More Ways to Benefit from Your Press Release

Press releases are one way to get your company in the news.When news-hungry editors report directly from your release, orcreate their own report and just mention your company or service,the publicity value is immeasureable. The big guys send outrelease after release in an effort to gain free publicity.But don't toss a good press release once it's distributed! Thereare other ways to get continued coverage from that one piece ofwriting.USE IT IN YOUR SALES COMMUNICATIONWhether this includes a sales kit, a welcome packet for newmembers, or a direct mail campaign, including a nicely printedcopy of one or more press releases will be both useful andimpressive. Why not dash off a copy of it, with your handwritten"hello, thought you'd like to hear the news" to old leads?Did you have a fabulous quarter? Have you expanded to include anew product or service? Are you ahead of a trend? A press releaselike this informs and also hints at professionalism. (And whenyou DO get that call from a harried reporter wanting informationabout your company, you'll have it ready.)A recent client asked if he could add the press release I hadwritten for him to his direct mail campaign. A sales letter wasready to go to a 70,000 potential new customers. Did I think itwas a good idea? Yes!In this case the client's business "story", from humblebeginnings to 15 years later, had been intermingled into thepress release. We expected a good chance of having the releasepicked up on, since his newest service for finance and creditmanagers was newsworthy (solutions offered in a shaky economy)and groundbreaking (daily credit updates posted to the Interneton businesses experiencing economic stress). Certainly therelease could add strength to the sales letter! He firmly decidedto include it, in the exact form it hadbeen sent out to the media.POST IT ON YOUR WEBSITEPress releases can be an important element to websites. Whodoesn't benefit by being able to click right to currentinformation, important announcements, and news about yourcompany? A progression of releases being made available offers areal history of the business.Have you extended the life of your press release in other ways?Let me know at http://InternetWriters.com.