Free Press Release Distribution
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Posted by Bonny Albo Jan 20, 2007 |
Day Twelve: Free Press Release Distribution
If this is your first time visiting the thirty-day Make Money without Spending a Dime Challenge - Welcome! If you want to start from the beginning, you'll find the first posting here, and a list of all of the challenges to date here. Questions, comments or ideas to add? Join the discussions for free.
It's day twelve of my make money challenge, and I think before I get into the nitty gritty of today's topic - free press release distribution - I'll detail some of the positive feedback from the journey so far. Remember (and for those new to the challenge), I'm not only writing about ways with which to make money without spending a dime - I'm also testing these theories with my own copywriting and marketing business. Any ideas I use that don't work for me will be quickly thrown from my marketing arsenal, but nonetheless shared with my readers, as what works for my business may not work for yours, and vice versa.
So with that, I'll admit that the most valuable make money tactics so far have been a combination of several topics: Blog Marketing, Bootstrapping Emails, and several tools I haven't had the opportunity to post about yet like barterting, free classifieds and online networking. How well I have I fared so far with the challenge? In the twelve days I've posted to this blog, I've earned the business of three new long-term clients totalling several thousand dollars in work. Not bad for having spent a total of zero dollars for marketing and publicity purposes.
My next tactic included taking something I do for profit with many of my clients and using it as a free money making tool for my own enterprise: press releases. However, I'm not about to go into the "how to write a press release" diddy here because (a) I think there are many other experts who do a much better job than I (such as Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound), (b) I recently blogged on another site about the same topic and (c) I write press releases for a living and wanted to take a break from the topic.
What I will detail, however, is free press release distribution - or in other words, how to get your press release in the right person's hands.
How to Get Free Press Release Distribution
After you've ensured that your press release is written to specific standards, save it as a .txt file. Make sure that any URLs and other contact information show up still. If they don't, change the .txt file so that they do. You'll be copying and pasting this information for free press release distribution a lot in the next couple of days, so you might as well make the task easier.
Next, send a copy of your press release to a friend of yours, copying and pasting it into the body of an email. Get them to proof it, making sure there aren't any typos you overlooked. If you need to check that your email address is working correctly, then do that too.
Sign Up for Free Press Release Distribution
Once finished, it's time to sign up with a couple of free press release distribution sites. You may find others, but the ones I found most useful were:
Submit your press release to all of these sites, making sure to follow their terms of use.
Bookmark Free Press Release Distribution Media Contacts
Next, bookmark the following sites, who offer links and email addresses of national and international media outlets:
Take a closer look at one of the sites listed above that takes your fancy. Copy and paste twenty email addresses of media contacts you think would want to know about what your press release details. Then, email each one your press release (making sure to write PRESS RELEASE with the title of the press release listed in the subject line) to each of these twenty people - individually. I realize that's a lot of copying and pasting, but unless you've got some amazing anti-spamming email program I don't know about, I'd rather you do it individually rather than lose your free web page hosting account.
Repeat this free press release distribution process for as long as you are able to each of the media outlets that interest you, every day for a week.
Targeted Free Press Release Distribution
For those that still want more ideas, hit your favorite search engine and type in the keywords you've love to have #1 positioning for your small business. Take a look at the top 20 sites that show up, and see if perhaps they'd be interested in your press release. Yes? Then look for the Contact Us button.
Continue your press release distribution along these lines for a week, then check your web server log to see how many new links are tracking back to your website - if you haven't already seen a deluge in your mailbox.
Onto Day Thirteen?