Local Press Release Distribution – Still Relevant?

So you’ve thought about sending out a press release to announce new services, new products, new prices, or even how current news is affecting your business or your customers.

You go online, and find a multitude of companies who will blast your press release out across the internet to various online news sites either for free, or for a fee.

But this is content that relates to your local business – is there really a need to send your press release to Google News and The New York Times?

Well, the short answer is yes and no.

Yes, you should send your press release out to services like Google News, especially if you have backlinks to your main site in the content. But no, you don’t really need to send out your press release to national papers if your target customers are purely local. There is simply no point.

Here is the best, and most effective way of sending out a press release that will actually make a difference in your business…

Step One – Write out the press release with a local flair. Include the name of the city you are from, or a local landmark, or make it relevant somehow to local people.

Step Two – Use a free online press release distribution service like PRLog.org to send your release to services like Google News, online blogs, etc. This is great for SEO purposes, but it likely won’t get you any clients at all. For that, you’ll need to…

Step Three – Find the contact information for the editor for your local newspapers. Small town newspapers may only have one editor, while bigger newspapers will likely have an editor specifically for the section you are targeting. Find their name, email address, or mailing address (perhaps even fax number.) Send them an email asking if they accept press releases via email, or better yet, give them a call. Tell them a bit about your story, and ask if they would accept a copy of the release via email. If they say yes, email it off – if they prefer another method, do that instead.

This pretty much guarantees that your press release is getting into the right hands to get coverage that will actually help you, and saves you a substantial amount of money over online services.

Of course, if writing press releases and talking to all of the various newspaper editors isn’t something you want to do, you can always hire a Marketing Integration Specialist. They can help you to integrate the online and offline functionality of an effective press release in a way that will actually get you more business – instead of online services that will be spamming your press release to newspapers that won’t publish your content anyway, because it has no local relevance to them.