...it's how to use news releases to reach buyers directly



By Courtney Green - Senior Marketing Manager, Sydney

As it has for many things, the Web has changed the rules for news releases. The way buyer’s access news via Google, Yahoo and various PR wire sites means that it’s not just journalists accessing your news but millions of people around the world. How to reach and engage with these millions of people around the world is what the Author, David Meerman Scott looks at throughout Chapter 17.

Scott says in regards to news releases “you are providing your buyers with information that they need in order to find your organisation online and then learn more about you”. This makes perfect sense – for instance I have a Ministerial Keynote Address that has just been added to a conference I am currently marketing, therefore writing a news release about his address will then lead to people becoming aware of this and in turn learn more about the conference.

Scott goes on to say that a fundamental change about news releases is that you don’t need to wait for big news. Write about pretty much anything that your organisation is doing!

• CEO speaking at a conference? Write a release.
• Win an award? Write a release.
• Add a product feature? Write a release.
• Publish a white paper? Write a release.

This to me, I feel would keep the momentum of your marketing strategy at full pace so you are constantly at the forefront of people’s minds with interesting and relevant information to share.

Scott also looks at the use of RSS feeds which increase our ability to reach a much wider audience than ever before. Here at IQPC Australia we use Media Atlas (aap) and I have just come across a new one called http://www.whatech.com.au/ which has a technology and finance focus. Just this week I uploaded a Smart Grids press release and within the hour it had been picked up in Google Alerts and also by the CIO Council who then distributed the press release to their utilities database thus reaching people that I may not have otherwise!

One section in this chapter looks at the importance of links in your news releases. This is something I have become increasingly aware of over the last few months as we move to more web centric marketing. Not only do links within your news releases allow buyers to easily move between the news release to your event website or specific piece of content, it also increases your event website ranking – and we all know how important that is! Scott says “Each time your news release is posted on another site, such as an online news site, the inbound link from the online news site to your web site helps to increase the search engine ranking of your site, because the search engines use inbound links as one of the important criteria for their page ranking algorithms”. 

The final and perhaps most important section of this paragraph looks at the value of repurposing your news releases for other audiences. Scott says that “too often, organisations spend tons of money on, say, a PR program that targets a handful of journalists but fails to communicate the same information to other constituents”. Putting it into context it would be like having a very good press release and not repurposing it into an effective piece of copy to email to the database of a supporting association. For me, repurposing is time effective, smart and allows you to reach audiences that could have been missed opportunities.

Probably the advice that stands out to me the most is last paragraph of the chapter where he writes about the importance of having relevant, fresh and regular content/news releases. He says a regular editorial calendar means your company is busy. A non-updated media room can appear as if you company is stagnant. To me this rings true for our download centres. It is important for us to be constantly on the look out for relevant news articles or content opportunities so that we appear as not just a conferencing company but an information provider that is on the cutting edge of news and industry trends.

I feel that chapter 17 really reiterates what I and my team have been trying to achieve in our marketing strategies of late and it is encouraging to know we are on the right track.

Courtney Green