Every company wants to get their message across and often times, paid advertising and marketing is the tool we rely on to get the job done. In an effort to diversify my reach and exposure, I tested the Public Relations water with an experiment in Press Releases.

To send a press release you need a press release, so I brushed up on some of the basics:

1) Most importantly, a press release is NOT advertising. It’s an objectively written news story and if you don’t write it as such, you won’t be taken seriously. Spend some time thinking of a relevant hook or angle that aligns your company or website with something of interest to the general consumer or niche/target which you’re in. To illustrate, the website which I wrote a press release for is ChefClub.net. So what was relevant at the time? The Super Bowl. And, for Americans at least, that means football, funny commercials and yummy appetizers. And there’s my hook. I held an appetizer recipe contest and positioned the article to say, “If you’ve got great recipes enter the contest. If you want to find some great recipes, come and search for free.” On top of that, I included a relevant recipe that seemed Super Bowl appropriate – Buffalo Chicken Dip.
2) Grab attention and draw the reader in with a creative headline and slugline that summarize the article but don’t give it all away. A good way to get ideas on this is to simply search other press releases and see how they have approached this challenge. Why does the reader care? Give them a reason to continue reading. It’s the same as advertising copywriting, only with a more subtle perspective. For this press release, I used: “Cooking Enthusiasts and Foodies Eagerly Await Superbowl – New Website Aims to Quench Mouth Watering Hunger of Each.”

3) Follow proper formatting procedure. Your press release should probably be around 400 words and again, written objectively in the third person. The rules governing press release format are much like cover letters and resumes – they follow general guidelines but have slight differences based on preferences. I’ve posted a sample of the press release format I used. For ideas on variations, do a Google search for “press release samples” or something similar.

4) Use a professional e-mail address. At first, I had my personal e-mail address as the contact info but quickly changed this to press@ChefClub.net upon recommendation. When in PR Land… do as the PR Landers do…

5) Proofread, Proofread, Proofread. You’ve spent too much time not to. A simple spelling or grammar error could tear away the credibility you’ve so carefully built and crafted in every step. A huge error a friend caught for me: changing Superbowl to Super Bowl… that could have hurt!

Alright, now we’ve got our completed press release. How can we get it into the hands of people that matter? I tested 4 methods:

1) Distribution through a professional PR service provider.
Professional PR distribution services allow you to get your message out to thousands of media agencies and included in hundreds of RSS feeds relevant to your industry or area. There are a mind boggling number of companies who provide these types of services, so make sure you go with a reputable provider. I chose Send2Press after speaking with the owner (Chris Simmons) on the phone and reviewing some of their credentials.

After making a few small corrections to the press release I submitted and a $250 swipe to the credit card, it was off to press. While I thought my “industry focus” order entitled my press release distribution to various food and cooking types across the nation, it was actually only in one selected Metropolitan area. After a brief discussion, Mr. Simmons generously expanded my distribution to a few more cities.

The results? I noticed an increase in traffic and from Google Analytics, I could see it was coming from some new, authoritative sources (Forbes, Yahoo Biz, etc). This was interesting and perplexing because web addresses in Press Releases DO NOT feature hyperlinks in most cases. If they did, trust me, everyone would be doing press releases because you’d have thousands of immediate backlinks from VERY reputable sources. Hmmm, maybe that’s something to look into.

When it was all said and done, sure, I had a little bit of increased traffic. However, the ultimate goal is to have your press release picked up as a news story and by these standards I was unsuccessful. Why? Probably two reasons.

First of all, timeliness. I sent out a Super Bowl related press release a week before the Super Bowl. The vast majority of media people have likely had their stories picked out for weeks. Magazine editors/writers often have their stories lined up and planned out months before going to press. So, if your story is time sensitive, make sure you get it out with ample time for media professionals to act on the lead you’ve provided. Second of all, competition. My press release was competing with thousands and thousands of others coming from thousands of other companies and all ending up in the same searchable databases.

2) Bulk e-mails to a purchased list of media contacts around the United States.
In my search for effective PR techniques I came across a company called Gebbie Press which sold a media database of 20,000+ contacts from Radio stations, Daily Newspapers, Weekly Newspapers, Television Stations and Magazines across the United States. I got in touch with Mark Gebbie (owner) and we created a trade agreement for the databases (valued at $500+). About 15,000 of these had valid e-mail addresses.
Fantastic. I could now send my press release directly to 15,000 media decision makers in the matter of minutes. But, in order to do so, I would need a bulk mailer. I found some desktop software that would help me get the job done but each indicated you should check with your ISP so as to not surpass any sending rate limit and risk being banned from sending e-mails. After 2 hours on the phone with my ISP they passed the phone from manager to manager without a clue. When I got the response, “You can have 200 people in your address book,” after such a long wait, I decided to outsource.

