Free Press Release sites? or other forms of marketing.advertising?

You could always try a little Guerrilla Marketing to raise a lot of PR. Many companies do strange things to boost their company's popularity. Many of which are still known for it years down the line.

If you can think of a suitable angle, you might be able to hook a local journalist's interest and get him / her to write up the feature in their newspaper / special interest journal. Brainstorm "what's interesting about this business to the general public" and take it from there.

We have it easy, I think, because most people are intrigued by or concerned about psychology, recruitment, unemployment, career counselling, graduate employment and the rest of it. Most businesses can find some angle, though.

I wrote a series for a community newspaper called Pubcrawl about our local pubs. I made the articles more interesting by including in them a spine-chilling ghost story, historic tales about a coaching inn, the life stories of some of the landlords and so on.

If you want to try this approach, how would you hook your journalist?

You often find the press wants material that can be illustrated by a good photograph (they'll use their own photographer so it won't cost you anything - and you might be able to buy the right to use their photographs in subsequent publicity).

Good luck, Linda

You might want to target your audience a little better ....and by that I mean who are the people that buy canvas prints ? where do they hang out ? are there non-competing businesses that i can JV with ?

I'd opt to contact some churches, photographers, photographer associations, wedding planners, interior designers, etc ....

7 years ago I set up a business that got some excellent PR exposure. I did use a PR firm to achieve this but the one thing I noticed was that one good bit of exposure, whether it was on TV, radio, broadsheet or magazine generated a ripple effect, that resulted in more interest from other journalists and editors, so one piece became 2, then 4 then more, and that's the true power of a good PR campaign.

5 years ago I started up as a copywriter myself and have written for a number of clients who wanted to achieve success through PR in a more DIY fashion, approaching magazines and other publications with content I'd produced for them in the hope of building a regular relationship with them. I have seen it work, so if you can write interesting and engaging copy that's preferably related to something currently in the news, tugs at the heartstrings or finds some other way of interesting the media at large there's nothing more cost effective than approaching relevant media, finding out who the best contacts are and sending them your written work. Better still, find out what they are looking for and write it for them. And best of all, promote yourself as an authority on a subject and become a regular contributor.

Good luck.

There are several free press release sites. I don't know them offhand, but you can Google "Free press release services" and some will surely pop up. They will usually try to get you to upgrade, of course, but there's nothing to lose by trying a free service.

I have tried them a few times and can't say the results were spectacular. However, it's also recommended as a way to build quality backlinks if you're promoting a website.

If you don't know how to do a press release go to PrWeb and see (study) how they do it. In the search bar on PrWeb type in your niche keyword(s) and look at how your competitors/people in your niche did their press releases.

See their "angle" and you WILL learn how do one yourself without having to pay a professional to do it for you. Another thing you can do is find someone on Fiverr to do one for you. Keep in mind they only charge $5 bucks and you will get what you pay for.

After your PR is done, you'll want to find newspapers (offliine, and online), trade papers, online press release sites to distribute your press release.

Articles and press releases should not take you days to write. You definitely need to make a marketing plan or you'll be all over the place trying to find out what works.

Corrisa

Now that's the kind advice I love, simple, obvious and very effective!

Thanks for this thread! I have not read it yet, however I have a huge list with free press release websites, where I need to submit our new press release. Will review your replies first and then complete the task. After it is ready I will come back to tell you what happened!

What location do you want to target? I have a list of both Indian and US PR sites.