How to keep your press release out of the Round File
Distributing your press release is just as important as writing it if you want it to be seen, and more importantly, written up in the media.Follow these tips shared by Marketing Concept, Inc. and reach your goals quicker and with more success:
- Target your audience. Only contact editors who write about your industry or topic. If you send your story to the wrong editor the only file it will end up in, is the “round file.”
- Don’t send your press release to a “nameless editor with no interest in your topic. It too will get released to the “round file.”
- When you do discover which editors cover your topic area, find out the best way to send it to them. For some email is optimum, others prefer faxes and some still do prefer to receive “news” via pony express (snail mail).
- If you do send your releases via email, never send with an attachments – let me repeat that, never send an email to a journalist with an attachment (unless they ask for it that way). It will be deleted.
- Unless the editor specifically asks for follow up, don’t! With the hundreds of press releases they receive, it will only annoy them if you call and ask if they have received it. If you wrote your release well, sent it to the correct person in the way they expect it to be sent and you made it compelling enough to want more information, let your press release do its job.
- Check editorial calendars and deadlines. And adhere to them. If you send a release to a magazine about an event taking place after their deadline, you are wasting your time – and theirs. Ask the media how much lead time they need to properly research and cover a story.
- Post your release to your site so it can be found there by journalists “looking” for information on your topic.
- Be sure and update your website before sending your release especially if you are writing about information to be found there ~ journalists will often go there first for more information before contacting you.
Tracking Your Press Release Performance
The following services can assist you with monitoring the coverage and reach of your press release.
Google News - GoogleNews crawls news stories and headlines from 4,000 news sources worldwide, and searching is free.
Bacon’s Clipping Bureau - Bacon’s Information provides a wide range of information and assistance for anyone needing to research, contact or monitor the media.
Dow Jones News Retrieval - A pay service that archives more than 60 million documents and 3,400+ trade and business publications. CustomClips® feature scans more than 2600 media outlets for specific information.
LEXIS-NEXIS Communication Center - The world’s largest provider of credible, in-depth information. From legal and government to business and high-tech, our products and services provide direct access to an enormous information universe.
Luce Online - An automatic, electronic news clipping service provider delivering up-to-the-minute stories from over 7,000 print publications, newspapers, wire services, magazines, trade publications, and Internet/Online news sites. Receive full text articles and abstracts of stories matching your custom news criteria via email or website delivery.
Source: Marketing Concept Inc. http://www.marketingsource.com
