How do you issue a press release?

[UDT89]

Someone said to issue a press release as an idea to promote my new business. How do you go about doing that? What steps do I need to take?

 

[spidey07]

Contact the associated press and follow SEC guidelines

 

[Grasshopper27]

There are so many ways to go about this...

All I can say is Google is your friend on something like this.

🙂

Hopper

 

[kranky]

You write a little story about your business and send it out to the media. You can't make it sound like an advertisement, you want it to sound like a news story. Think of an angle that would make your local paper want to run it in their business section.

Something like this:

The first night club catering exclusively to the under-18 crowd will be opening next week in Smallville. Located in the Westgate shopping center, Club OMG It's a Girl! will be the only club in Springfield County that is just for teens aged 14 to 17.

Club owner UTD89, 25, of Forest Hills said, "We are very excited to provide an alcohol-free place where teens can go on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings to hear the latest music, play video games, and socialize." UDT89 will offer free admission during the first week to any teen bringing a canned good to donate to the Smallville Food Bank.

etc. etc.

 

[UDT89]

ah i see

i know google is my friend, but sometimes its better to get real life human experience......like above

 

[UDT89]

i gotta pay to issue one? b/c i cant find any other way to do it, other than through these PR companies

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: UDT89
i gotta pay to issue one? b/c i cant find any other way to do it, other than through these PR companies

The PR companies simply do the hard work for you, but they don't really do much you can't do yourself.

Since they know better how to write them and who to send them to, they might well get a higher percentage responce rate, but they do charge money.

Don't forget the local small time newspaper as well, they are also very useful and often print stuff the major media outlets overlook.

If you can somehow include any public service or charity type info, it vastly increases the chances you'll get free coverage. Offering free samples to the reporters also gets good reporting.

Hopper

 

[DaveSimmons]

Disclaimer: my brother's web services company (which I have no connection to) offers PR services.

The reason to use a service instead of DIY are
1. They are already set up with a database of all the magazines, newspapers, trade pubs that are appropriate for whatever you are promoting
2. Some companies (not all) are set up to put your release on the newswire services so it may show up on Yahoo news / MSN / CNet etc. (though news sites pick and choose which newswire stories to pick up).

You can take care of #1 yourself with a trip to the library and a lot of typing. Depending on the value of your free time this might be worth doing or might not.