Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Why The Web Has Made Press Releases And PR Even More Valuable

Well-known and respected marketing personality Al Ries wrote a famous book proclaiming the death of Advertising and the rise of PR to replace it.

On the World Wide Web, marketers have known for some time now that people online hate to be advertised to and are much more receptive to a message when it is packaged as something else other than advertising. Actually this is the secret behind the considerable success of Google and its' amazing Adsense program. Those tiny ads that often merge with the design of the rest of the site are designed to be viewed as text links linking to more information on the same subject. In other words a service that makes available more information on what you are looking for. Thus in essence people click on them for further information and certainly not to be advertised to.

Some online Public Relations practitioners have, also discovered this amazing but simple secret that is still making billions of dollars for Google Inc.

The Power of Packaging Your Announcement As Valuable Information In A Press Release
Essentially what successful PR persons online have discovered is the power in packaging new features and developments in one's products or services as valuable information in a press release. It makes a huge difference every time. To start with, contrary to popular opinion, most sites are hungry for content and information to generate that content. That is why a useful press release written in an interesting way that clearly shows them the possible points of interest to their readers will always be deeply appreciated by web masters. That appreciation will also lead them to use the content on their sites and to link appropriately back to the source of the information.

Take a moment to imagine a situation where a press release distributed online to thousands of email addresses results in thousands of links and mentions of your product or service, and all this happens virtually instantly. Not only will this result in a huge amount of traffic almost immediately, but in terms of search engine optimization, it will end up giving you a very high ranking for your main keywords with leading search engines mainly because of the one way links. This will naturally open the floodgates for even more targeted traffic coming in through the search engines.

That is the value of a well-written press release distributed to the right list of web and blog site owners. Contrast that to an advertisement that costs a lot of money and has to be seen by thousands to yield any significant response.

How Do You Package A Magical Press Release?
The secret in constructing the sort of press release that will get you written about is to think like your prospects would selfishly think. In other words you have to figure out what is in it for them. This is not always so obvious or easy. And then many times it will vary depending on the particular market segment you are targeting. This is why it makes perfect sense and usually pays huge dividends to re-write a press release for the different market segments that you are targeting.

How to Build Your Press Release Opt In List
It is not too difficult to build your own press release distribution opt-in list although you will need lots of patience. It is important to understand that although sites are hungry for content and information, it has to be content and information that will interest their readers. So a brief email to the webmaster explaining what you have in mind and attaching a sample press release will usually get you an instant response. This is apart from making information available at your site and with all the articles that you post elsewhere inviting webmasters to join your opt in email list so that they can receive updates and the latest information.

The more active you are with your activity of emailing webmasters and posting your articles elsewhere with links pointing to the page where they can register to be receiving your press releases, the quicker your list will grow. Of course the ideal situation for quick results would be to pay a site to distribute the press release on your behalf to thousands of web sites. Actually it does not cost as much as you may think.

In Conclusion
For a press release to be really effective, you will need a large opt-in email list with thousands of names. Still the power of Public Relations and especially a well written press release is huge. Al Ries is absolutely right when he says that Advertising is dead and PR has taken its' place as the most valuable and powerful marketing tool. Thus anybody who learns how to use PR effectively is bound to reap huge rewards.

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