Get media attention with a press release

You don't have to be a corporation or a publicist to write a press release. Anyone can write one.

The main purpose of a press release is to make a newsworthy announcement about your business. Journalists are always looking for story ideas - and your press release may prompt them to contact you.

In order to get the attention of the media, your press release must answer the question: "Why should anyone care about this?"

Write a press release to announce things such as:

Your new book

An event that you're planning or sponsoring

A new service that you're offering

Expert training that you have completed

Write in an engaging manner, as if you were talking to a friend. The press release should fit on one page, and should have attention-grabbing headline.

In my Market With Authority Home Study Course, you'll hear a Chicago Publicist reveal how she worded a headline that generated calls from major media with minutes of posting a press release online.

Press releases follow a certain format. For guidelines and tips try one of these websites:
eHow: How to write a proper press release
wikiHow: How to write a press release
PRWeb: Press release tips and guidelines
Pressbox: Writing press releases for online use

Submit your press releases online. Here's a list of sources.

Scribd - the 'youtube' of article publishing

In my last blog post I described how to get more mileage out of your articles by submitting them to article banks.

Here's another idea: upload them to Scribd.com, which combines article hosting with social media.

That means people can comment on your articles and/or easily share them with others - thus the potential for your articles becoming viral.

Scribd uses technology called iPaper, which converts documents to Flash format. (Scroll down to see an example.) Flash is built into all Internet browsers. If you can view youtube videos, you will be able to read iPaper documents. iPaper uses less memory than Adobe Acrobat, and loads faster.

To use Scribd, sign up for a free account. Upload your article in .doc, .pdf or other supported file types. All formatting and images will be retained as you originally set them.

Next, choose a topic category for your article, and type in keywords that tell the search engines what your article is about.

You can decide whether to make your article public or private.

You can also decide whether to allow the article to be downloaded, and in what format (plain text, Word doc, pdf.) If you want your article to be read only online, and not downloaded, uncheck all the download options.

Assuming you make your article public, website owners can add it to their site by simply copying and pasting the 'embed' code - similar to how youtube videos are streamed through individual websites. Your article appears in its entirety, in its original format. You can use the embed code to show your articles at your own website, blog or Facebook page.

Here's an example of one of my articles that I uploaded to scribd.com. To enlarge the font, click the little down arrow to reveal a drop-down menu. Or to view in full-screen mode, click the icon at the top right corner of the document window.

Breaking Up is Hard To Do - Especially for Men

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Health divorce breakup

Get more mileage out of your articles

One of the best ways to establish yourself as an expert online is to write articles.

You can post them on your website, of course. But to get greater distribution, you should submit them to article banks, such as ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and others. Just search for "article bank" at your favorite search engine for thousands of other article banks.

Article banks are websites dedicated to collection and dissemination of articles written by experts who offer their work for free.

When you submit your articles to article banks, they may get picked up by publishers who are looking for fresh content for their ezines, newsletters and websites. Thus you have the potential of reaching audiences that you would otherwise not have access to.


Boost your chances of getting your article picked up by publishers:

• Publishers generally look for brief articles that offer tips, advice or insight - emphasis is on BRIEF. Keep your articles to 500-700 words.

• Keep your focus very narrow. Better to cover one or two points well than to try to pack in tons of information.

• Write on topics that appeal to large groups of people. But don't be so general that your article is watered down.

Include links back to your website.

In the body of your article, or at the end, be sure to include a link back to your website or blog. 2 reasons for this:

1. It will encourage readers of other people's ezines, newsletters and websites to visit your website. Those who click on your link are obviously curious about you or what you have to offer. Once they get to your website, they'll learn more about how you can help them.
   
   
2. It will boost your ranking in the search engines. When people click over to your website from somewhere else on the internet, that tells Google and other search engines that these other websites are "recommending" you - which raises your popularity value in search results.

Click to learn more about marketing yourself online to build a strong expert presence in this tough economy.

-- Pauline

Build a mailing list

If someone visits your website or blog, that shows they're curious about what you have to offer.  If they like what they see they might want to return.  But with so much distraction on the internet, they may never get back. 

Wouldn't you want to keep in touch with these visitors - perhaps send them a newsletter or occasional tips? 

