Getting Press Coverage
How do you bring your site to the attention of writers and
editors? By sending out press releases. A press release is a
brief announcement of some newsworthy event, which may be
sent to an editor or writer by mail, fax or email. There's a
real art to writing them and submitting them, which is far out
of the scope of this article. If you go to Yahoo and search
on "writing press releases," you'll find that there are lots
of guides out there.
Press releases have a standard form, so learn it and write
your press releases this way if you want them to be read. And
remember that press releases are supposed to be about
newsworthy events. Just the fact that your company has
a Web site is unlikely to be considered news by itself. Always
try to play up the "newsy" aspect. Point out what is unique
or innovative about your site.
In addition to generating immediate publicity, an article
about your Web site can yield pithy quotes that you can use
in your future marketing efforts. If a major Internet magazine
says that your site is "beautifully designed and
extremely useful," then you'll want to trumpet the fact. If
they say that your site is a "perfect example of amateurish
design, and it's extremely hard to see how anyone could find
it useful," then you may want to employ a handy little
thing called an "ellipsis" (...). "Major Internet mag says our
site is "perfect...extremely...useful."
Of course, even if some journalist does write an article from
your press release, it's unlikely that you'll ever know about
it, unless you use a "clipping service." A clipping service
consists of unfortunate people at a public relations agency
whose job it is to scan thousands of periodicals,
looking for mentions of companies represented by their agency.
When they find one, they relay it to the client, perhaps
providing useful quotes, and proving that the P.R. agency has
done its job. By now it should be apparent that the
whole business of trying to get press coverage is an involved
process. If you have the budget for it, you may consider
hiring a P.R. agency.
Traditionally, publicists did a lot of research on the media
that they worked with, and tried hard to make sure that press
releases got sent to the people most likely to make use of
them, even timing submissions to try to get them in
at just the right moment. Nowadays, alas, many simply build
the biggest email list they can, of anyone with the word
"editor" in their title, and spam all their press releases
out to the whole list.
Advertising
What about paid advertising? As an employee of an
advertising-supported network of Web sites, I hate to bite
the hand that feeds me, but in my experience, buying banner
advertising is seldom cost-effective for a small business. To
get results from paid banner ads, you need to spend some
serious money, and you need to be prepared to refine both the
banners and their placement on an ongoing basis. However, who
says you have to pay cash for banner ads? Barter arrangements
thrive on the Web. Exchanging ad banners directly with
a related site is likely to be more effective than simply
participating in a formal banner exchange program. A
content-for-ads swap can also be a good thing
for both parties. You can swap content for banners, fixed
links, or whatever you like. If you sell products or services,
consider offering them in barter for ads. When it comes to
barter and other mutual back-scratching deals, the sky's
the limit.
To be able to measure (and try to improve) results from
banners, you need some sort of ad management software, which
will rotate different banners on your site, and keep track of
impressions and clickthroughs. You also want to be sure
that the site running your banners has some way of tracking
this information. Various free or low-cost scripts are
available that can do an adequate job of running banner ads
on a small site. See The Web Developer's Journal's
Online Advertising section for an overview
of the various packages and tips on how to choose one.
Print ads are even more expensive than online ads, and it
requires even more expertise to manage campaigns effectively.
However, they can be a valuable piece of a marketing plan, as
they often reach a different set of people than online
ads would. As with online ads, it may be well worthwhile to
propose some sort of barter deal.
Mailing list ads are generally far cheaper than banners, and
often reach much more finely-targeted audiences. If you can
find a mailing list or two that targets the type of people
you're trying to reach, it might be well worthwhile to
try a few ads. The drawback to mailing list ads is that it's
harder to track results. Ad management software can tell you
how many people clicked on a banner, but there's usually no
way to know how many people found your site
through a mailing list ad. One trick is to set up duplicates
of your home page, each with a slightly different URL, and
use a different one for each ad campaign. Then you can use
your server logs to find out how many visitors came
from each one.
