Part Two: I Have My List But Now What? DIY PR
Send your press release in the body of an email (not as an attachment that can get stuck in a spam filter) with a brief personal note that tells the media person why their audience will be interested in your news. Ask if they’d also like to receive a photograph or other media –video, logo, audio, infographic — about your business. Add a catchy subject line and send. Follow up if you don’t hear back in a week.
Got an extra twenty-five bucks?
If you have even a tiny budget for publicity, you can supplement your DIY efforts with a distribution service called State Newswire. For as little as $25, the service promises to “send your news releases via email to all the daily and weekly newspapers, radio stations, and television stations in your state or city in a matter of minutes.” For local businesses, it works better than free release distributions that get picked up by general search engines.
No time for DIY publicity?
State Newswire is a good bet, too, if you have a few dollars but simply no time to build – or maintain — your own media list. Using a wire service may not be as effective as getting in touch with contacts whom you’ve researched and verified, but it sure beats doing nothing at all.
PR Newswire logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
