Are you aware of how beneficial press releases are to your marketing efforts?

Anytime something newsworthy happens in your business, you should write a press release about it. Whether it’s a new service offering, a new office location, a promotion, an award, anything people didn’t know about yesterday could make for a good press release. You can go ahead and submit your release to local media outlets, but more importantly, spread it on the Internet.

Whenever you write a press release, it should be submitted online. Why? Well, each time you have a press release that links back to your site, that helps your SEO. Not every press release that gets submitted online will be picked up by anyone, in fact, it’s kind of rare. The biggest benefit is the boost to your SEO.

When writing a press release, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, you need a great headline. I often spend more time coming up with a headline than I do writing the content of a piece. If the headline stinks, it doesn’t matter what’s in the rest of the press release, it won’t get read.

It’s important to include a link to your site near the top of the press release, and that’s also where the main newsiness (nice word, eh?) of the piece should be, in case it gets chopped up. You should have a quote in there somewhere, so if it does get picked up by someone, they don’t necessarily have to call you for a comment. At the end of the press release, it’s good to have some ‘About’ information about your company or yourself, but it’s not totally necessary.

After reading ‘Publicity Hound’, Joan Stewart’s newsletter yesterday, I discovered a mega cool tool for press release analysis: Press Release Grader. You can copy and paste your PR in there and it will tell you how well you’ve scored for marketing purposes. The last one I wrote got a 90% which is cool. It also gives feedback on how to improve it. What a great tool!

If you suck at writing aren’t great at writing,  outsource the task. I write a lot of press releases, and can pump them out pretty efficiently. Another option is to give it your best shot, then send it to an editor to polish it up. I heart Angela Smith of Accu-Asisst for this task.

So, what’s happened in your business lately that merits a press release? It’s GREAT free marketing for the bootstrapping entrepreneur.

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So, you might be wondering why my logo is adorned with balloons, presents  and a birthday cake. Just so happens, June is a big month for Mann Made Time. We’re celebrating two years in business and it’s my birthday month - one more year in my twenties…reason to celebrate, right?

After two years in business, I have really been able to find out which services I love the most and the ones I prefer to outsource to my team members. My biggest love is writing, and I’ve been lucky enough to be doing more and more of it for my awesome clients. I’m toning up my marketing message to attract more copywriting projects and that excites me.

When you first start your business, nailing down a target market and niche can seem very overwhelming and a lot of people don’t believe they should focus their marketing on any one place. In a sense, that’s a good idea. Offer a bunch of services (ONLY ones you’re great at) and then decide where your biggest strengths lay and which things you enjoy doing the most. Then carve out your niche and decide on a target market. If you started your business with a target market that you don’t feel the love for after some time has passed, change things up. There’s no rule saying that you have to target the same bunch forever. There’s no rule saying you can’t upgrade your skills and find yourself a niche you really love.

Your business is your business. You’ll get out of it what you put into it. If you’re doing work you love for people you truly enjoy working with you’ll be more motivated and success will come easier. You’re the boss. Do you look forward to the work you have on your plate when you wake up each morning? For a time, I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing. Now, it’s like Dr. Phil says. If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I feel privileged to provide the services people pay me well to do. It really doesn’t feel like work and what could be better than that?!

Oh. And happy birthday to me!!!

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I’ve been doing a lot of research and reading about how to write for the search engines. I believe this skill will provide a great benefit to the clients I write for.

Through my reading, I found a great tip that I’d never considered before and it’s so easy and useful, I thought I’d post it here.

When you’re writing with your key phrase in mind, you know, the one that people will type into Google to find you, it’s hard sometimes to have enough occurences  of that phrase in your copy without it sounding awkward.  One way to get around this is to break up the phrase with punctuation marks.

For example, if your key phrase is “Prince Edward Island real estate” you can only use that phrase so many times without it looking obvious that it was written for the search engines. One way to make your piece more readable is to break that phrase up with a period or a comma since the spiders ignore those.

You could say, “There are many great reasons to relocate to Prince Edward Island. Real estate prices are among the lowest in the country…”

Ya see? Your phrase is still in tact but it reads smoothly.

Enjoy!

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Do I have your attention, ladies?

Since I started my business, I pay a lot of attention to people that market to me. I read sales letters and listen to telemarketers to learn what points trigger me to buy in to a product or service. Since I’ve started to provide copywriting as a service offered by Mann Made Time, I pay much closer attention to advertisers and other, presumably very highly paid, copywriters.

I received a letter in the mail yesterday. It was an obvious piece of junk mail, but I wanted to open it. I totally dissected the experience and I’m filing this puppy away in my idea file.

First thing that made me open the pretty blue envelope was that it was a pretty blue envelope. It had the the name of a well known magazine on it, a company I trust. (Brand recognition.) It also said ‘Gift Certificate Enclosed’ on the outside of the envelope.

I opened the letter and, indeed, there is a gift certificate for 4 free issues of this weekly publication. The gift certificate was tucked inside a nice little folder that feels nice in the hand, and when I opened it to remove the gift certificate, it said:

“Enjoy your weekly rejuvenation ritual, FREE for 4 weeks.”

Buzzwords: rejuvenation and FREE.

They almost had me there. But then I read the letter. The letter is just ridiculous.

It starts with a headline that states:

“Enjoy a 4 FREE Issue Mini-Subscription to (name of magazine), and Feel Your Stress Melt Away….”

The writer goes on to tell me that I deserve more time to myself and she wants to treat me to the relaxation remedy I really need, which coincidentally is this magazine. Once a week for 4 weeks.

Did you know that just 4 issues will make me feel like a new person? And since they’re FREE I can enjoy such luxury without guilt?

I can have intimate moments with George Clooney and Patrick Dempsey over my coffee in the morning. While I’m cooking dinner, I can be treated to photo spreads and celebrity tidbits.

For an afternoon of “pure bliss” I can catch up with my old friends Reese and Drew.

Seriously?

The letter is closed by saying for best results I should read all of my 4 free issues before I decide to make this publication a part of my regular routine. My heart and soul will reap the benefits.

I would scan this letter and let you see for yourself how ridiculous it is, but I’m not sure if that’s legal.

And although it is ridiculous, it is effective. I’m considering mailing in the reply card and cashing in my 4 free issues. What the heck? I can see how they’re playing off of my stress…my need to escape! And I’m falling for it.

Darn McDreamy…that’s where they got me.

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