The modern internet is coming closer to the forefront as the primary way of conducting international business. The internet has closed many communication gaps between buyers and consumers by making more products more readily available to the potential customer. More and more people are utilizing the internet as a means of conducting business and it will continue to grow exponentially as a business vehicle for many years to come. A strong press release is able to give your business a giant leap and an experienced press release writer can do this only.

This is the cause of increasing online competition by internet businessmen all over the world. Business men and women have to do all that they can by utilizing techniques available to them to insure that their business is seen and receives traffic as the result.

One of the best tools that can be used for this purpose is the press release. An effectively written press release is worth more than its weight in gold. Some may tend to underestimate the power of this simple tool but it is important that you use it well and construct it carefully so that you will achieve the maximum benefits of its use.

What is a Press Release?

A press release is a marketing tool which is used to get the media to spread your news to the public. The advantages that it offers is that it will get your story or brand out to many hundreds of thousands or even millions of people that you may not otherwise be able to reach at all. Any businessman or woman would be totally blind and crazy to not see the immediate advantages of using the press release.

Journalists have to sift through many hundreds of press releases each day in order to choose which ones to use so it is important that your press release be expertly constructed. Your press release needs to grab the attention of the reviewer over the many other press releases that he or she will have to look at every day. In order to do this you have to construct it in a way that it can jump out and grab the attention of the journalist and the potential reader.

Why do You Need a Press Release?

A press release is one of many different ways or techniques of using social media in order to bring attention to your brand or website. It is a valuable e commerce tool and when used correctly along with other traffic generating techniques can pay off for you with powerful results.

You really need to take advantage of every type of opportunity in order to get your website, product, or brand out in front of more potential customers. In this sense it is imperative that you use a well written press release in order to assist the success of your brand. There are many different other reasons to use a press release and all of them center on getting attention, or traffic to your project or site.

You may use a press release simply because you have a story that you want to tell. This is the bottom line of all press releases but every once in a while this will be the sole motive. The key is to not look at the press release as a marketing tool but to look at it as a news item which people need to know.

There may be times when you want to attract more prospective clients to your product. The press release can be useful in gaining followers as well as customers. If you can maintain the interest of the follower over a period of time he or she will probably decide to purchase your product or service at some time in the future.

There are also search engine optimization advantages which can be derived through the use of a well written press release. Positive links back to your website and the traffic that it will receive as a result of the press release will help your site receive better rankings on the search engines and thus get more traffic directly to your site from the search engines as a welcome byproduct.

Your press release will garner attention for your product or brand through the medium of the media, and is the easiest way to get positive news coverage. It is definitely a technique which you cannot afford to overlook in your online marketing efforts.

What Your Press Release Should be about

Allow me to start this section off this way. The last thing that your press release should be is an advertisement to purchase a product. It will not be chosen at all if it is and it definitely will not be read by potential consumers. Your press release should be a subject of interest to your target audience, not an attempt to sell them on your idea or product. It has to be about something recent, new, fresh, and exciting. No potential customer is looking to be bombarded with a sales pitch but a successfully written press release should certainly pique their interest in your brand and better yet bring you their traffic or business.

Your release can be written about a person or event in order to keep it interesting, and the more colorfully written the better. A press release about a colorful character will certainly capture the undivided attention of the reader if it fits into the right niche for that reader.

If the journalists do not see it as a news worthy event they will not select it. Remember their job is to provide current and exciting news to the public so write it with this in the forefront of your mind. Do not write about old news because it is just that, OLD news. Neither journalists nor potential customers will be interested in old news.

A press release that gives exciting news about the launching of a new campaign will work to create interest for you also. It can probably be more effective if it is done as an announcement of a public event or introductory story to a gala celebration or promotion that would be advantageous for the customer to know about.

Have you ever noticed that on social media sites human interest events are very popular? A story about a hero or villain will almost always draw much attention. People are normally curious about what other people are doing, especially if they perceive an effect on their own lives. This is why you should make your press release as personal as possible in this respect.

Humor always works and the public is always intrigued by funny incidents and the reactions of others to situations that they find themselves in.

