Do you still write press releases for clients?
If you have media contacts, it may be a worthwhile strategy.
But just publishing press release in the hope they get read by the right people is about as effective as air dropping it as confetti in a force 12 gale.
Here are four alternatives:
1. Buy a slot in an email list
If there’s someone in your client’s niche with 100,000 or more subscribers, paying to email their list is a great way of getting directly in front of your target audience.
Press release distribution site stats may show thousands of reads. But that doesn’t mean they’re the people you’re trying to reach.
2. Write an advertorial and promote it on Facebook
As discussed in my #1 Facebook advertising mistake post, overt sales pitches bombs on Facebook.
A better strategy is to present your pitch as valuable information instead. With the right angle, just $10 or $20 spent on ‘boosting it’ or showing to a custom audience can generate thousands of views and hundreds of clickthroughs.
The added benefit is that you can draw people to your site. You can then offer a lead magnet to get them on your email list for followup marketing activity.
3. Write a guest post
If you can find relevant bloggers with 100,000 readers, guest posting is a powerful way of getting in front of the right eyeballs.
Again, you’ll need to make it an interesting read focused on a reader’s problem, rather than a straight pitch. And once it’s published you can also run a Facebook ad campaign to turbocharge its exposure.
4. Turn the press release into a ‘report’ and use it as lead magnet
If the press release is about a new solution to a common industry problem, you could turn it into a report. This approach makes it appear more like valuable info and more trustworthy.
You’ll need to expand the content to cover the problem in more depth and to explain why the status quo is broken. You can then introduce the press release’s subject as the solution in a non-salesy way.
Why not run all four?
Those are just four alternatives to press releases for getting exposure and leads. All four are trackable. So you could run all of them and let the stats decide which is the most effective.
In today’s competitive marketing world, if you offer ‘leads’ or ‘sales’ rather than ‘expsoure’ as a goal, clients are more likely to hire you. And with your writing linked to profits, you can charge more when they do.
Any exposure hacks you’s add?
