It has been a long time since I have written about sending out press releases as a way of promoting your home business. Some people do it as a matter of course, letting the local, regional or national press know when they have expanded their product line or are making other changes to their business, and others have yet to give this type of “free” publicity a try. If you do send out press releases, however, it is important to make sure that you do not just send them out and let them die–you have to follow up with phone calls, e-mails, etc.
A press release is a story or statement that you send out to press contacts in hopes they will do a story or include your information in their newspaper, magazine, community calendar, business beat, or other form of free media. I have known some business people who became quite successful at getting feature stories done on their business or were good at putting themselves forth as an expert available for comments and interviews and it all started with a press release. These people did not just type up a press release and fax it off, however. They made the contacts and the follow-up calls to make sure the press release did not get tossed directly into the scratch paper or recycle bin.
Keep in mind that most reporters and press people are LOOKING for stories. They have to come up with constant article and story ideas from the community and if you can feed them reliable and interesting information they just might bite. But they are busy people, they might not see every press release and story idea that comes into their department. My suggestion is to send an e-mail or make a phone call first, send the press release, and then make follow-up calls until you actually talk to a real human person. You might even follow-up that phone call with a follow-up e-mail. Make yourself easily accessible and build a relationship with reporters and you just might start to see some fruit come from those press releases!