business, it’s hard for you to see it from above. You may not recognize your achievements as such. You may not think that promoting an employee is newsworthy. That’s where this post comes in handy (as does this one, which gives you lots of ideas to start with).

1. Review your last 6 months. Go back through old emails, documents, et cetera, to refresh your mind about what your company has done. You’ve likely forgotten some good press release fodder.

2. Make a list. As you come across items like securing a new client, adding a new product, or donating to a charity, write it down.

3. Talk to employees. Get another perspective on press release ideas. Your sales department may be pretty proud of exceeding its sales goals. That’s a great release to show your company’s success. Or R & D might want to share its recent discovery that will cut costs by 35%.

4. Look to the future. Don’t only focus on the past. You can write a press release before something happens, such as announcing plans for expansion, or the start of an important project.

5. Map out your releases. Decide how often you want to put out a release, and assign dates to each topic. If you’ve followed these steps, you probably have enough releases for several months. Put them in your calendar so you can remember what you decided to write your release on.

6. Don’t be afraid to change. If some major news happens out of the blue, don’t be afraid to bump a scheduled release in favor of the more exciting news. You can always add to your list and change it around.

There are two primary ways to get your release to the masses:

1. Online distribution

2. Send directly to the media

Online

There are dozens of press release distribution sites out there (and for a near-complete list, see my ebook, DIY Press Releases), but one of the better known ones is PRWeb. You upload your press release using their system, and PRWeb (or whichever sites you use) sends it to dozens of news and niche sites. So, your release will appear in Google News, MSN, and on industry sites. If you’re in healthcare, you’d select “healthcare” as one of the channels you want your release to go to, and any website that subscribes to the RSS feed from PRWeb for that category would list your release.

Pros

• This method is great for SEO. The more place your website is listed, the better your ranking in search engines.
• Great for keywords. If you want to be found in a search for “seattle pet hotel,” for example, your release should contain those keywords.

Cons

• If you’re looking to get in magazines, this ain’t the way.
• There is some cost involved (PRWeb starts at $80), so if budget is an issue, this may not be for you either.

Sending to Media

The other option is to send your release directly to editors and bloggers who would find it of interest. I recently learned from a social media contact that if it even smells of promotion, an editor won’t publish it. So look to provide benefit to your readers. Make your release more about giving than getting. Then carefully target who’s getting the release. Make sure their readers are a good fit for your news.

Pros

• Better chance of getting in major news sources.
• Can skyrocket some companies to success.
• Free publicity.

Cons

• Chance of getting published is slimmer than online.
• Media types get thousands of releases every day. How do you stand out?
• Time-intensive.

Hope this helps. If you want step-by-step instructions for submitting press releases using either method, check out Do-It-Yourself Press Releases.

Let me tell you why you need it, and why you’d be a fool not to get one.

First let me preface this by saying that I reached out to PRWeb and asked for a free subscription in exchange for this blog post. Just wanted to get that out there. I do NOT push products I don’t believe in, as I think you know.

You Have Better Things to do With Your Time

If I’ve already sold you on writing press releases and distributing them, do you have them updated on your website? It’s kind of a pain in the ass. Every time you put out a release you have to either

a) log into the backend of your website and get it posted. if you’re not technical, this could take a while.

b) contact your web designer and ask her to do it. Pray she replies in a timely manner.

But PRWeb’s newsroom does it automatically. Any release you distributed through PRWeb will automatically go to your newsroom. Clean and easy.

Makes You Look Like You’re Really Smart

The more professional you can look, the better. You might be working out of your garage, but if you have an impressive website, people might think you’re a giant corporation. And you want that. So the newsroom helps you lookeven more professional. No web design, no difficult decisions. It’s all taken care of.

Builds SEO

The more places your website appears online, the better you will place in search engine results for your keywords. PRWeb gets tremendous traffic to its website, so by having a newsroom, you’re building traffic to your website. And you want that. Trust me.

I link to my newsroom straight from my website. (Under Portfolio/Press Releases there’s a link). It saves me duplicating effort in posting the press releases we do for clients to my website. And anything that saves me time is golden.

Ready to learn more? PRWeb’s blog post on the newsroom offers great info.

Here’s a great interview of Jiyan Wei, PRWeb’s brand manager, that explains the newsroom.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NI6O1MoS14&eurl=http://www.newinfluencer.com/prweb-online-newsroom/&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Do you have questions about the newsroom? I’d be happy to answer them based on my experiences.

+             =

So I was excited to see that PRWeb will now be sending out press release updates on Twitter! It’s the perfect and logical next step for the company to do, given where social media is headed. It’s a nice bonus if you’re already doing press releases.

