Your business or nonprofit has news to share. Maybe you’re a self-published author or artist with a new book or exhibit ready to debut.
The world needs to know, but how do you go about getting the word out?
Producing the PR: The writers among us have a built-in advantage here, but not as much as you think. Your press release needs to be just the facts, ma’am, with the most important elements being the subject of the email that you send out to editors and TV news producers and brevity. The PR doesn’t need to be a book, and in fact had better not be, if you want anybody to read it. Editors and news producers get literally hundreds of PR pitches daily; if yours takes more than a few seconds to scan over, it’s going to the deleted folder, almost assuredly.
Formatting: If you send a PDF that can’t be copied and pasted, you’ve wasted your time. Paste your text into the body of the email, or send an attachment in Word. Attach a headshot photo, book cover, art image or logo, or all of the above. Don’t spend too much time building a PDF with everything laid out nicely, because the editor is just going to rip it apart anyway to suit the needs of the particular publication.
Send it to yourself: You no doubt have your own website, Facebook, Twitter, an email newsletter. Those elements that you control are pivotal to what you need to do to get your word out. In part because no matter how good you are at writing your press release, getting it in the right hands, etc., you can’t guarantee that an editor or TV news producer is going to be interested in working with you. But you can guarantee that the word gets out on the media that you control.
Questions? Augusta Free Press manages marketing campaigns for dozens of clients in Virginia and across the country. Contact us today at [email protected] to find out how we can help you reach customers and clients.
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