Most companies I spoke with, such as the people at Aweber, refused to send out my Press Release because it was a “purchased list” to which people did not “opt in”. I tried to explain that they were public e-mails and I could likely visit each individual media website and create the list myself, but I didn’t have the next 3 months available. That still doesn’t change the fact that they never “opted in” anyways. Fortunately, a gentlemen on WickedFire named Mike Peters answered my plea and said he could help me on behalf of his company, SoftwareProjects.com. After a few back-and-forths, the press releases were on there way to my list of 15,000. I was incredibly excited to track the results!

Within minutes I was getting dozens of e-mails. Unfortunately, they were out of the office auto-replies and spam responders that required me to enter a captcha code. After awhile, I even recieved a few “remove from list” e-mails. I wasn’t surprised after realizing I had sent my recipe related press release to some aeronautical engineering trade journal!

SoftwareProject has a tracking system that can show how many people recieved your e-mail, how many opened it and how many clicked through to your website. Here were the results as reported by their system:

Sent: 14,874
Opened: 2,112
Clicked: 31

Since I had paid $50 (a special discount), I had essentially spent $1.61 per click. Wow, that’s pretty expensive! Was it worth it? Well, when all was said and done I recieved 2 positive responses from members of the media.

A radio station on the East Coast replied saying although Super Bowl programming was booked solid, they were interested in holding an interview about cooking the perfect romantic meal for Valentine’s Day. Awesome… that will be on the morning of February 13th and I’ll have to bring some “hooks” to the interview to get listeners to visit the website.

A group of 4 local community newspapers in California also responded. The woman always had difficulty finding great recipes for their weekly publications and asked if she could use ChefClub.net as a resource. Any added exposure helps, so I asked (and she agreed) to place “Courtesy of ChefClub.net” as the source at the bottom of articles. She’ll also be sending me a .PDF the first time around for my records.

This was a great start considering the circumstances. Timeliness was everything and I was late. I was able to attract one unrelated interview… imagine what I may have been able to do had I sent out these press releases a month previous! And, while my press release was cute and intriguing, it wasn’t of huge proportion. It was a relevant space filler that editors and producers could use to fill in the gaps with something light hearted, refreshing and fun. If I had a project of a larger scale or bigger impact, I would have respected even larger results.

I found it interesting that only about 15% of my e-mails were ever opened. How many were simply deleted after reading the title and how many ended up in junk mail boxes is anybody’s guess. But, I paid for results and this bulk e-mail experiment proved that yes, they have great potential.

3) E-mails to hand selected “authorities” in my niche.
Food magazines, the Taste section of newspapers, cooking blogs… the list goes on. People reading this type of targeted information would be most likely to respond to my message. I assumed that hey, since my website is so relevant, these publications would LOVE to run an article such as this. Not the case.

It turns out that many of these publications viewed my website as competition. So a “Food Section” writes an article about me, someone visits my website and ends up spending more time on my forum, taking away from valuable time with their newspaper. And, don’t forget, the newspaper probably has an online version of the section as well. A few hours of e-mailing went to waste as most of the replies I recieved were information about advertising rates and such.

So, you may just want to keep this in mind. Instead of directly contacting groups who could be considered ‘competition’, why not contact groups with related lifestyles that don’t feel threatened by you? In this case, perhaps organizations of mothers or…

Now that i think about it, I sent a very broad press release to a huge and broad audience. One way to get a better response rate, at least percentage wise, would be to tailor both my press release and my contact list to a specific group. For example, what if I focused my article on college students with the idea of Just Like Mom Makes ‘Em – Easy to Cook Super Bowl Appetizers. In addition, I could have shrunk my list to college and university student newspapers. Folks in this group probably aren’t likely to become loyal members, but you get the concept.

4) Make a few “big splashes” with selected media outlets.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to test this out as it was a bit too time consuming at the moment. Why not go for a couple homeruns? If you waste a few hours, at least you tried, but if you end up hitting that homerun the payout could be enormous.

My initial idea was to send a package including chips, salsa and an apron with the ChefClub.net logo on it to a few selected radio stations. A note inside would be humorous and hopefully would get them to call or e-mail back. For example, what about a ransom note saying, “Here are your disgusting chips and dip. We’re holding all the good recipes hostage. Call or e-mail us to find out how you and your listeners can get them back.” Something creative that stands out from the crowd in a fun and entertaining way. Prove to them we can provide entertainment and information for their listeners/viewers.

While I didn’t test this technique I certainly will in the future. If you don’t expect too much, you don’t have much to lose. But, if somehow you hit that homerun you’ll be thanking yourself for the next several months.

IN CONCLUSION

The experiment was not an overwhelming success but given the radio interview and recipe sourcing, I’m pleased. Next time, I’ll be much more prepared and here are a few of the things I’ll make sure to do:

1. Write a plan of action and follow through
2. Send the press release well in advance, giving editors/producers ample time to include my content in their features
3. Contact media from non-competitive groups whose target shares the same lifestyle. Send them a separate press release that plays to their interests.
4. Don’t hire a professional distribution service unless your press release is of grand proportion.
5. Find more contact lists with e-mail data and use them to my benefit.

This has been my first real experience with press releases, a success for both the minimal results and experience I’ve taken away. I hope it helps you as well. If you have any experience with Press Releases you’d like to add, please leave a comment!