Whats Better Than Free Advertising?
| Category: PR/Publicity and Media | Date: 2002-07-22 |
Free advertising is as good as it gets, right? You get your message out, and you dont have to pay for it. What could be better?
Free publicity. In my opinion, the very best thing you can do for your site is generate as much free publicity as possible. So how can you get free publicity? More importantly, what IS publicity, and what makes it better, in many ways, than advertising?
Publicity differs from advertising in one very important way: Advertising is a message youve paid to have printed about your company. Publicity is a message the publication is printing about your company for free. A classified is advertising, a news story is publicity. Now. How can you get free publicity for your business? One time- honored way is to send out a "press release." This is a story about your company, focusing on some upcoming event, some unique aspect of your business, or something else that sets you apart and makes you "newsworthy." Coming up with an idea may be hard at first, but when you really sit down and think, youll find lots of things about your business that would make excellent press release fodder. You then just need to sit down and write a clear, concise press release that journalists will want to print. If you dont feel confident in your ability to write the release, or dont have the time, you can hire a professional writer to produce it for you. If youd like to take a shot at writing your release but dont know where to start, I offer a press release template in the "articles" section on my web site, MarketWrite http://www.marketwrite.com
Once youve written your press release, youll need to distribute it to journalists. Here, again, you have some choices. You can do it for free by finding names and addresses of press outlets online or in press directories at your library. If you only want to reach a few organizations, or if you primarily want to hit ezines in your target area, this might be your best approach, though if youre planning to send to many outlets, there are better ways than this. If you want to send to more media organizations, PRWeb http://www.prweb.com offers a free distribution service. It sends to fewer journalists than their paid service, and the journalists many not pay as much attention to these free releases, but I know people whove had success with this outlet, and its certainly a great way to "test" your release. Another option is to pay someone to distribute your release for you. Xpress Press http://www.xpresspress.com is an outlet I use a lot for my clients news releases, and Im happy with their work. Ive had the opportunity to become an affiliate for several companies with services like theirs, but I chose Xpress Press because I think they give the best results for businesses on a budget.
About the Author
Angie Dixon is the author of "MarketWrite: Harness the Power of Words to Boost Your Online Sales."
Receive a free excerpt from MarketWrite when you subscribe to the MarketWrite Report at http://www.marketwrite.com/subscribe.htm. To Contact Angie phone 501-421-0185, any time.
angie@marketwrite.com
http://www.marketwrite.com
Free publicity. In my opinion, the very best thing you can do for your site is generate as much free publicity as possible. So how can you get free publicity? More importantly, what IS publicity, and what makes it better, in many ways, than advertising?
Publicity differs from advertising in one very important way: Advertising is a message youve paid to have printed about your company. Publicity is a message the publication is printing about your company for free. A classified is advertising, a news story is publicity. Now. How can you get free publicity for your business? One time- honored way is to send out a "press release." This is a story about your company, focusing on some upcoming event, some unique aspect of your business, or something else that sets you apart and makes you "newsworthy." Coming up with an idea may be hard at first, but when you really sit down and think, youll find lots of things about your business that would make excellent press release fodder. You then just need to sit down and write a clear, concise press release that journalists will want to print. If you dont feel confident in your ability to write the release, or dont have the time, you can hire a professional writer to produce it for you. If youd like to take a shot at writing your release but dont know where to start, I offer a press release template in the "articles" section on my web site, MarketWrite http://www.marketwrite.com
Once youve written your press release, youll need to distribute it to journalists. Here, again, you have some choices. You can do it for free by finding names and addresses of press outlets online or in press directories at your library. If you only want to reach a few organizations, or if you primarily want to hit ezines in your target area, this might be your best approach, though if youre planning to send to many outlets, there are better ways than this. If you want to send to more media organizations, PRWeb http://www.prweb.com offers a free distribution service. It sends to fewer journalists than their paid service, and the journalists many not pay as much attention to these free releases, but I know people whove had success with this outlet, and its certainly a great way to "test" your release. Another option is to pay someone to distribute your release for you. Xpress Press http://www.xpresspress.com is an outlet I use a lot for my clients news releases, and Im happy with their work. Ive had the opportunity to become an affiliate for several companies with services like theirs, but I chose Xpress Press because I think they give the best results for businesses on a budget.
About the Author
Angie Dixon is the author of "MarketWrite: Harness the Power of Words to Boost Your Online Sales."
Receive a free excerpt from MarketWrite when you subscribe to the MarketWrite Report at http://www.marketwrite.com/subscribe.htm. To Contact Angie phone 501-421-0185, any time.
angie@marketwrite.com
http://www.marketwrite.com
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