Small Press Release Budget? 8 Free Ways To Promote Your Business
No matter how large or small your business – and its marketing budget – you should be using press releases as an effective and free way to promote your business.
There are a number of proven ways to use press releases to promote your business once you know how. Here are the main ones:
1-Post your press releases at your site
Make sure each press release you write is keyworded with important words and phrases related to your niche or industry. This will optimize them for the search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a long-term strategy that can pay off in consistent free traffic.
2-Create a media page at your site
It should contain all the information a media representative needs to get in contact with you and feel as though you are worth working with. It should also link to all your recent press releases, to create the perception that there is a lot new and newsworthy going on.
3-Use free press release distribution services
While you will never get the same level of distribution at free press release distribution services as you will with top paid services, free services are a good place to start – if only to practice what it takes to write an effective press release easily. The more press releases you write, the better you will become at them.
4-Try blogger outreach
Find the right blogs for your business, niche, and industry. Rank the blogs and bloggers in order of best fit. Create a spreadsheet with URL, email address, names of the bloggers, and a couple of titles of posts they have written recently that resonated with you. In this way, when you reach out to them, you will sound authentic, not like a spammer who is willing to try anything to get their press release noticed.
5-Post links to your press releases on social media
Give the headline, subheader and a link to the press release. Make sure all of these are keyworded. In this way, your press release will stand a better chance of being discovered on social search.
6-Post links via social media groups
Join groups related to your niche or industry. Link to your press releases in a non-spammy way. Remember, if you press release contains useful information rather than sales material most people won’t mind.
7-Pitch directly to journalists
This is by far the most time consuming, but can yield the biggest dividends Create your own database of journalists who might be interested in your topic or niche and what you do within it. Keep a database and send out an individualized pitch. You might not get any pickups for some time, but if your press releases are high-quality and useful, sooner or later they will start to know your name and have confidence that you are someone worth paying attention to.
When you pitch to them, they might want the content right away. Therefore, organize:
- The pitch
- Headline
- Subhead
to entice them. This should be enough to get them interest and eager to learn more.
Be sure to have the rest ready as well, in case they say yes:
- Full story
- Image/s
- Video
- Supporting graphic/s
- Author resource box
- Special landing page for each press release, to help determine how successful your media outreach for the press release has been
8-Register on Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
Keyword your profile as much as possible and you could soon have a steady stream of journalists coming to you (rather than the other way around) to learn who you are, what you know and what solutions your company offers.
Try these 8 easy ways to promote your business for free via the press, and see what a difference it makes to your traffic.
Call us today to speak to one of our PR specialists: 1-800-713-7278