Staying in touch keeps your name and your expertise in front of people who are interested in your services or products.   In order to do so you'll need their email addresses.

There are a few ways to get people's email addresses:

1. Post your email address and ask them to contact you.  

For example: If you'd like to be on my mailing list to receive tips every week, please send me an email: [your email address]  

This method is OK, but it has some drawbacks:

• It requires that people copy and paste your email address, go to their email programs and compose a message.  With this extra work involved, a lot of semi-interested people will not bother.
• When you post your email address on a web page, spammers can use robots to capture the address and send you junk mail.  To avoid this, replace the @ in your email address with the word AT. 

For example: john AT trainyourhamster.com  

This will not be a link, but most people will know what it means, and know that they should use the @ instead of AT

2. Use a web form on your website.  You can create a simple input form that does not even show your email address.  Web visitors can simply enter their name and email address into the form, and the information will be forwarded to your email box.  

If you don't know anything about html (and don't care to learn) ask your web designer to add a form.  

If you'd like to create one yourself, there are many free "form wizards" and tutorials.  Here are a few links to give you an idea of what's available:

JotForm

Web-Source

eHow

Formgenics

You can also use Dreamweaver and other web design tools.

3. What do you do with the list of email addresses? In order to keep in touch with the people who submit their email addresses to you, you'll need to use some form of bulk mailing.  After all, you don't want to be composing 30 or 300 separate email messages!  

If you don't have many names on your email list, you can use your regular email program. Simply create a group within that program, and send a single message to that list.

Be sure to check with your ISP about limits on the number of emails you send at once.  My ISP limits it to 10. You can send up to 100 messages per day via gmail (and can make them look as if they came from one of your other email accounts) but if you exceed the limit, Google may freeze your account, because they don't want people complaining about spam.

Another option is to use a web-based mailing list program. I use aweber.  It allows me to have unlimited email lists. I can send personalized emails, so that Mary will get a message starting with"Hi Mary" and Bill will get the same message, but starting with "Hi Bill." 

I can also automate thank-you and follow-up messages, so that if someone signs up for my mailing list, they'll immediately get an acknowledgment by email.  And  aweber also provides a form wizard to create and customize the form to place on my website, where visitors will input their information, and be automatically added to my aweber mailing list.

--Pauline

Better than advertising? And free!

Advertising can be very expensive. And in some cases it may not be as effective as other means of promotion.

When you advertise your own services and products, YOU are talking about YOU. Wouldn't the message carry more weight if SOMEONE ELSE talked about you?

Think about the last time you were looking to buy something that you didn't know much about - say a digital camera. All the ads for cameras claimed to be the best in some way. So how did you decide? You asked a knowledgeable friend, or read an expert's review.

In other words, what someone else said about the camera was more credible than what the manufacturer said.

So how do you get other people to talk about you?

1. Ask colleagues in non-competitive businesses to link to your website. If they add a sentence or two about you in the link, that's even better.
   
   
2. ASK for referrals. Don't be shy. Next time you chat with someone about what you do, state that you're accepting referrals.
   
   
3. Organizations are always looking for good speakers. Offer to speak at community events, at service club meetings, and at professional conferences. When these organizations promote their events, they will talk you up, because they want their members to attend.
   
   
4. If you have something noteworthy to say about current events or items in the news, call your local newspaper, or your local TV or radio news producer. If they decide to quote you or interview you, they will refer to you (and thus endorse you) as an expert.
   
   
5. If you have published a book or a paper, ask colleagues to write a review.
   
   
6. While certain professional ethical codes prohibit the use of client testimonials, there are circumstances in which testimonials are OK - for example, for your books or other products.
   
   I have received many positive testimonials from professionals who took my course, "Market With Authority: Build Credibility and Professional Name Recognition on the Web." Here's one of them:
   

   "Anyone who owns a business or who is interested in establishing themselves as an expert in their field needs the information in this course.
   Folks like me, who lack confidence in their technology skills, can really benefit from the careful way you teach with examples, tips and resources. "

   – Stephanie Pratola, Ph.D.,P.C.
   Licensed Clinical Psychologist
   

Learn more about the Home Study version of the course here. To get the DELUXE version of the course for half-price ($199) order from THIS PAGE ONLY.

