"89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases"

Lesson #6:  Defining your audience(s) before you write  

Sometimes you might have more than one audience for a press release. If you sell antique doorknobs, your two separate audiences might be:

• Hardware stores that buy your doorknobs wholesale
   
• Consumers who buy them from your website

You want each of the two audiences to do two different things. You want the hardware store owners to visit your booth at the 35th annual Hardware Store Owners Convention. But you want consumers, who won't be at the convention, to see the product catalog at your website.

In a case like that, you might write two different press releases: one for hardware store owners attending the convention and one for consumers who are in the market for doorknobs. There are three advantages to doing this:

1. When people in each target audience read the press release that was written just for them, including a headline that was written just them, they think: "Aha! This is exactly what I was looking for."
    
2. You can put some of the same keywords like "antique doorknobs" in both releases. So when hardware store owners and consumers do an online search for "antique doorknobs," they'll find both of your news releases and they can choose the one that has the headline that speaks directly to them (more about headlines in Week 5).
    
3. You can also put a keyword phrase like "35th annual Hardware Store Owners Convention" in the press release for hardware store owners and "product catalog" in the release for consumers, then link to the page at your website where the catalog is located. Keeping the releases separate makes it easier for the search engines to find the keywords in your press release that people use when they search. (More about keywords in Week 10.) 

When you have defined the purpose of your press release and your key audience(s), it's time to define your key message.

Opportunity #6: Articles written by or about you

If a national newspaper or magazine prints an article by or about you, send a press release about it to your local newspaper, alumni publication and other publications that would be interested, and link to the article if it's posted online. An editor or reporter will want to interview you, or they might want to reprint your article. 

P.S. If you aren't yet writing articles, get going! It's a fabulous way to generate publicity because writing articles positions you as an expert. "How to Write How-to Articles for Newspapers, Magazines & Trade Journals" shows you how to write a simple 500-word article and gives you a template that shows one way to write it. Just follow the template and you'll have an article written and ready for the media, or for your website and online article directories.  

Tomorrow: Keep the key message simple
 

Need help with publicity?
The Publicity Hound's Resources List includes products and vendors that can help with many aspects of your publicity campaign. You'll find press release distribution services, publicists, audio experts, ghostwriters and more.

***Have you missed previous lessons in this tutorial? You
      can find them below:

Lesson 1     Lesson 2     Lesson 3     Lesson 4     Lesson 5