Understanding the Vanity Press Release
Understanding the Vanity Press Release
Unfortunately, run-of-the-mill press releases from your company just don’t qualify as news. Why? Because other than your employees and maybe your parents, not many people care enough about your business to read routine articles about it. That’s why I call the typical company press release a “vanity” press release. It may make you look good to a small group of people, but it won’t attract the interest of news editors.
What, exactly, are vanity press releases? Most commonly, they announce product releases, industry awards, new hires, third-party partnerships, research results and other business milestones.
“But wait,” clients sometimes say, “what we are announcing is really interesting and groundbreaking. Surely The New York Times will run our release if you do a good job of pitching it.”
Sorry, but it’s just not going to happen. If you’re a small, privately-held company that’s never been in the news before, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than being profiled by the likes of the Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or Newsweek. Don’t waste a minute of your time or a nickel of your money trying to get their attention.
So does that mean you shouldn’t bother with vanity press releases? Absolutely not! Vanity press releases serve several very valuable PR purposes. You should use them to:
Impress your VIPs. It’s important to show your investors, employees, key customers, competitors, vendors and Website visitors that your business is moving and shaking. The vanity press release is an excellent way to do that, especially when you use it as a reason to send a personalized note to your key contacts to show you’re thinking of them.
Break into the local press. The national news media may ignore your press releases, but chances are your local newspaper won’t, especially if your company is based in a small or mid-size media market. (If you’re in a major media market, send your releases to the regional business publications instead of the large dailies.)
Get covered in the trade press. The role of trade journals is to cover businesses like yours, so they are more likely than the regular press to pick up your release. Will they? It’s easy to tell because in journalism, historical practice is a very good predictor of future activity. Pick up a recent edition or two of a trade publication and look for articles that appear to be based on a news release like yours. If you find any, you have a good shot of seeing your news release in print; if not, you don’t.
Here are some tips for maximizing the value of your vanity press releases:
1. Set a goal of distributing a press release every 6 to 12 weeks. Schedule a regular news meeting with your key managers to discuss press release topics. Hire a PR consultant or agency to help write and distribute your releases. Hint: Don’t send vanity press releases more frequently than monthly; even your parents wouldn’t want to read about your business that often.
2. Use a press release distribution service. The two largest are PR Newswire and Business Wire. With both services, you pay a small annual membership fee plus a fee for each release. These services send your releases to newspapers, trade publications and Internet news portals, where they appear in news searches and alerts. Hint: Save money by keeping your releases under 400 words and distributing them only within your state instead of nationwide.
3. Maintain a VIP e-mail list and send your press releases to these contacts. You can send releases as a Word attachment to an e-mail, or you can send a note with a hyperlink to your release as it was published by an Internet news portal from PR Newswire or Business Wire. (See example.) Hint: A personalized cover note, even if generated through mail-merge, goes a long way to cementing business relationships.
4. Post the headline of your latest press release in a “What’s New” box on your Website’s home page, with a link to the full story. This makes your Website more current and improves your site’s search engine visibility. Hint: Include the release date in the posting, but remove the headline after eight weeks, even if you don’t have a replacement, rather than making your home page look stale.
In the end, the value of your press releases will depend on your expectations. Keep those expectations realistic and the value of your PR campaigns will rise.
Understanding the Vanity Press Release - To learn more about this author, visit Solomon JD's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
What do editors at the nation’s newspapers, wire services, news magazines and television networks look for as they sift through the thousands of press releases that cross their desks every day? Simple: news — something new or unusual that would interest readers.
Unfortunately, run-of-the-mill press releases from your company just don’t qualify as news. Why? Because other than your employees and maybe your parents, not many people care enough about your business to read routine articles about it. That’s why I call the typical company press release a “vanity” press release. It may make you look good to a small group of people, but it won’t attract the interest of news editors.
What, exactly, are vanity press releases? Most commonly, they announce product releases, industry awards, new hires, third-party partnerships, research results and other business milestones.
“But wait,” clients sometimes say, “what we are announcing is really interesting and groundbreaking. Surely The New York Times will run our release if you do a good job of pitching it.”
Sorry, but it’s just not going to happen. If you’re a small, privately-held company that’s never been in the news before, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than being profiled by the likes of the Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or Newsweek. Don’t waste a minute of your time or a nickel of your money trying to get their attention.
So does that mean you shouldn’t bother with vanity press releases? Absolutely not! Vanity press releases serve several very valuable PR purposes. You should use them to:
Impress your VIPs. It’s important to show your investors, employees, key customers, competitors, vendors and Website visitors that your business is moving and shaking. The vanity press release is an excellent way to do that, especially when you use it as a reason to send a personalized note to your key contacts to show you’re thinking of them.
Break into the local press. The national news media may ignore your press releases, but chances are your local newspaper won’t, especially if your company is based in a small or mid-size media market. (If you’re in a major media market, send your releases to the regional business publications instead of the large dailies.)
Get covered in the trade press. The role of trade journals is to cover businesses like yours, so they are more likely than the regular press to pick up your release. Will they? It’s easy to tell because in journalism, historical practice is a very good predictor of future activity. Pick up a recent edition or two of a trade publication and look for articles that appear to be based on a news release like yours. If you find any, you have a good shot of seeing your news release in print; if not, you don’t.
Here are some tips for maximizing the value of your vanity press releases:
1. Set a goal of distributing a press release every 6 to 12 weeks. Schedule a regular news meeting with your key managers to discuss press release topics. Hire a PR consultant or agency to help write and distribute your releases. Hint: Don’t send vanity press releases more frequently than monthly; even your parents wouldn’t want to read about your business that often.
2. Use a press release distribution service. The two largest are PR Newswire and Business Wire. With both services, you pay a small annual membership fee plus a fee for each release. These services send your releases to newspapers, trade publications and Internet news portals, where they appear in news searches and alerts. Hint: Save money by keeping your releases under 400 words and distributing them only within your state instead of nationwide.
3. Maintain a VIP e-mail list and send your press releases to these contacts. You can send releases as a Word attachment to an e-mail, or you can send a note with a hyperlink to your release as it was published by an Internet news portal from PR Newswire or Business Wire. (See example.) Hint: A personalized cover note, even if generated through mail-merge, goes a long way to cementing business relationships.
4. Post the headline of your latest press release in a “What’s New” box on your Website’s home page, with a link to the full story. This makes your Website more current and improves your site’s search engine visibility. Hint: Include the release date in the posting, but remove the headline after eight weeks, even if you don’t have a replacement, rather than making your home page look stale.
In the end, the value of your press releases will depend on your expectations. Keep those expectations realistic and the value of your PR campaigns will rise.
Understanding the Vanity Press Release - To learn more about this author, visit Solomon JD's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Solomon's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 The $1000 Show English Best Cover Letter Managing Generations Vertical Market Ad Network |
|
 | ||
 |
More PR Resources
Press Release Builder | |
 |
Top 50 Social Media Blogs
Top 50 Social Media Blogs | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||