The call will be Monday, December 22 at 8 pm Eastern. Register for the FREE webinar now!

Why should you attend? Are you getting everything you want to get out of your marketing and PR? Do you have a shoestring budget and want to do your own PR? Then you must write press releases! And I will show you how.

In a sea of Internet noise, how do you stand out?

Keywords.

You may not be into the technology behind search engines, but Google and pals have some very sophisticated algorithms that help them see patterns in what people are searching for. Think about it. You probably think in keywords. If you’re looking for someone to fix your sink, what do you type in? Probably “Plumber Orlando” (or whatever city you’re in.)

Keywords are useful in web copy, blogs and press releases. Anything that search engines can look through to pick out the good stuff.

Not sure how to figure out what keywords apply? Think of how you describe what your company does. Boil that down to a few words. What words are left? Those are likely your keywords. As an example, let’s pretend I own a marketing company ( ):

Orlando marketing

Marketing company

PR firm

Marketing and PR

Online marketing

From this list, use this amazing tool my friend Shannon Hutton introduced me to, SEO Tools, to better hone in on what people are searching for online. Input your keyword (I did Orlando marketing) to see what the similar keywords that people are searching for are. I got:

Online marketing Orlando

Web marketing Orlando

So when I write copy for my website, blog or a press release, I might want to use these keywords since they get better results than mine.

TIP: Don’t overlook both singular and plural words. People search for both, so use both.

Once you have your keywords, sprinkle your copy with these words. This will help the search engines assist people in finding you as the solution to their problem!

Press Releases in a Technology-Driven World

Press Release 101: 24 Reasons to Toot Your Own Horn

Learn Press Release Secrets PR Pros Don’t Want You to Know

Do Press Releases Need a Facelift?

April Fools’, Talk Like a Pirate Day and Other PR Ploys

Bloggers: The World’s Most Overlooked PR Pitch

i Heart PRWeb

Why You’ll Never Get on Oprah…and Why That’s Okay

And if you want to learn how to write press releases, check out my ebook, Do-It-Yourself Press Releases.

A lot of businesses focus on “making it big” in the media. While it’s great to be interviewed in Entrepreneur Magazine or be a guest on Oprah, the average business owner will not have this success.  And you know what? That’s okay.

Take a look at the diagram above. Say you have a press release and you have two options. You can send it to the Oprah show and pray every day that they choose you to be on the show OR you can distribute your search engine optimized press release using a distribution service, knowing it will definitely reach a wide variety of channels online, including Yahoo!, Google, RSS feeds, blogs, journalists and others who may want to interview you further or write about your release on their websites.

Now, each of those channels has anywhere from dozens to thousands of readers who will see your press release. Many will click on the link to your website to see what you’re all about. Some of those will even buy from you.

So rather than putting all your eggs in one basket with the Oprah show (or major media channel of your choice), you do better to diversify and let larger numbers of people in smaller, under served niches find you.

As David Meerman Scott says in his book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, the market for press release is changing:

• Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of under served audiences via the Web.
• PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.

I currently use PRWeb. It’s affordable and focuses on SEO and social media. And now they have a new tool that I’m all over. Account holders can create their own News Room that displays all their releases over time. Here’s Egg’s:

http://www.prweb.com/newsroom/eggmarketing/

I love it because I have one place to house my clients’ press releases. It also gives them a boost of SEO. And it’s free! Yay!

• Write Press Releases to Grow Your Business ($19.95 for a single 1.5 hour session) Mine!
• Podcasting Bootcamp – Strategy Through Implementation ($39.95 for 4 sessions) This one is actually tonight so jump on asap!
• Diversify Your Income Workshop – $39.95 (includes 3 hours over 3 sessions)
• Organize Your Home Office for Maximum Productivity Workshop ($19.95 for a 1.5 hour session)
• Introduction to Starting a Blog Network ($19.95 for a 1.5 hour session)
• Fearless Financials – Getting Past Stuck ($39.95 for a 3 1 hour sessions)

If you run a business from your home, or want to, or would otherwise find these topics of interest, check out SparkplugU today.

Just to plug my class: you know how important I think press releases are. I realize that not everyone can afford to hire Egg (or another PR firm) to write them. That’s why I’ve developed this ecourse that teaches you step by step how to write releases. It also provides you with templates that are easy to drop info into, and I give you over 30 websites where you can submit press releases free or for a fee. I’ve had great feedback from the class in the past, so sign up now!

