Powerful Press Releases
Most of my clients have discovered the high-SEO-value of online press releases, and have been very impressed at the backlink power that they can deliver.
I know that ANYONE can produce their own online press releases these days – but most of the people I discuss them with believe that this is something a PR consultant would have to do, and that it was a really expensive exercise. Not so.
And to help my readers and clients to grasp both the power of online press releases, and to show them how they are created and distributed for SEO, I have compiled a report entitled Powerful Press Releases.
How It Used To Be
It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was devising creative ‘vehicles’ for the delivery of traditional press releases.
Admittedly I did have some fun products to promote that didn’t need much to grab a journalist’s attention, like oversized Tweety Bird Slippers, Kylie Minogue and Elle Macpherson Calendars, and the beautiful baby image products by the wonderful Anne Geddes.
But then there were the more difficult ones, like a lesser known model calendar. This was shot in Tahiti, so a courier delivered editors the release and calendar enclosed in a bright pink satin fabric pocket, decorated with a fake frangipani – who could resist?).
I Owe It All To Elvis
Many of these product launches received publicity way out of proportion to the effort involved in simply doing something different. I will confess though that it was an invitation from the marketing professionals at Elvis Presley Enterprises that set me on this course of innovative press release delivery.
The invitation arrived in a substantial gold foil card envelope, with simply “EPE” stamped on it. Upon opening I pulled out a two-piece “blue suede shoe” that was hinged by its laces. The event details were revealed upon opening the shoe out.
That was over 15 years ago, and I still have the invitation.
My point? Back then it was difficult to grab the attention of editors and journalists. If they opened your press release at all, whether it was binned or actioned was at the whim of the reader.
The release itself needed to be created by someone trained in Public Relations who would prepare it in the format expected, and acceptable, by journalists and editors.
This type of press release was the only way companies were able to get airtime or ink – and all too often it was only large companies that received exposure. After all they had PR and marketing departments and engaged PR consultants who had ‘contacts’ in the media.
How The Internet Has Reinvented Press Releases
The Internet has levelled the Press Release playing field. The rules have changed and PR strategies have needed to be adapted to leverage the opportunities that the internet marketplace offers.
For internet marketers, along with the public relations industry, it’s now much easier to find laser targeted groups of people who are interested in your message. More importantly though, it is now easier and quicker for those networks to find your message.
Search engines draw interested parties to your messages and if you’re using keywords correctly, bloggers will re-publish it to their readers – and, as a consequence, it will gather momentum (become viral) through social networks. Web 2.0 enables savvy marketers to engage their audiences rather than just deliver messages.
This engagement begins as the reader of a message, be it an article, video, blog post, or media release, takes action beyond consuming the content.
As we are talking about press releases here, the action might be clicking a link within the release, print the release, forward it to a friend, or ‘share’ it via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious or some other web 2.0 platform. In doing any of these, it indicates the reader’s engagement with the content.
Internet marketers communicate with their buyers directly. The internet has seen an economic shift in traditional marketing thinking, from mass markets to finely targeted niches. IMers invest time in identifying, profiling and analyzing their markets; they research ‘buying’ keywords used by those niches and create Search Engine Optimized (SEO) copy around this information.
They want ‘warm’ customers coming to their websites – people whom they have already identified as prospects – rather than attracting mass, unqualified, traffic.
If your goals are to interact with these buyers directly, to give your business online greater visibility, and to drive people into your sales funnel – then online press releases are for you.
>>> To learn more about why press releases are great for SEO, to learn how to assemble them yourself, and understand the different distribution methods available, I recommend (strangely enough!) my report Powerful Press Releases.
