Press Releases that SELL!
by Dr. Joe Vitale
www.mrfire.com
In 1902 Charles Austin Bates, one of my mentors and one of advertising's founding fathers, wrote that good advertising "...is simply telling a plain story. It consists merely of giving information to possible buyers."
Not many in advertising would agree with that definition today, yet it is one of the soundest explanations of how to get attention (and sales) in cyberspace. If you can write about your product or service in a low key, informative way, you will win friends and possibly make sales. One of the best ways to do just that is something called the "Net-Advertorial."
As you might guess from the name, an "advertorial" blends an advertisement with an editorial. The added "Net" lets you know this is for the Internet, or any online service.
If you can imagine writing a news story about your product or service, including details about how to do business with you, and posting this story online, you have a clear idea of what a Net-Advertorial looks like. It offers more news, less sell.
Net-Advertorials are a way to flamelessly let the online world know about your product or service. You can post them in the appropriate Usenet groups, offer them to pertinent emailing lists, and send them to people you exchange email with.
When someone hands me a product to promote, I look for the story that it fits into. Let's use a book as an example. I don't want to write a press release to promote "a book" as that usually isn't much news, but I probe to learn how the book fits into a larger picture.
For example, let's talk about the fellow who got a call from a reporter eight minutes after he faxed out my release. His book is called Fun Projects with Wooden Pallets. If I were like most publishers, I might whip up a release saying the book was now out and say a little about it. But I don't think that's very powerful. I prefer a double-whammy approach, which I achieve by combining the new book release with a feature story approach. After some thought I came up with the following headline:
New Ways to Make Furniture -- and More -- from Scrap
Note how that headline has a more "news feel" to it? It doesn't even mention the book. That, to me, isn't as important as what the book helps you do. In advertising we talk about features and benefits. The book is a feature; what you can do as a result of having the book is the benefit. I focused on the benefit.
The next thing I looked for was a killer opening line. I believe that the first line in your feature news release should be a grabber. If you don't hook the editors there, they probably won't go on to the rest of your release. It's worth mentioning right here that your editors will decide to read your release -- or not -- based on your headline. If it intrigues them, they'll read on. But the next potential stopping point for them is your first line. In the case of the above client, my first line was this:
You know those wooden pallets stacked
up in and behind many businesses?
That's an opening line that I still love. Why? It gets the reader nodding his or her head, saying "yes" internally, and puts them in a receptive mood. It also pulls the reader into the next paragraph. It makes you ask, "What about those pallets anyway?"
From there I created a story about how to use the pallets to create furniture -- the news -- and I quoted from the book and the authors, thereby plugging the book within the context of the feature story. Do you see the difference? Rather than focusing on the book, I focused on the story and mentioned the book within the story.
The client I wrote this net-advertorial for said he had a reporter call him only eight minutes after he released my story! And that reporter turned the story into a five column feature article on the front page of the Sunday newspaper, complete with photographs as well as the name, address, and phone number for ordering the product.
Copyright © 2005 by Joe Vitale. All rights reserved.
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Hypnotic Marketing Inc.
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