Get More PR Than Paris Hilton

  Contrary to popular belief press releases aren't just for huge national companies.  However small your business is.  And even if you work out of a corner of your living room on your own - you can write a great press release, to bring in scores of new customers and get heaps of backlinks to your website.

Just make sure you have an interesting story to tell.  You've probably read some boring press releases on businesses who aren't really doing anything different - eg.  XYZ company have moved to bigger premises and the like.  Whilst it's true that some newspapers are guilty of printing these releases just to fill the paper - most people don't bother reading them anyway.

You need to make your business stand out.  And don't worry if you don't have anything interesting to write - you can create something.

Here's one way that I used press releases to get heaps of business for Kwik Fix, my plumbing business.  I'll break it down for you step by step so you get an idea on what you need to do. 

1)  First we launched a competition.   It was a prize draw.  We thought it would be fun to name all our vans after "Legends", so we gave the public the option to vote.  And first prize was a power shower supplied and installed by Kwik Fix.

2)  Next we let people know about it.  We designed some postcards to advertise the competition, had them printed by VistaPrint who are currently overing discounts of 25% plus.   Then we put them through mailboxes in our local area.  We also advertised the competition on our website.

3)  We contacted the press.  Next we contacted the local press about the competition.  It appealed to them because it was something different, so they ran a story on it.  They also agreed to run another story, when the winner had been drawn.  The first story was great, and we got quite a few new customers from that exposure.  But, we still weren't receiving lots of competition entries and we were reluctant to spend money on thousands of postcards.

4)  There is always an element of chance.  Sometimes, when you're thinking about an idea a lot, as I was, luck will spring out of nowhere, and you have to take action on it right away.  I visited John Chow's blog a lot and I noticed he always got heaps of entries for his competitions.  I posted a comment saying that maybe if I opened the competition internationally, I would get more entries.  Of course, I didn't really mean it - but it did make me wonder if I'd have more success if I found a wider audience.

5)  And the unknown.  I found a uk site, where I could list the competition for free.  Now I'm not sure whether the entries came from John Chow's blog, or the competition site, because many entrants were simply typing in our URL.  But, we started getting hundreds, then thousands of entries.

6)  We all screw up.  On the online competition forms - all I asked for were names and email addresses.  I foolishly assumed that everyone would read the rules and know the competition wasn't open to International entries.  But, after looking at some of the IP addresses - it became obvious that we were getting entries from all over the world.  People from Saudi Arabia, Australia, Africa and many other places had entered the competition.  I was flabbergasted.  It could take us weeks to go through the entries.  Plus, if we excluded those entrants - we might upset them.

7)  Turn a problem into something positive.  Then it occured to me that we could use this problem to our advantage.  On the BBC website, I read a report that there was a plumbing shortage in Australia.  This gave me a peg to hang our story on.  So used Press Equaliser to write and submit another press release.  Press Equaliser is the fastest, most cost effective way I've found to submit press releases so far and I highly recommend that you check it out.

8)  Good News Travels Fast.  We had planned to email the release to local papers, but within an hour of it being released on the Internet, a reporter contacted us.  The paper was not one we'd dealt with before, so we were delighted when they asked to interview us.

9)  Even when it's going well, don't sit back and relax.  We knew that we needed to spin the release even further.  Potential customers often need to see your name several times before they'll even take notice.  We blogged about the release, and put a link to the blog on Digg.  Then we emailed our mailing list.  And next, we distributed postcards in the target area of the newspaper.

10)  Result - The two newspapers who'd already covered the story want to do follow up stories when the prize winner is announced.  We've already had lots of new customers from the first two interviews and we're expecting many more.  And we've also been featured in a few local business publications.  All this from just one little press release.

If we can do it with an ordinary plumbing business, so can you.  Write your press release now and attract more customers to your business.

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