Demystifying Press Releases and Their Benefits
Randy Rohde
Increasing Leads and Revenue for Local Businesses, National Brands, and Non-Profits through SEO and Digital Marketing.
As a marketing professional or business owner, you likely know that press releases can be helpful in promoting your company and offerings. But do you fully understand what press releases are, how they work, their key benefits, and how to leverage them strategically? That's what I want to demystify for you today. Press releases have much to offer, whether you're looking to enhance brand awareness, generate new sales leads, or get your business in front of more potential customers. Stay tuned as I explain everything you need to know to use this valuable tool.
What Are Press Releases and How Do They Work?
A press release is an official statement that a company sends to targeted media outlets and journalists to announce something newsworthy happening with their business. The primary goal is to secure media coverage about your news so that your company’s story gets in front of your target audience and buyer personas.
Common press release topics include:
Getting creative with compelling and timely news hook ideas is key to capturing media attention with your press releases.
You distribute your press release through a wire service that media outlets and journalists subscribe to as part of their news gathering process. Those publishers then receive your announcement in their incoming content feeds and may choose to:
The key is crafting something compelling enough with your chosen news hook angle to capture their interest.
Branding Benefits of Press Releases
Here are three Branding Benefits:
Increased visibility and authority
Earning press coverage through your releases exposes your company to broad new external audiences you likely wouldn't reach through your marketing channels. And the powerful third-party validation from being featured positively in major media outlets enhances your overall brand image. It establishes you as an authority voice that should be listened to within your industry. Think of press releases as providing highly credible word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
Thought leadership opportunities
Including relevant commentary in your press releases on newsworthy industry news developments, trends, and events allows you to showcase your perspective, knowledge, and expertise to media in positions that amplify your insights. This can position you as a key opinion leader and go-to expert resource that reporters repeatedly return to for quotes and guest articles.
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Improved SEO
Well-optimized press releases also provide search engine optimization (SEO) value since they are often indexed by Google and other search engines, given their quality content. That means over time, they can help improve your overall search visibility by boosting domain authority and keyword rankings. More press releases linking to your site signal relevancy and authority to search algorithms.
Here are Three Lead Generation Benefits of Press Releases
Driving website traffic
The contextual links to your website that you strategically include within your press releases allow you to direct that newfound media coverage into increased traffic to targeted landing pages. This could include your homepage, product pages, blog, events page, or other conversion-focused pages. Earned media exposure drives readers' referral traffic, which tends to convert better due to higher trust/authority perceptions.
Generating sales inquiries
Releasing exciting news through your press releases around new product launches, special promotions or pricing discounts, new partnership deals, or noteworthy company milestones often sparks consumer interest in learning more. This lead nurturing can ultimately result in direct inquiries, demos or free trials requests, and new customer sales conversations.
Growing your contact list
Well-crafted releases invite readers to take a variety of lead-capturing actions, like:
This allows you to continually grow your overall marketing database and nurture those new contacts into sales opportunities through targeted follow-up campaigns.
Press releases offer powerful branding and lead generation benefits when approached strategically based on your unique business goals and ideal customer profiles. Now that you understand what press releases are, how they work, and what results they drive, you can leverage them effectively in your integrated marketing and public relations efforts. This will allow you to reach new audiences with your messages, establish thought leadership, drive referral website traffic, generate qualified consumer inquiries, and continually grow your contact lists.
Reach out if you need any help planning or refining your approach. Schedule a FREE Consultation with the link below.
With over 6 years of public relations experience, I have plenty of insights to help guide you! Let me know if you have any other questions.
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