Let Press Releases Spread Your Success Story

By Eric Bradford

No one is going to know how great your products are if you don’t tell them. Press releases are effective at getting the message out about new product releases, management changes at your company, acquisitions and mergers and quarterly revenues results. You can also use press releases to:

• Announce upcoming business events
• Share information about new business partnerships (an example of this is when a new product dealer signs an agreement to stock and sale your products)
• Let the media and readers know about community events your company will attend
• Report the results of a conference you attended or hosted
• Provide details on a move to a new office location

To get the most mileage out of press releases, get in the habit of distributing the news releases one or more times a month. You’ll also want to use the right press release distribution services.

When and where to send press releases

Although you could spend hours searching for low cost press release distribution services, to save time, you can distribute a media announcement through one distribution channel and monitor the results for one to two weeks. If the distribution service gets its users real results, you should see:

• Sales of your products or services pick up
• More people signing up for your business newsletter
• Larger numbers of people visiting your website
• Social media accounts you have receiving more followers

Don’t be surprised if you also are contacted by the media to schedule interviews or to provide on camera tips in your business specialty. Below are some press release distribution services that have a regional, national or international reach.

PRweb.com (A basic press release distribution package cost $99 as of May 2014. Your articles will be reviewed before they’re submitted.)

Ereleases.com (Distribution rates start at $199. Releases are automatically sent out to Google News and Yahoo! News. You can choose other areas, like states and industries, you want the releases distributed to. Think wisely when choosing where to have the releases distributed as the more areas you send the releases to, the higher your bill will be.)

Mass Media Distribution (Local distribution, the least costly of the firm’s services, starts at $199.)

PR News Channel (This site was created by former journalists. Cost to send press releases through them start at $149.)

PR News Wire (Has been in business for 60 years.  Distributes to more than 208,000 media oulets.)

Business Wire (Let’s you distribute photos and print documents.)

Remember to test the results that you get with a press release distribution service before you start writing and sending dozens of releases through the service. Also, check out the types of releases the companies have already distributed. You want your money to be well spent. You don’t want to pay to have news releases distributed through companies that, despite their ads, don’t have firsthand relationships with journalists and other media decision makers.