News Releases:
ROI Powerhouses
This Article written and © 2010 by Douglas Castle, CEO and Co-Chairman of TNNWC Group, LLC for publication in the TNNWC RSS Feed and Daily Email Supplement, and a host of other blogs in the DouglasCastleBlogosphere constellation. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced without permission of the author or publisher provided that it is printed in its entirety without editorial changes, and that all hyperlinks included herein are left intact. Full attribution must be given to the author and to TNNWC Group, LLC at the beginning of the article reprint or transmittal.
Attention: What’s Crucial about this News Brief?
1) For You: Newswire Services and News Releases – Be better informed about what each is, and how to make the best use of each;
2) For Your Business: Why every entrepreneurial venture, emerging enterprise, small business and high-growth company cannot achieve fast-growth, market domination and ongoing profitability without them!
Read on -
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The most cost-effective way of immediately reaching a giant, targeted audience is through a well prepared and properly-submitted news release – this ROI is multiplied even further if your news release is actually part of larger, well-conceived strategic campaign of releases programmed to appear in the media over time.
The more traditional term, “Press Release,” is increasingly inappropriate, as reporters, editors, publishers, bloggers and other attention-hungry parties look for exciting and original eye-catching news content, instead of just (yawn) self-serving corporate announcements; you know…the type that talk about Jane Doe being promoted from second assistant vice president to first assistant vice president in a regional fertilizer packaging company.
PR Web and PR Newswire are the industry’s dominant distributors of releases to broadcast media (these two giants are sometimes referred to as press release services or newswire services), and yes -- they are powerful channels to a large potential audience. What many DIY entrepreneurs seem to consistently overlook is that regardless of which service you choose, that’s the least important part of the process.
Fact: All that these newswire services do is, in effect, mass-mail your “submission” to a large audience of publications to which they have access. They don’t actually help you at all when it comes to maximizing your effectiveness by 1) making certain the your release is “picked up” by the maximum number of media outlets, and 2) making certain that the maximum number of readers actually look at your article.
Fact: Many young or smaller businesses are scared to death of News Releases. “They’re just too darned expensive,” they’ll say. What a stack of meadow muffins!
How Sad…
Look at the true cost per qualified lead if you were to spend (for example) $500.00 on a release which was “picked up” by 2,500 publications with a combined readership of 25 million subscribers (or followers), and your article was read by a mere 2% of this specially-targeted group… that would translate to $500.00 to reach 500,000 qualified prospects! That is a cost of only $0.001 per qualified lead! Just close your eyes for a moment and imagine 10% of these qualified leads visiting your website or blog. That would mean 50,000 new prospects coming to you!
To optimize the ROI of your release, you must headline it excitingly (with some masterful exhibitionism!), get it written as a true news article, get it edited, permeate it with keywords, hyperlinks and powerful quotes (and, where possible, with search or subject “tags”), give it third-party credibility in the submission process (i.e., so it doesn’t look like a typical self-serving “press release”) submit it to the right geographical and vertical markets, make certain that you have chosen the best day of the week to shoot it out of the cannon, track it, re-publish it to increase the social media buzz effect, and do a great deal more.
The process is complex, with many different components, but it is worth doing professionally. If you were to [foolishly] request that the two primary wire services do all of this for you, you would be overwhelmed at the real cost. If you factor in the amount of time that you would have to invest in the process (regardless of whether you try to do it yourself, or whether you attempt to get these other formula-based, mechanical services to do it for you), you would want to walk away. That would be a big mistake. You simply need to get professional, personalized, interactive help.
To understand what I mean, visit http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/newsrelease.shtml .
A powerful news release should be like a guided missile and not a rambling missive. If it even smells like an internal corporate announcement or a legal notice “for the record,” it will be far less likely to be printed, and far less likely to be read; you’ll waste a potentially good piece of information and a good opportunity for positive media attention as well as your investment of money and time.
Also, any good release is multiplied in its effectiveness by being part of a broader campaign. Isolated news releases are powerful, but they are limited in their lasting effectiveness. Longer campaigns, building up an image and working up to a crescendo [ahem] increase the likelihood of publication (you’ll have already been in the news, which automatically makes you more newsworthy), increase branding, credibility, and name recognition/ retention.
Promotion requires news releases, internet presence and interactivity, public relations, branding, social media buzz, positive customer experience (in order to win customers, keep them, and convert them to word-of-mouth spokespersons for your company or brand), and perhaps some capital to fuel the process (http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/financing.shtml and http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/vcprogram.shtml).
I’ll see you in the news.
Faithfully,
MAD MARKETING TACTICS™ !
Get MAD... Get CRAZY... Get MOVING... Get ATTENTION!
Visit us at http://MadMarketingTactics.blogspot.com
Tags, Labels and Key Terms: News Releases, promotion, exposure, branding, increased website traffic, increase qualified leads, increased visits, ROI, TNNWC News Releases, TNNWC Customer Experience Practice, buzz, blogs, news, small business services
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