Welcome to what David Meerman Scott calls “The New Rules of Marketing & PR.” In this new world, bloggers may be your best (and most overlooked) ally. Think about it. They need to write. A lot. And they run out of topics to blog about. Enter your pitch or press release. If targeted correctly, you could end up with several bloggers writing about you. Each one gets roughly between 10 and 10,000 readers to his or her blog, which increases your exposure that much more.

So how do you pitch to a blogger?

1. Research. Do a search for blogs in your industry, be it “pet blogs,” “home improvement blogs,” or “headboard blogs.”
2. Make a list of websites, contacts and email addresses. Keep a spreadsheet of this information. Throw out any blogs that haven’t been updated in a year or more.
3. Become a fan. No one likes being contacted with a pitch without the sense that you’ve read (thoroughly) their blog. Spend a week or more reading through posts to get a feel for what the blogger covers and whether they’d be open to receiving a pitch.
4. Write a well-crafted email. Most bloggers deliberately don’t leave phone numbers on their site. So make your email count. Introduce yourself, give a compliment about the blog, and tell them why you think they’d be interested in your story. Provide contact information, your press release and the invitation to contact you for additional information.
5. Don’t expect a response. Even if a blogger decides to blog about you, they don’t have to let you know. Create a Google Alert to see when your company’s name pops up online to see what the results of your blogging pitches are.

From a marketing standpoint, publicity is one component of promotion. Publicity is a very important factor when it is linked to public relations. It is a purposeful attempt that manages the public’s perception of a subject. A subject can include people, goods and services, or entertainment. Publicists cannot sit around and wait for news to approach them; therefore, they must create their own news.

Some forms of publicity include:

-Television
-Radio
-Newspapers
-Magazines
-Contests

These are just a few forms of publicity that are valuable, but there are other sufficient forms of publicity that may be useful to your specific business.

Since new technology of web blogs, web cameras, and web affiliates have emerged, publicity has become fairly low cost and an effective means of “getting your name out there.” Millions of people surf the internet each day; as a result using this new technology will give your business a sales boost.

There is a theory stating that any press is good press. Go out there and explore which type of publicity will give your business maximum exposure.

Susan:
Natalie brings up a good point: any press is good press. It’s all in how you handle it. Now, publicity comes at you from every angle. Someone may comment on your company on their blog (for better or worse) or review your services in a magazine. Stay on top of where you’re covered.

A good tool for knowing who’s talking about you is Google Alerts. Enter your company name as a search and any time something appears online with your company name, you’ll get an email.

Here’s a great article on managing bad press.

-Susan

Here are some ways you can incorporate holidays into your marketing and PR.

Press Releases. Use a holiday to play up an event, such as International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Maybe your staff will be dressed like pirates while you hold a “Get Yer Booty Half Price” sale. Or you could put out a release about your diet program, paralleling the amount of food Americans (over)eat at Thanksgiving. Research adds an element of believability, so look to incorporate statistics about the holiday.

Newsletters. Add fun holiday elements to your monthly newsletters, such as a “Did You Know?” section or holiday images. When people are happy (the way they are when holidays and days off from work come around), they’re more likely to shop!

Sales. I gave you some sales ideas above, but get creative and decorate your store for the holiday. Or make up a holiday that serves your purpose, such as Eat Two Cones Day, where you can incorporate your sale into the holiday.

Direct Mail. I like to send Egg customers birthday gifts for Egg’s birthday. It’s fun, festive and memorable. You could send a birthday or holiday card to your contacts, or even flowers or candies to your better clients.

No matter what you do, adding holidays to your marketing mix is fun. It shows your customers that you don’t take yourself too seriously, and you will stand out in their minds as a result!

-Susan

Hearing he’s offering a free conference is like finding a $100 bill on the ground. Bonus! So take advantage of this opportunity to learn from the master.

Here are the details of the upcoming call. He’ll be speaking on his most recent book, Meatball Sundae, so get a copy before the call.

Is the New Marketing stuff working for you? Are you mixing your meatball business with your marketing sundae?

Seth Godin, marketing guru & bestselling author has the answer for you. In his new book Meatball Sundae, the definitive guide to the fourteen trends no marketer can afford to ignore. Seth explains what to do about the increasing power of stories, not facts; about shorter and shorter attention spans; and about the new math that says five thousand people who want to hear your message are more valuable than five million who don’t. Seth doesn’t pretend that it’s easy to get your products, marketing messages, and internal systems in sync. But he’ll convince you that it’s worth the effort.

Ignore it at your own risk and peril. You will be left behind or end up with a “meatball sundae” – a big, ineffective mess. By the end of an hour, Godin will have us looking at the world we live in very differently – the new rules create new winners (and losers) and there’s no time to waste.

