Press Releases

Day450
I mentioned yesterday that I write press releases. I was emailed asking for an example of one so thought I should post that if you type press release in the search box of this blog you will see six that I wrote for my own site.

Mostly I have written for local companies by sending them to area papers or to online sites (which I really suggest for those who have a website), but tomorrow I am going to start placing a couple ads on Craigslist to branch out a bit.

MarketingExperiments.com

Day449
I’ve recently come across a website that is just fascinating. It is incredibly useful for any business owner, especially an online business owner.

MarketingExperiments.com is a member of the MEC Labs Group who has the following mission statement, “To discover what really works.”

The Lab tests every conceivable marketing method on the internet and publishes the results in The Marketing Experiments Journal. Their experiments run 3 to 18 months with budgets between $4500 and $100,000.

Since I write press releases for businesses the experiment where they compared pay per click and press releases was of special interest to me. See if you don’t find it eye-opening: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/internet-online-advertising/press-release-tested.html

And if it makes you want to start sending out press releases and you aren’t a writer, feel free to contact me!

Branding and press releases

Day365
I went to a chamber of commerce talk today about Branding. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, but it gave me a chance to think more about the focus of my site and the changes I’ve been making.

(i.e. going from a “Show the world what you are giving up for your New Year’s Resolution” bunch of t-shirts and buttons to “givitup is all about fresh starts and positive changes. Whether you are giving up a bad habit or putting on a good one it' s been proven that goals shared stick better! So tell the world with our unique t-shirts, mugs, buttons, magnets and more- it might just inspire them to make a change too!”

I wrote press releases about my newest Christian items today, which I’ll print all of tomorrow, but I tried to stress there’s enough negative and crude t-shirts walking around. My goal is being positive and inspiring others to be so too.
One note about the press release services online, more and more are charging. I had to search hard to come up with 6 that are still free. (And I guess we’ll see how good they end up being!)

Superbowl Part 2

Day30
Spent the morning switching everything from Steelers and Seahawks to Seattle and Pittsburgh. I hadn’t had any more comments, but decided to be safer now then sorry later!
Finally developed a rhythm working on my press releases. Sent to all the Georgia daily papers just because that’s where I had stopped with my store opening announcements, did lots of TV stations in Washington and Pennsylvania and started in putting free ads on My Space. I was really going fast there when all of a sudden things began dropping off. Finally stopped to look at it better and it said “you can only submit one ad once every five minutes” ! And I had been so happy to get it down to every two minutes! So I tried to check emails in between – five minutes seemed like forever!Also sent to Prweb and MPR again. And I did break my promise and sent one more email about the Super Bowl items to about a third of my original list. I told them I knew I had said I would only do it once, but they were either family or might as well be family, so they were stuck with me!

I get forum advice about meta tags

Day23
Sent out dozens of Valentine theme press releases to New York weekly papers. Even sent one to the Today Show :)
I’ve been emailing back and forth with one of the guys on the CafePress forum. I had asked him to look at my meta tags and see if they were ok. I learned more in two emails from him then my three weeks working on my site! He said given the theme of my site – that each product has a word like “no smoking”, “no alcohol” “no victim”, etc. it’s a shame I can’t optimize each page. Someone who is just typing in “giving up smoking” won’t come up to my page full of “no smoking” products. I thought they would because I had filled in keywords/tags on every page. But, he explained that those were for CafePress to use and all that the Search Engines saw was the store meta tag! (Which isn’t very big and can’t be.) He said I should create another website, optimize each page and when someone who was searching for whatever they are giving up or are against or their pet peeve clicked on my site it would link through to my CafePress site which would still do the orders and shipping. All very logical and possibly necessary, but I’m going to file that in the back of my mind for now and keep trying to promote it and learn more first.Wow! Three weeks ago I’d never heard of a meta tag!!

Learning about free classified ads

Day16
My third sale! A “no coffee” mug from Illinois! Still working on press releases and tweaking site and learning about search engines and affiliates! Also sent out a ton of free classified ads! At one site I did every state individually! Am starting to get junk email to my givituprequests@yahoo.com address!

Going nuts with gebbieinc.com

Day8
I really like the way my site looks. It is so clean and pretty! Some people really junk up their sites. I don’t think I have enough content though. Am thinking about starting to Blog. Am thinking maybe this is it!

Day9
Found gebbieinc.com and LOVE it! 24,000 media sites! I started sending emails to radio stations all over Illinois suggesting they mention the giving up/New Year’s resolution idea, but then suggesting the “no TV” to the DJs for themselves. One emailed me back that it was very cute. Did newspaper press releases all over NY and the states A through F using gebbieinc.com. I did each one individually since I didn’t want to spam anyone.

givitup gets a statcounter

Day6
Read about statcounters and John spent an evening installing one for me.
Sent press releases to Prweb and MPR, both I found published later on line.
Sent in my “no alcohol” ideas to AA and some other sites. No word back.

Day7
Looked at my stat counter and saw that someone at Polo Ralph Lauren had looked at my site! Must have been a guy, he was on the “no video games” and “no road rage” pages. It was kind of neat picturing him sitting in his office at 3:47pm in Manhattan looking at my site! So far he hasn’t come back…or bought.Read about affiliates and picked out sites and sections…and John spent an evening putting their buttons on for me.