Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Start some buzz online about your home based business by Tracy Falbe
Running your home based business has its challenges, but thankfully they don't include fighting morning traffic. Aside from the significant lifestyle advantages, your home based business needs the same things as any business to be successful, and among these needs is publicity.
Publicity is wonderful. It's free advertising, but usually you have to create publicity for your business unless your house happens to get hit by a meteor. A critical first step for gaining some media exposure is to issue a press release. You might think that your home based business has no chance of getting publicity, but it certainly has no chance if you don't try.
The press release is a basic tool for public relations and it accompanies most any marketing campaign. Press releases are used by companies of all sizes and by non-profit organizations, and if you have something newsworthy to announce, there is no reason you can't start putting out press releases too.
What a press release does is announce something new and interesting about your business and puts it in a format that is easy to understand, short, and ideally arouses interest for more information. A press release needs to cover the basics just like any good news article: who, what, where, when, and how. The purpose of a press release is to attract the attention of journalists so that you will be featured in an article or broadcast.
Even if you do not get a whole story just about you, a press release is an excellent way to introduce yourself and position yourself as an expert that a journalist may want to interview later. Journalists are always looking for people to interview and they assemble lists of experts in various fields to refer to when needed for a story they are covering.
As the proprietor of a home based business you might be pleasantly surprised by the attention you get from your press release. Many people dream of being able to earn a living from home, and articles frequently address this topic. They are usually one of those trend articles that comment on the increasing viability of home based businesses and telecommuting because of technology and the internet.
It will not take much time for you to research the email addresses of the editors for your local news media. They are usually printed in the newspaper and all media outlets have a website where you will certainly find contact information. News people aren't secretive about their contact information because it's their business to be contacted by almost anyone.
In addition to emailing your press releases to your local media, be sure to post your press release online. You can add it to your website. It will increase the content at your site, make you look important, and give search engines more keywords to pick up. But don't stop there. Companies that distribute press releases on the internet are numerous and some of them will accept your press release for free.
You can find these companies by doing an internet search for "online press release distribution" and variations of those keywords. On some of these sites you will be asked to pay for distribution. Good results for your money will be at PRWeb.com for $80.
Even the free services, however, have value for you. Web publishers and bloggers might see your press release and re-publish your information on their websites if it is relevant to them. This is great because it delivers your news (and web address) to a wider audience and gets links back to your website.
As you run your business, you should always be thinking about ways to incorporate a press release into your publicity efforts. If you reach a milestone such as an anniversary or you are releasing a new product, you can consider it news and issue a press release.
If your home based business relies on sales through your website, an online press release is very helpful and you should plan to issue one or more press releases every year. Having your news disseminated through the web will complement your advertising efforts and give more people more chances of seeing your message.
About the Author
Tracy Falbe teaches the essentials of keyword-rich press release writing in her ebook Creating Publicity: Free Online Press Release Distribution, Second Edition and shares her research about numerous online news distribution services.