When: April 9th 12:00 – 1:00 p.m (Pacific Time)
What: Conference Call with Seth Godin (Call details will be provided after you sign up)
Sign Up Here -> http://meatball-bo.eventbrite.com/

Join this conference call on and learn directly from Seth Godin himself!

The Fine Print:

• Participants must purchase a copy of Meatball Sundae in order to register for this conference call. If you are already a meatball fan, great! We will ask you a simple question when you register.
• If you are new to Meatball, that’s fine too! We will let you buy the book and send you the call detail and the book.

-Susan

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Joan started by offering a free PR newsletter, and quickly began to add products for sale, beginning what she calls the “work-get paid-get paid-get paid” model that we now all strive for. She is now an expert in public relations. She shares her knowledge with anyone who wants it, and shows you how to use free publicity to establish your credibility, enhance your reputation, position yourself as an expert, sell more products and services, promote a favorite cause or issue, and position your company as an employer of choice.

I kept coming across her name in different places. And, although I know a bit about PR, I was amazed at the ebooks and seminars she has covering the very topics I needed to learn more about! Needless to say, I shop on her site a lot. She helps me be better at what I do: promote my clients.

Get Your Red Hot Free Ebooks
So in her interview, we discussed using free ebooks as marketing tools. Certainly, she sells a lot of ebooks on her site. But she also gives one away each Christmas as a promotion. Joan says this is a key revenue generator for her business. I know, you’re asking “how could she make money off a free ebook?” She loaded it with links to all her other products as well as to affiliate products that paid her a percentage of sales she generated through her ebooks. Not to mention, it positioned her as a professional who knew her stuff.

What did she put in the ebook? Her 24 best items from the newsletter she puts out every week. Easy. She didn’t even have to write new content. She simply compiled it all into an ebook and gave it away as a Christmas present (and encouraged regifting).

As For You…
When I asked Joan how a free ebook could work as a marketing tool for the average company, she said it establishes you as an expert in your field. No matter what you do, there is an ebook waiting to happen. And someone dying to read it. She said there is no industry where an ebook doesn’t work, because small business owners love free content. And it’s true, isn’t it? After all, you’re reading this blog!

Here are a few tips on creating ebooks from The Publicity Hound:
*Before you begin, search for products (software, ebooks, teleseminars) that relate to your industry that you can sell as an affiliate. You’ll want to include lots of links to these within your ebook.
*Take content you’ve already created, from a blog, newsletter or articles, to compile into your ebook.
*Link to other products you might have for sale, or to your website where people can learn about your company.
*To promote it, blog about it and put out a press release.
*Give your ebook to bloggers to promote and give to their readers.

She makes it easy, doesn’t she? Thanks to Joan for allowing me to interview you and glean great advice. If you want to get Joan’s 3 free ebooks, free articles and other amazing resources on getting publicity for your business, visit her site today. Also check out her blog, which covers hot topics in PR.

-Susan

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Used to be everyone was struggling to keep up with competitors just by having a website. Now if you don’t have a blog you’re behind. Forget for a moment that you’re not web-savvy, if that’s true, and look at the benefits of blogs over websites. I’ll borrow from Suzanne’s list and add my own.

-Blogs are easier to update. Sites like WordPress make it simple to upload posts instantly, so as soon as you think of a topic, you can write it and post it within minutes. With websites, you likely have to call your IT or web design guy to get anything changed.

-Blogs help you identify your market. Because you’ll blog on many different topics within your niche (for me, I cover press releases, marketing online and blogging for business and can easily track which are the most popular topics) you can see what gets the most hits. Once you know that, play up to it or offer services or products on that topic.

-Blogs get noticed more frequently than websites. Spiders that crawl for search engines like ever-changing content, and since that’s a characteristic of a blog, you’ll be up, running and noticed sooner than your website will.

All this being said, a blog shouldn’t take the place of your website. The two can work together in perfect harmony. Link to your blog from your website and vice versa. Refer to your company website in your blog posts. Whatever you do, just don’t underestimate the potential a blog has for getting you new business.

-Susan

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The post says press releases for online distribution should be shorter. You, as a reader of online material, can appreciate articles and news releases that are short and to the point. No need to ramble. Do we need a new format altogether?

And then this post talks about how PRWeb, a distribution service I happen to use, is cracking down on releases it deems not acceptable. The release in question had more of a salesy approach that PRWeb didn’t approve of.

But it brings up the question: what is acceptable for a press release? We are rapidly moving away from the old standards of PR and media, so how can we continue to base our rules on the old school methods? Shouldn’t PRWeb be more flexible in what it accepts? Can we redefine what a press release is?

These are interesting questions, and ones that should provoke thought and conversation. What do you have to say?

-Susan

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