Pauline

Picking a domain name? What to consider

Whether or not you already have a website, you should always buy a domain name that contains your own name. And you should get both .com and .net suffixes - e.g. FirstnameLastname.com, FirstnameLastname.net, FirstnameMiddle-initialLastname.com, etc.

That way no one else will be able to use it. You don't have to set up a website with your name in it, just own the domain names.

If you don't own those domains, other people could buy them. For example if there is someone else with your same first-and-last-name combination, they could grab the domain name and set up a porn site. Or, if you have enemies, they might buy your name as a domain and put up a parody site.

A popular source to check on domain name availability is godaddy.com.

What if your name is already taken? If your first and last name are common, e.g., John Johnson, you might find that someone else has grabbed the domain name. You can find out who owns the domain and offer to buy it from the person.

Or, use a variant:

• Try putting hyphens between your first and last name

• If you have a professional title like dr or doctor, or Ph.D., or MSW, or CPA, you can append those to the name and see if it's available that way.
  
  
• Or just add the word "the" to your name - e.g., thejanedoe.com

Other considerations when choosing a domain name:

1. Branding yourself: Have your name, company or specialty in your domain name. Your website is thus descriptive of who you are or what you do. If you wrote a book, it's a good idea to have a domain name containing part or all of the title.


2. Search-friendly: If you want your website to be easily found by search engines, use keywords in your domain name.

This is primarily for people who don't search for you by name, but who enter keywords for a specific service into search boxes.

For example, if you are a therapist in Detroit who works with families, you could get the domain: detroitfamilytherapist.com (which is still available as of this writing.)

Then, when someone searches for: family therapist detroit, your website will end up near the top of the search results.

To hyphenate? or not?

Some experts say that search engines can more easily "read" individual words in a string when they are separated by hyphens, so you might want to do this - e.g., detroit-family-therapist.com - especially if you have three or more words running together.

But then again, hyphens are often omitted by searchers.

In any case, it's a good idea to buy both the hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of your domain name. You can set the non-hyphenated name to be automatically redirected to the hyphenated version, which is your actual website. Thus, whether people type in detroitfamilytherapist.com or detroit-family-therapist.com, they'll end up at the same place, and you'll be more visible to the search engines.

When setting up a domain name containing keywords, consider what your intended audience might be searching for. There are synonyms and alternate forms for most keywords - so with a little creativity you'll probably find something that fits.

3. Easy: Your domain name should be easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. And make sure that you don't inadvertently put together a combination of words that could be interpreted in more than one way- a popular example is therapist.com.

Keep in mind: Even though your domain name is important, it's not as critical as the CONTENT of your website. If you're using your website to market your practice, make sure you emphasize benefits for your audience. See my earlier blog post on this topic.

-- Pauline

Competition is GOOD for business!

Are you afraid of competition? Don’t be.

Competition is actually good for your business. When several people offer the same types of services, it implies that these services are popular and in demand.

People flock to what’s popular, because popularity is an endorsement – The herd mentality is: If others are using a service, it must be worthwhile.

It’s actually much harder to sell services that no one else is – especially if you’re in the mental health field, which still has some stigma in many communities.

No matter how much you say you can help people, they might be skeptical. After all, in most businesses, if there is something worth paying for, a lot of people would probably want it – and there would be enough demand for similar businesses to sprout up.

Therefore, instead of fearing competition, embrace it. Here are some tips:

• Promote what’s different about you. Figure out at least one way that you’re different from your competitors, and emphasize that in your marketing. But the difference must be of benefit to your audience. If you are fluent in Swahili, and no one in your community speaks Swahili, that’s not much of an edge over your competition. However, if you offer evening hours, or babysitting, or if you are a specialist in a sub-niche of your field, people will be drawn to you.
  

• Support your competition in a way that does not undermine your business: Refer people to your competition whom you would not work well with. If you come across an article that might be helpful to your competition, send it to them. When they have the opportunity to refer to you in the future, they will be more likely to do so.

• Network with your competition. Give them a chance to get to know you, like you and trust you. They may end up referring some of their family or close friends to you, which would be the ultimate endorsement of their respect for you.