How an ideal Press Release Should Look

The successful press release should be written in the same style as a news story or article. It should appeal to the journalist who has to review it because that is the look that the journalist expects to see. Remember that the press release is a story and not an ad or a sales pitch. You also must be careful so as not to make your press release a mundane presentation of facts. Remember that the person who reads a news article is not looking to find an article but rather a news story. The journalist wants the same thing also. You have to put yourself in the mind of the journalist when you compose your press release.

If you want the release to appeal to your target audience you have to give them what they are expecting to receive.

Press Release Writer Remembers 8 Things When Writing a Press Release

There are some things that you have to remember when you are constructing your press release which will serve to enhance it in the eyes of the readers and/or the search engines. These points are key to the credibility of your press release and should receive your undivided attention because any omission or error in one or more of these areas can be critical.

1). Use professional language and correct grammar in your press release. This increases the credibility of your story and also helps to insure that it will be selected for use. Anything that is written by you is a representation of your brand whether it gives a good or negative impression.

2). Insure that the language of your press release is not salesy or promotional. Your customer is not looking to be pitched to, rather he or she is interested in reading an interesting story.

3). Also insure careful that you make your press release accurate and informative. Any inaccurate or deliberately misleading information will certainly kill your credibility and the perceived credibility of your brand.

4). Do not misuse links in your press release. Competition is stiff on the internet and there are many different businesses vying for attention there so it may sometimes become overly tempting to place unnecessary promotional links in your site. Any attempt to place meaningless links will appear to be exactly what it is, manipulation.

5). Capture the attention of the reader with a powerful thought that will catch and hold the mind of your audience just because it is so entertaining or intriguing. If you don’t do this you are really wasting your time.

You must capture and hold the attention of your reader all of the way through your press release. It is imperative that you keep the level of excitement and involvement very high level all throughout the article. One good technique that you can use to help you get there is to read other press releases done by the competition and keep a list of the ones that get and hold your attention. Make a careful analysis of each one so that you will know how the author successfully got your attention. Use whatever worked for him in your own release.

6). The headline is crucial. You need a headline that will pull the reader into your release. Journalists and everyone else who sees your press release will look at the headline first. If the headline is weak it does not matter how captivating or creative your content is because the reader will never even bother to look at it.

7). Write your release in simple terms. Sometimes when we talk with professionals they tend to leave us hanging out on a limb because they know their subject matter too well. Remember to put yourself in the mind of the person who is reading the release and feed the information it to them in a way that they can understand. Don’t use terms which are common only to the profession that you are writing about. Use simple, common, everyday terms and slogans. The reader who is having a hard time understanding your release will not bother to even look at it for long, let alone enjoy its contents.

8). Add photographs, use italics, and bold lettering from time to time. Nothing looks as imposing to a reader as a bunch of words grouped together in an article on a page. Use plenty of open spaces and different types of lettering to make your release more palatable to the reader. Pictures help break up the monotony and serve to maintain the reader’s attention, while many breaks in the text will make the body of the release appear to be less imposing.

Five Premium Press Release Sites Which will Boost Your Sales

This is a list of premium press release sites which are reputable and will certainly help you to increase sales.

1) Prweb.com

2) Ereleases.com

3) PR.com

4) PRnewswire.com

5) BusinessWire.com

However, getting a press release approved on a premium site is difficult. The bottom line as to why it is more difficult to get your release on a premium site can be explained in a word and the word is “premium.” Any one of the eight factors above can cause the press release to be rejected from being included in a premium site because they will not deal with a product that is not a high quality product. If you apply the factors listed above to the creation of your press release you should be able to get it accepted with no problems at all.

PRweb is probably the best place to get approval because they have been in the business of creating press releases for many years and they know exactly what needs to be done to get your press release published on highly reputed news Medias like Nytimes, Miamiherald etc. They can diagnose any particular problems and fix them so that your new press release will be acceptable.

If you choose to follow the steps which have been so carefully outlined above you should be able to utilize the press release as an effective marketing tool. A properly constructed and executed press release should pay off in great dividends when it comes to receiving traffic for your website.