Using a Press Release to get More Customers

This guide aims to show you what a press release is, whether or not it will benefit your business and the basics of how to write one.

There are many great stories about press releases being used to profit small business owners. If used correctly they can be used to get you into a small newspaper, driving customers to your business.

Sometimes, even the most run-of-the-mill small business owner ends up getting international fame and huge business profits from a simple press release.

A press release is how a lot of news starts. It is a very short piece of writing that a journalist or reporter reads, looking for a story to write about.

If they find something that might be interesting to their paper they contact the people listed on the release, give an interview and publish the story in their newspaper.

Free advertising! One young Brit named Alex Tew had a very simple idea for an online business - selling pixels on his website as advertising. The website was called milliondollarhomepage.com and it had no content and should have found it difficult to gain traffic.

BUT the university student wrote a press release and submitted it to a directory online. The BBC picked it up and soon he was internationally famous and had made over one million dollars from the attention this press release earned him.

So how do you use this in the same way to earn more money

The key to press-release writing as advertising is that you are not trying to sell your product this time. (I know, weird isn't it!) You are selling your STORY and hoping this will get you attention and generate traffic.

Alex Tew had a good story. He was a university art student just trying to make ends meet, he had a very ambitious plan, a new idea and the guts to carry it out.

However, he was just a normal person trying to make money online.

In reality, anyone can write their business as a story. Is there a special reason you started it You may think "Ambitious mother of four just trying to pay the rent stories" are old but if you've read a newspaper or heard the news then you'll know that everyone else eats them up.

What did you have to go through to secure the fincance for your business Did you start out with $2 stolen from your grandmother's purse Tell the truth but make it interesting. After all, free advertising comes at the price of a good story.

Once you have found your "angle" on your business then just make it short. Use basic language and convey your story so a journalist can scan-read it.

There is a specific format to writing a press release and you can find websites that show you how to write to that format quite easily.

Once you have written it, submission is another art. You can submit to large directories online as well as politely calling journalists themselves and offering it to them. Guides to this can be found too.

I hope this article has helped to give you ideas about how to make money using press releases. It is definitely a profitable side of marketing not to be ignored.

This article brought to you by Women About Biz. Get more business information at the #1 Small Business Resource for Women at http://www.womenaboutbiz.com