A Guide to Small Budget Public Relations
A lot of people have been writing in asking about my small business public relations background asking what exactly I did. Hence I thought I’d share a previous post I wrote on the subject matter about a year ago.
For about four years I ran DoItRight Public Relations, a company which provided low cost PR services to small businesses and webmasters. I wrote and submitted press releases, getting press coverage and building journalists relationships for my clients.
The bulk of the work went into building relationships and pitching journalists, which came with time and basic networking skills. I will talk more about that in a future post. However, what I would like to share here are a few tips of writing the basic press release.
The Press Release Template
Title [Something Short/Simple]
Description [ 2-3 Sentence Summary]
City, State, Date – Answer the following questions: who, what, where, when, and why? Lay the foundation for the press release by telling me who you are, what happened, where it happened, when it happened, and why I should care.
In this part of the press release you can expand more on the details of what happened and let people know what it is newsworthy. Make sure not to turn the press release into an advertisement and write objectively. Do not try to “sell” the product or the company.
“Include a relevant quote from a company official.”
Any other information which you feel should be included in this paragraph. You don’t need to provide every detail, just enough so that someone reading the press release will understand what happened. If they want more details for a story, they will contact you.
“Include a relevant quote from an industry expert or a satisfied customer”
Finally, end the press release by a few sentences on a website that they can visit for more information.
### [Ends the Press Release]
For Additional Information, Contact
Contact Name:
Company Name
Telephone Number
Fax Number
Email Address:
Key Takeaways
In addition, a press release is not an advertisement. Do not try and sell your product. Report like a journalist would and be objective. Also, don’t include every little detail. Journalists get dozens of press releases and don’t need to go through your long winded press release. If they are interested, they will contact you for the details.
Once you have written a release, take the necessary time to send it out to industry journalists that you know. In addition, you can submit it to a number of free and paid press release distribution outlets which will help promote your submission. I recommend reading this article for more information on effective press release submission.
