Strategic Marketing Academy - Marketing for Event Industry Professionals

SMA offers marketing services and training for event businesses and small businesses in other industries

Online PR

Overpriced public relations firms can move over, ‘cuz there’s a new kid in town (any Eagles fans out there? anyone?).  It’s called online public relations, and for a fraction of what you’d spend at a traditional PR firm, you can deliver your message to hordes of journalists and information seekers in the form of online press releases, article distribution, and website content.

Here’s how.  With online PR you can actually skip the PR middleman and share your news and information directly with journalists and the general public via online news sources and websites.

At Strategic Marketing Academy, we know how to optimize your content so the search engines like it and your target market finds it.  We’re experts at crafting the kind of online PR that generates lots of media buzz and traffic to your site.  We’ll also steer you away from spending time and money on a PR angle that’s doomed to flop.  We’re good like that.

Online Press Release Distribution

To create an online press release, you’ll want to start with a traditional press release and adapt it for the internet by adding hyperlinks to your website and optimizing the release with keywords.  If you haven’t completed your keyword research, then stop, pick up the phone and call us for help. Seriously.

Once your release is optimized, you can use distribution services like PR Newswire or PR Web to distribute your press release to thousands of journalists and traditional media outlets, as well as online-only news outlets and websites.  Most distribution services will include images, video, and even RSS for an additional fee.

Like traditional PR, your success in getting the press release picked up depends a lot on the quality and timeliness of the release.  If you write a lame press release, don’t expect journalists to like it any better because it’s coming from a news distribution service.

Tip: We all like a good deal, but with press release distribution, you definitely get what you pay for.  Many of the free “distribution” services just post to their own site and call it a day.

Article Distribution

Do you like to write?  Do you have a lot to say about your industry?  Do you consider yourself an industry authority or want to become one?

With online article distribution, you write original content – usually how-to’s or advice articles – and use an article distribution service to syndicate to your content on the web.  Article distribution services like ezinearticles.com or submityourarticle.com will distribute your articles for a small monthly or yearly fee.  Most of these article sites allow you to include a short bio and hyperlink at the end of each article, so you’ll get a little exposure and “link love” every time your article is picked up.

You can also search out industry-specific publications that may be looking for experts to submit content.  Often these are unpaid gigs, but you’ll likely get lots of exposure and increased traffic to your website.

Online Press Room

Creating an online press room is an idea that businesses large and small can easily implement.  Some items to include in your online press room are:

  • Your company’s latest news & upcoming events (including the ability to get these via RSS feed or email alert)
  • Press releases
  • Fact sheets about your company
  • Articles written about your company & other accolades
  • White papers
  • Key contact and bio information
  • Logos, photos, video
  • Links to your online communities (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc)

Besides being a great place to show your awesomeness to potential customers and media contacts, the search engines will love all the good content on your site.  Each piece of content has the ability to rank in the search engines, so it’s important that it be well optimized if you want the maximum benefit.

Thinking about starting an online PR campaign? Give us a call — we’ve helped our SEO clients achieve some pretty impressive results, including attention from the national media!