How to Get Millions of Dollars in Free
Advertising for Your Web Business

By Terry Dean

One web business generated over one million hits it's first month online...

An ezine publisher produced over 14,000 new subscribers for his email publications in one week...

A home business generated well over $50,000 in income on one new product in one month...

What do these three stories have in common? They all used free media publicity to create their own online success stories.

Will you be the next one?

While the majority of business spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars monthly on advertising both online and offline, there has been a small minority of web businesses which have been using the power of the press consistently to their advantage.

People just don't understand what makes one of these "Instant Success" stories shoot up overnight. They try to attribute it to a lucky break that someone became interested in their site, product, or service.

What they don't see is that most of the people who they call "Instant Success" stories didn't get lucky...and they didn't get success instantly either. They learned and followed a system of writing up and sending out press releases continually for their business.

Some might say, "That one press release earned them millions of dollars." The problem with following that kind of logic is that you are ignoring the dozens of press releases they have sent out previously while they were learning about the process.

Too many Internet marketers that I have met have just sent out one press release. Then, when they didn't get any coverage, they decided that press releases just don't work.

They didn't keep trying and they didn't take the time to sit down and figure out why their first press release didn't work for them. They just sat down and gave up on the whole process just like they do on so many other areas of Internet marketing.

Using press releases should become a marketing avenue for almost every web business. Yes, email marketing is wonderful. Yes, banner advertising is good. Yes, search engines can give you traffic. You cannot afford to just ignore press releases though.

Press releases are one of the cheapest forms of marketing that any business could ever use. Yet, they also offer one of the highest potentials in lead generating and direct selling that you will find in any marketing campaign.

One example of where press releases can really beat out any other form of marketing is in the area of testing. If you have a new product which you want to test by traditional Internet marketing methods, you would have to: design the web site, submit to search engines, run some ezine ads, and other marketing techniques. This will cost you a few hundred dollars and will take a few weeks to a month to determine the interest people are having in your product.

If you are using press releases, you can write up the press release and send it out to a few hundred sources. Then, within a couple of days you will know whether they are interested or not based on whether you get any phone calls for more information.

Another advantage that free publicity has over advertising is that people will see you as more credible. If so-and-so magazine says you are an Internet marketing expert, it has a lot more effect on your visitors than if you claim that you are.

Face it. Advertising has a negative connotation to many people. The moment they read an advertisement, they go on the defensive. You have to convince them that you are credible and honest.

If people hear about you on the radio or see you in the newspaper, you become an instant celebrity in their eyes. They assume that the media outlet that you are in has already checked you out. The resistance that advertising directly brings up never even comes into play.

You may be sitting there thinking that press releases may work for some people, but they just won't work for your little web business. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone can use press releases. You just need to figure out what angle you can approach from.

You have to come up with a press release which is interesting, informative, and exciting to the media's market. It cannot be a sales letter. As an ezine publisher, I receive dozens of press releases from people every week, but almost everyone of them is instantly deleted. Do you know why? It is because they are more of a sales letter for their product and service than they are of a resource for my readers.

Your press release needs to be written in such a way that it is a benefit to the publisher and to their readers. This can be done with any business or web site. It just requires a little bit of thinking on your part.

Let's say that you don't have any of your own products. You are just an affiliate for three other people's programs. If you just want to start with local publicity, you could write up a press release for your local papers and radio station about how hometown man/woman makes it big online. The Internet is so hot right now that many media outlets love this type of story.

Once you go to national publications, you will have to come up with a much more beneficial release. You could redesign your web site so it has an extremely beneficial tool which is given away for free. For example, you could focus on having the most comprehensive site about _____, including hundreds of free articles, discussion groups, ezines, downloads, etc.

If you were an affiliate with Amazon.com for example, you could create a special Valentine section of your web site including free postcards, songs, gift lists, etc. for lovers. Then, list the books from Amazon.com on that page that apply to this special day. Whenever an event was taking place in the country or it was a holiday, prepare a section of your site for it and send out those press releases.

The only limit to what you can do with publicity is with your imagination. How can you relate your business or web site to things which are already being published and are newsworthy.

Once you are ready to start sending press releases, you are going to have to choose which format you want to use. You can mail, fax, or email out the press releases.

Mailing press releases usually returns the best results since you can do more to make your release stand out. You can include quality paper, pictures of yourself or your product, and even product samples. The disadvantage of this method is that it is the most expensive and time consuming of the three.

Faxing press releases has become the standard during recent years. It is quicker and much cheaper at only around 10 cents per fax. The most popular and effective businesspeople I know are still using this as their primary method of delivery.

Emailing press releases is the newest method available and is becoming more popular all of the time. It is also the cheapest method of all since it is Free to send out your press releases using this method. Do take one caution though if you are going to email your press releases. Do not send them to every media outlet you can find just because they are free to send. Make sure you target your media outlets appropriately so that you don't end up annoying those people you are trying to reach.

Below are a few online sources if you want to have a company submit (and possibly even write) your press releases for you. I am not giving a personal recommendation of any of the companies below, but I do know certain people who recommend each of them.

http://www.xpresspress.com
http://www.newsbureau.com
http://www.gapent.com/pr
http://www.mediasubmit.com
http://www.onlnepressreleases.com

The best way to get involved with doing press releases is to do it yourself. Remember, we are not going to just do a press release one time and forget about it. We are going to make it a constant habit in our businesses. You will send out another press release whenever you have a new product, come up with a new angle, or find a trend/holiday that somehow relates to your business.