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If you’re not creating news releases for your business on a monthly basis, you are at a minimum definitely missing out on a lot of free publicity.
Not only are news releases free, they are one of the best ways to showcase your business to the general public.
Although journalists receive dozens of news releases every day and most of them wind up in the circular file; you should also know that when a news release is used by a journalist, the business will almost always receive instant credibility and a boost in sales.
Free publicity is something everyone looks for in some form.
Budding actors and actresses, sports jocks, stars, small business and large corporations all place a high value on it for good reason. It works.
Many companies spend huge chunks of their budget on creative advertising for their businesses.
Weekly newspaper advertising costs alone can often overwhelm a small business’s budget and achieve only limited success. Radio and television advertising is more fruitful but is also beyond the budgets of most small businesses.
However, if you are willing to put some time, serious thought and creativity into promoting your business, you can save a ton of money on advertising and build a brand identity for your business.
Once the general public is made aware of your brand identity, many businesses only need a minimum of advertising like the Yellow Pages to keep their business fresh in the mind of their customers.
The most important elements for creating news releases for your business that will increase your chances of being accepted by a publisher are listed below.
Your news release must include at least one of the following elements if you ever hope to have it published.
- It should be of general interest to the public
- It should be timely in nature
- It should be humorous if possible
- It should provide conflict to generate discussion (political)
- It could be a human interest story or about a tragedy (Hudson River plane crash)
- It could predict some future outcome (how your business could affect the market)
- It could be about money
- It could be about sex (not pornographic)
Whatever elements you include should spark some interest to a publisher as well as the public.
When creating news releases for your business, there are some rules you should follow to make them appear more professional.
Boldly identify your news release. “News Release” should be prominently displayed.
Date and time your news release. Place the time of your release in caps and underlined just beneath your letterhead.
Use your letterhead. If you don’t have business stationary with your letterhead, use Word or some other word processor to create one. A professional letterhead is important.
Use a lot of “white space”. Journalists like to make notes on their copy so leave wide margins and double space your news release. Make it easy for them to make notes.
It is important that you provide your contact information. Place your contact information at the beginning or the end of your news release, but don’t forget to include it. Include your name, address, a reliable phone number and email address so a publisher can easily contact you.
End your news release with either ### or **END**
When writing your news release, make sure that have a compelling headline and that the most important information is in the first paragraph.
Who, What, When, How, and Why should be in the first paragraph.
Your entire story should be summarized in the first paragraph.
You should be able to understand what the news release is all about by reading the first five or six words of the headline.
For example: “New Restaurant Opens On The Max Brewer Causeway”.
Most journalists are overburdened and somewhat lazy by nature and will only scan their news releases. If the gist of your story is not up front in the copy, they may not even bother reading it.
Succeeding paragraphs should provide more but less important information about your news release.
A well written news release will make sense even if someone only reads the first headline of your first paragraph.
As long as you explain who you are, what you are doing, how you are doing it, where you are doing it and why you are doing it; your news release has an excellent chance of being accepted and published by a journalist.
Online sites like PRWeb.com allow users to send out free news releases. Others charge for the service.
Once you get some practice, you can whip out a good news release in a couple of hours. And, if you create one every month, you can be assured your business brand will stay fresh in the mind of your clients.
If you have not been creating news releases for your business on a monthly basis, you should start today.
Keeping up with the latest Internet marketing information online can be an impossible chore if you don’t know how to handle it correctly.
Internet marketing is a tough business and unlike conventional marketing methods, changes as fast as the speed of light.
Unlike offline marketing, few people can keep up with the pulse of the latest Internet marketing information without spending all day sitting at a computer.
So how does one keep current with the newest and best Internet marketing techniques without being left out in the cold?
Well, if you are reading this you already have a handle on where to get the latest Internet marketing information and strategies.
Generally, there are three places on the Internet that provide up to date marketing information that you can use to stay on top of your game.
- Internet Marketing Forums
- Internet Marketing Newsletters
Internet marketing forums are probably the best places to find out what’s going on in the world of Internet marketing.
The largest forums on the Internet, like the Warrior Forum, offer their members a preview of the newest Internet marketing strategies and techniques.
Most of the big name gurus of Internet marketing can be found there and usually offer their products prior to their launch to forum members either at a reduced price or for evaluation.
These big guns are in most cases the people who are responsible for creating and testing the latest Internet marketing developments.
