Press Releases to Inform, Educate & Sell
Press Releases That Inform, Educate and Sell
by Gene Muchanski
Press releases are short articles about an interesting aspect of your business that your customers (or Vendors) may find interesting. Believe it or not, your business is not the center of your customer’s world. I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Your customers do like to be reminded from time to time, of interesting facts about your business that may have relevance to them. You have a new product in stock or a dive trip to some exotic destination, or a last minute sale this weekend. As long as it has meaning to your customers, they will be glad you sent them the information.
So why don’t more people do press releases? Maybe it’s lack of time? Maybe they think that nothing exciting ever happens in their business? Or maybe it’s just a lack of planning to include press releases in your normal business schedule. Whatever the reason is that’s holding you back from using this very important tool, our recommendation is to start using them to inform, educate, and sell to your customers.
Let’s start by defining customer. In business, there are only three types of customers: Current, Former and Future. Current customers are people who are currently purchasing from you and have done so in the past 12 months. Former customers have not made a purchase from you in the last 12 months. Future customers are people who have not bought from you – yet.
The first thing you need is a customer database with your current and former customers. Since a good business uses different marketing vehicles to send press releases, your contact information should include the customer’s name, address, phone, fax, and email address. Companies with point-of-sale programs have this automatically. The second database, usually created in a Microsoft Excel format, is made up of prospects. These are people you meet at consumer dive shows where you exhibit or people who visited your store but didn’t buy anything. They are divers you met somewhere at some time and have yet to become a customer of yours. You can build a list of prospects from your web site, your newsletter or your Facebook Page. In today’s world of social media, meeting prospective customers is getting easier.
The second thing we need to do is choose a marketing vehicle that we are going to use to deliver our press release. Don’t use only one vehicle all the time. Mix it up to reach your entire database and in different ways. Good marketing vehicles include post cards for direct mail, newsletters for electronic mail, and coupons for face-to-face campaigns. Many businesses are getting good results with Facebook and twitter campaigns. Third party campaigns are very popular in the dive industry and very inexpensive to run. Direct mail co-op postcards produce a very cost effective reach and weekly press releases to a targeted audience can produce good results for you.
The third thing to consider in your press release campaign is the message. What is it you are trying to accomplish? Knowing your intended outcome helps you write your message. It doesn’t always have to be sales. It could be visiting your web site or signing up for your newsletter. It should be some type of decision that you want the customer to reach. Make sure your message gets ATTENTION or people won’t read it. Make sure it is RELEVANT to the reader or they won’t be interested in it. Does your message solve a PROBLEM for your customer? And if it does, what CALL TO ACTION does your customer take to achieve your outcome?
Press releases sent to Vendors follow the same format as press release sent to your customers. It is good practice to reach your vendors and let them know what you are doing. Dive Industry Association sends a Weekly Press Release to the Industry every Tuesday. Our Members are reaching interested members of the trade who opt-in to receive the news. The service also gets traffic from archived posting on our web site, www.diveindustry.net/weekly-news and from postings on DIA’s Facebook Page, www.facebook.com/diveindustry
Call to Action: Industry Professionals can opt-in to receive the DIA Weekly News by clicking on “Join My Mailing List” from our Facebook Page, www.www.facebook.com/diveindustry Reading Press Releases for other dive companies will: 1) Keep you current with what is happening in the dive industry. 2) Give you ideas on preparing your own Press releases. 3) Make you more competitive.
For more information, contact Gene Muchanski at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
