How To Distribute Your Press Release

Now we begin one of the most important sections and topics, how to distribute your press release and who should and should not be receiving it.

There are different ways of sending out your press release and in a minute, I'll tell you the best system of all: the fastest and cheapest one!

How To Distribute Your Press Release

Once you've written your release, how do you get it into the hands of the media people?

There are two answers to that question. Are you sending out a release with immediate time value? By that I mean, if the media people get the information tomorrow or the day after, will it be old news? If so, fax it.

If your release will be of interest today, tomorrow and next week, you can mail it or fax it (I prefer to do both).

Telephoning The Media

Should you call the media contact the next day or a few days later to follow up on your release? Almost all of the books out there on getting publicity tell you that it's vital that you follow up by phone. All I can tell you is what I do and what results my clients and I have gotten.

In all the years of receiving publicity for my clients and myself, I/we have never once followed up a mailing or faxing with phone calls. Why?

It's very simple. I'm 100% convinced that follow-up calls are a tremendous waste of time and money. Let me give you an example.

Let's say I fax out 100 press releases. The next day I start my follow-up phone calls. It takes an average of four telephone calls to finally make contact with the person you're looking for. So, you have to make 400 phone calls to reach everyone you want. Let's say that each call costs $1 and takes four minutes. That means I'm going to have to spend $400 and over 26 hours making these calls!

My friend, I have less than no interest in spending 26 hours on the phone tracking people down just to ask them if they got my press release.

And how about that $400? Well, a one page fax costs about 10 cents to fax after 5 PM. So, for $400 I could fax out another 4,000 releases!

There's no contest in my mind. I'm not wasting time and money on the phone doing follow-ups. I'm going to use that time and money to fax or mail out more releases and then go to the gym.

I haven't mentioned this yet, but I'm interested in doing as little work as possible with the biggest payoff possible. How about you?

I don't want to spend hours and days on the phone or in front of my computer. I want to write a killer press release, load it into my fax software and let my computer do the work.

Even better, I want to spend a half hour or an hour writing a great release based on the formula I came up with, load the release into my fax software, go to bed and have my computer fax the release all around the country while I sleep.

Mailing A Press Release

I think it's best to do both - fax and mail your press release. The advantage of a fax is that it's cheaper, it's faster (especially for time sensitive materials) and it's less hassle.

The advantage of mailing in your press release is you can control the look of your press release (nice paper, add color, pictures or a brochure, etc.). You can also include a picture of yourself and/or the product and you can even include a sample of your product (if you're doing a press release for a newsletter that you are starting, you can include a sample issue).

When using both methods, your chance of getting your press release read improves dramatically. It may end up costing you more time and money, but it'll be well worth it.

Emailing Your Release

Because of the Internet and the popularity of email (almost everyone has an email address), the newest way to send out your press release is via an email.

This is ultra quick, totally free and you can test lots of different headlines and strategies in a matter of hours. But, emailing your press release should be your last resort.

It's not very effective because most people, including publishers/editors, still receive a lot "spam" or junk emails. So, lots of emails get trashed and deleted before they are even read. One other draw back with sending an email release is that it's very difficult to read plain text and this will turn off the editor (remember, your most important goal is to get your press release read).

But, you may want to send out an HTML press release which could be a sample release that you design for your site. People can actually click on the links in the HTML email that you send out and if you are selling a software program or something else interactive, the publisher can quickly check things out.

Emailing press releases is becoming more and more popular (and effective) as the months go by and people are becoming more comfortable with cyber space.

When it comes down to it all, use all the above methods for distributing your release and as always, test and be creative (but be a bit cautious as well!).

Another valuable little known "secret" for getting tons of free publicity is that...

BIG publicity opportunities often come from small publicity!

According to Dr. Paul Hartunian, THE BIGGIES -- The Tonight Show, Letterman, Today, USA TODAY, National Enquirer, etc. -- have staff members constantly scouring "little media" like small town newspapers, small town radio and TV shows, specialty magazines looking for the news, different or odd.

Now most people seeking publicity ignore all the "small" stuff.

Why bother with that, they ask? Who cares if some weekly newspaper in Podunk, Iowa, writes about me? What good is that?

They're wrong.

Distribute your press release to all types of media - big and small. In fact, I'd recommend you start small and once you're comfortable with all the new fame, fortune and new customers, graduate to bigger media.

It's Easy, Cheap And Super Fast

New technology makes what was time-consuming and expensive suddenly fast, easy and cheap. In the "old" days, news releases had to be typeset, taken to a printer, then put in envelopes, the envelopes addressed, postage bought and put on, and schlepped down to the post office.

And, unfortunately, a lot of the news releases got screened out in the mailrooms and never got delivered into the hands of anybody who could do anything with them.

But new technology has changed all that.

First of all, there's desktop publishing. You've probably got a PC or Mac and some kind of simple word processing software. Well, with that, you can sit down and create a professional, attention-commanding news release in minutes.

When the occasion demands it, it's easy to personalize the individual releases. It's also easy to store it all and make small changes easily and instantly.

Broadcast Faxing

One of the best tools you can use to make tons of cash is "broadcast fax"! This is perfect for the "publicity blitz." I can show you how to fax a one page press release anywhere in the country for just 10 cents after 5 PM. That's cheap! No envelope, no copying, no postage. Zap. 10 cents. It's there in 30 seconds.

[Note: In some states "broadcast faxing" is illegal. As a precautionary disclaimer, please check with the individual state's regarding the legality of broadcast faxing.]

But what's even more exciting (and profitable) is that it's just as easy to fax 1,000 of them as it is to fax just one. No more work. You can "blast out" 100, 500 or 1,000 of the press releases to 100, 500 or 1,000 different contacts all at one time, instantly, with the push of a button or a phone call. You don't even do the faxing -- it's done for you.

It's instant. It's easy. It's dirt cheap.

Does it work?

A broadcast-faxed news release is what got publicity guru Dr. Paul Hartunian a two page article, in color, in Forbes Magazine.

If you bought two pages of advertising in Forbes, you would pay between $80,000 and $150,000.

Total cost - 10 lousy cents!

For $100, just $100, I -- you -- can conduct an instant publicity blitz to 700 selected media contacts.

This is a great, cheap way to "test" a new idea, story, product or pitch. This is a great way to respond to a very timely event, to link yourself to what's going on in the news.

And, if only one out of the 100 contacts choose to do something with you, that'll get you exposure ("advertising") to thousands or tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of people... and bring lots of buyers running to you via your toll-free 800 number, recorded message, address or whatever. All for a hundred bucks.

Next, there's fax-on-demand, recorded messages and the Internet. These, too, are great technologies you can use to get tons of free publicity. But you have to do it right and you've got to have the right "connections", or the results will be disastrous and a total waste of your time.