If you really want to find out what’s going on in the Internet marketing world, you might as well go straight to the horse’s mouth.
The Warrior Forum and others like it, are great places for newbies to market their new products, get professional feedback on their new products and learn about the Internet marketing business.
It’s also a great place for generating back-links, using ad swaps for list building and getting targeted traffic to your website.
If only one person stumbles across your product and tells others about it, it could make your product an overnight success.
When it comes to keeping up with the biggest names and latest trends, it’s hard to beat Internet Marketing Forums.
In addition to Internet marketing forums, proper use of the search engines can also provide you with a wealth of the latest Internet marketing information.
Although Google currently enjoys almost 70% of the Internet search engine market; Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Ask and others that fill out the balance are all able to point users in the right direction.
Pick your favorite search engine and do a search for “latest Internet marketing information” or “new Internet marketing information“.
The search results will provide you with a ton of sites that are dedicated to the latest Internet marketing developments.
All you need to do is pick the most helpful sites and bookmark them. Then refer to them on a regular basis, perhaps once a week, to keep abreast of any new marketing developments.
Subscribing to Internet marketing newsletters will also provide you with current Internet marketing information and is another way to keep up with any new marketing developments.
Most newsletters are free for the asking, but the best ones with the most up to date information will charge you an annual or small monthly subscription fee.
These paid newsletters are where you can really get some great information that is not offered in the forums.
The same gurus that inhabit the Warrior Form are the ones that charge for their newsletters.
There are several advantages of subscribing to a paid newsletter instead of a forum; the primary one being that you will get detailed up to date information that is seldom offered to forum participants.
If you are in the Internet marketing information business and want to keep up with the latest marketing trends to stay on top of your competition, you need to take advantage of all three of these sources, including this website.
Keeping up with the latest Internet marketing information isn’t that difficult if you simply follow these suggestions.
The Google Engage program was designed to help educate businesses and individuals that specialize in helping other online businesses succeed.
The Google Engage program may be “just the ticket” for you if you happen to be an agency, webmaster, web designer, marketing consultant, or freelance entrepreneur who works with small businesses to provide SEO and other online marketing services.
Google’s Engage program can help you grow your SEO business by providing you with the top notch training and tools you need to offer better online marketing services to your clients.
The Google Engage program which is currently offered only in the US and United Kingdom, provides free training in the form of videos, mandatory webinars, live events, promotional materials, slides, templates and online tutorials on AdWords and other Google business solutions designed to help you improve your online marketing skills and to help you better market your services to your clients.
The Engage program gives you access to exclusive tools and all the guidance you will need to help your clients create great ads, keyword lists and ROI tracking to run their AdWords campaigns more effectively.
In addition to the training, Google Engage program will provide you with a generous amount of AdWords coupons (initially twenty $100.00 coupons) that you can either use yourself to manage your client’s AdWords campaigns or give directly to your clients for them to use.
To qualify for the program you or your business must:
- Be physically located in the U.S. or UK
- Provide specialty web services that help other online businesses succeed such as:
Web development
AdWords campaign management
Marketing consultant
SEO services
etc.
- Have an existing business website
- Be willing to promote Google’s tools and services to your clients.
- Sign in to your Google account, complete the online application and describe your business and services that you offer.
The program is currently free to qualified applicants and if you are accepted and approved, you will get immediate access to the Engage program’s online portal where all the program’s training resources are located.
You must successfully complete four required webinars and agree to the Google AdWords “terms and conditions” before you will be eligible to receive your first free 20 AdWords advertising coupons for your clients.
If and when your clients open and activate new Google AdWords accounts, you may be offered additional free coupons to disperse to your clients. This is entirely at Google’s discretion.
Why should you join the Google Engage program.
The benefits include but are not limited to the following:
- Blow the doors off your competition
- Increased business profits
- Intensive AdWords knowledge training
- Free AdWords coupons you can use to attract new clients
- Online training resources and educational materials
- Assistance in becoming an official Google AdWords Certified Partner*
* The Google Engage program gives participants the skills needed to prepare them for passing the Google AdWords Certification examination. Among other benefits, AdWords Certified partners receive a Professional Profile page, more advanced training, an official badge or certificate with their AdWords qualification, a listing on the Google Partner Search engine and higher value AdWords coupons.
If you want to help your clients succeed in their advertising by more effectively using Google AdWords and if you want to greatly improve your standing in the business community, you might want to look into the Google Engage program.
