How To Get Free Press & Best Strategies to Be in the News Today

1.       HARO: Help a Reporter Out --  www.helpareporter.com

This site is great and reporters come to you! You can easily log in and pick which queries you want to get emailed daily. You can scan the results and see if you want to take your time and reply.

2.       Non Traditional & Moderns Ways:  There are many new digital ways to get PR through blogging, guest blogging and getting ranked in Google. Here is an article about Blogging for SEO and Better Google Rankings.  If you post to Twitter, you can post to celebrities or newspapers and ask to be re-tweeted. 

3.       How to Write a Quality Press Release

• Extremely Catchy Headline (Duh!)
• Deal with actual facts and news including events, products, services, people, goals, plans and projects. Share legitimate news and do not create a marketing piece.
• Freebies are Catchy: For Example – A radio station is giving away a trip to their 25^th caller on their 25^th Anniversary Show. 
• The article should be newsy, clean and crisp.
• Stay under 500 words
• Answer the questions: Who, What, Where, When & Why
• Here is good article from Inc.com about writing a great press release. 

4.        Press Release Format:

• Headline
• City, State & Date
• Details: A brief 2 to 3 sentences describing the main point of the press release in italicized format.  It should be catchy enough to engage the reader and the reader should understand the article from only reading the details.  
• Body:  Remember, journalists are the ones who are going to re-post the article. So be factual and biased while catching their attention. Maybe relate to a current event or trend. A lot of press releases do include quotes, so you can interview a top expert in the company/industry for one paragraph. 
• Company Information: Includes a simple background of the company.
• Contact Information:  Make sure to include a name, website, address and a phone number.
•  Click here for a quality press release example.

5.       Best List of Free PR Sites to Send Your Release:

• 24-7PressRelease.com
• I-Newswire.com
•  PR.com 
• PRBu zz.com 
• PRUrgent.com
• PRLog.org
• P ressit .com

6.       Offer Something for Free PR: A great headline and eye catching appeal is to give something away valuable away for free. It catches the attention of the journalists and the potential readers. If you are a restaurant, maybe you offer a free appetizer on a slow Wednesday night…Or something along those lines.

7.       Give to Charity Press Release: Maybe every first of the month 10% of all revenue goes to a local charity. 

8.       Micro Target Journalists:  You can micro-target specific reporters in your industry and build relationships with them. Ask to meet with them or at the least a phone call to ask what type of press releases they would want to release on their publication.  Connect with local journalists on  Patch.com, a local grassroots news site. 

9.       How to Build Relationships with Editors to Share Your Press Release

• Be persistent and nice but don’t stalk or be mean.
• Bring up past news articles they wrote to build a relationship.
• Try to connect on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Find new editors you can grow with through local newspapers.  

10.   Best Paid Tool:  Vocus.com

Vocus has lists you can publish to hundreds of journalists, bloggers, newspapers and more. Click here for their  Press Release Sharing Tool. 

11.   Best Paid Method: Pay Per Performance PR Strategy

You can google “Pay for Performance PR Companies” and see if there is a company that fits your needs. This way you are not taking any gambles!

Remember, it takes a long time to build any PR strategy…especially one for free.  Be patient, work hard and be persistent. Once you find a strategy that works for you it will pay off!

Further Reading: The Science Behind Going Viral and Social Marketing