Internet Marketing
How
to Get Millions of Dollars in Free
Advertising for Your Web Business
By Terry Dean
One web business generated
over one million hits it's first month online...
An ezine publisher produced
over 14,000 new subscribers for his email publications in one
week...
A home business generated well
over $50,000 in income on one new product in one month...
What do these three stories
have in common? They all used free media publicity to create their
own online success stories.
Will you be the next one?
While the majority of business
spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars monthly on
advertising both online and offline, there has been a small
minority of web businesses which have been using the power of the
press consistently to their advantage.
People just don't understand
what makes one of these "Instant Success" stories shoot
up overnight. They try to attribute it to a lucky break that
someone became interested in their site, product, or service.
What they don't see is that
most of the people who they call "Instant Success"
stories didn't get lucky...and they also didn't get success instantly
either. They learned and followed a system of writing up and
sending out press releases continually for their business.
Some might say, "That one
press release earned them millions of dollars." The problem
with following that kind of logic is that you are ignoring the
dozens of press releases they have sent out previously while they
were learning about the process.
Too many Internet marketers
that I have met have just sent out one press release. Then, when
they didn't get any coverage, they decided that press releases
just don't work.
They didn't keep trying and
they didn't take the time to sit down and figure out why their
first press release didn't work for them. They just sat down and
gave up on the whole process just like they do on so many other
areas of Internet marketing.
Using press releases should
become a marketing avenue for almost every web business. Yes,
email marketing is wonderful. Yes, banner advertising is good.
Yes, search engines can give you traffic. You cannot afford to
just ignore press releases though.
Press releases are one of the
cheapest forms of marketing that any business could ever use. Yet,
they also offer one of the highest potentials in lead generating
and direct selling that you will find in any marketing campaign.
One example of where press
releases can really beat out any other form of marketing is in the
area of testing. If you have a new product which you want to test
by traditional Internet marketing methods, you would have to:
design the web site, submit to search engines, run some ezine ads,
and other marketing techniques. This will cost you a few hundred
dollars and will take a few weeks to a month to determine the
interest people are having in your product.
If you are using press
releases, you can write up the press release and send it out to a
few hundred sources. Then, within a couple of days you will know
whether they are interested or not based on whether you get any
phone calls for more information.
Another advantage that free
publicity has over advertising is that people will see you as more
credible. If so-and-so magazine says you are an Internet marketing
expert, it has a lot more effect on your visitors than if you
claim that you are.
Face it. Advertising has a
negative connotation to many people. The moment they read an
advertisement, they go on the defensive. You have to convince them
that you are credible and honest.
If people hear about you on
the radio or see you in the newspaper, you become an instant
celebrity in their eyes. They assume that the media outlet that
you are in has already checked you out. The resistance that
advertising directly brings up never even comes into play.
You may be sitting there
thinking that press releases may work for some people, but they
just won't work for your little web business. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Anyone can use press releases. You just
need to figure out what angle you can approach from.
You have to come up with a
press release which is interesting, informative, and exciting to
the media's market. It cannot be a sales letter. As an ezine
publisher, I receive dozens of press releases from people every
week, but almost everyone of them is instantly deleted. Do you
know why? It is because they are more of a sales letter for their product and service than they are of a resource for my readers.
Your press release needs to be
written in such a way that it is a benefit to the publisher and to
their readers. This can be done with any business or web site. It
just requires a little bit of thinking on your part.
Let's say that you don't have
any of your own products. You are just an affiliate for three
other people's programs. If you just want to start with local
publicity, you could write up a press release for your local
papers and radio station about how hometown man/woman makes it big
online. The Internet is so hot right now that many media outlets
love this type of story.
Once you go to national
publications, you will have to come up with a much more beneficial
release. You could redesign your web site so it has an extremely
beneficial tool which is given away for free. For example, you
could focus on having the most comprehensive site about _____,
including hundreds of free articles, discussion groups, ezines,
downloads, etc.
If you were an affiliate with
Amazon.com for example, you could create a special Valentine
section of your web site including free postcards, songs, gift
lists, etc. for lovers. Then, list the books from Amazon.com on
that page that apply to this special day. Whenever an event was
taking place in the country or it was a holiday, prepare a section
of your site for it and send out those press releases.
The only limit to what you can
do with publicity is with your imagination. How can you relate
your business or web site to things which are already being
published and are newsworthy.
Once you are ready to start
sending press releases, you are going to have to choose which
format you want to use. You can mail, fax, or email out the press
releases.
Mailing press releases usually
returns the best results since you can do more to make your
release stand out. You can include quality paper, pictures of
yourself or your product, and even product samples. The
disadvantage of this method is that it is the most expensive and
time consuming of the three.
Faxing press releases has
become the standard during recent years. It is quicker and much
cheaper at only around 10 cents per fax. The most popular and
effective businesspeople I know are still using this as their
primary method of delivery.
Emailing press releases is the
newest method available and it is becoming more popular all of the
time. It's also the cheapest method of all since it is Free to
send out your press releases using this method. Do take one
caution though if you are going to email your press releases. Do
not send them to every media outlet you can find just because they
are free to send. Make sure you target your media outlets
appropriately so that you don't end up annoying those people you
are trying to reach.
Below are a few online sources
if you want to have a company submit (and possibly even write)
your press releases for you. I am not giving a personal
recommendation of any of the companies below, but I do know
certain people who recommend each of them.
http://www.xpresspress.com
http://www.newsbureau.com
http://www.gapent.com/pr
http://www.mediasubmit.com
http://www.onlnepressreleases.com
The best way to get involved
with doing press releases is to do it yourself. Remember, we are
not going to just do a press release one time and forget about it.
We are going to make it a constant habit in our businesses. You
will send out another press release whenever you have a new
product, come up with a new angle, or find a trend/holiday that
somehow relates to your business.
Terry Dean, a 5 year veteran
of Internet marketing, will Take You By The Hand and Show You
Exact Results of All the Internet Marketing Techniques he tests
and Uses Every Single Month" Click here to Find Out More: http://www.netbreakthroughs.com
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