Pam Ivey International

Category: Marketing

  • 5 Tips to Make Your Press Release Brilliant

    5 Tips to Make Your Press Release Brilliant

    Press Releases can help your business gain publicity through the media. Having media attention gives your business credibility. Here are some tips to boost your press release’s appeal. .

    Correct Format: There is a format that press releases need to follow. Make sure your yours is written in the correct format, as you will want it to look as professional as possible. It is also a good idea to double-check the grammar, punctuation and spelling before you send it in for submission.

    Keep it Clear and Concise: Your press release should be no longer than two pages. Media outlets receive lots of press releases and don’t have time to read a ten page report. Keeping your writing clear and concise allow you to fit in the important facts without going over the two page limit. As you decide what information to include, answer the following questions: who, what, why, where, when, and how.

    What Is The Reader Going To Gain: Give your press releases a call to action. Include something that is going to inspire readers to go to your event, visit your website, attend your grand opening, etc. Writing a blatant ad will be obvious. Incorporate the features and benefits of what you are promoting, and give information on what it will do for your target market. If you are promoting a new food processor, simply stating that it is smaller and takes up less space than previous models isn’t enough. However, writing the information as “the new model is smaller and takes up less space, allowing our customers to have the full chopping power of our larger model, but also save precious counter space” lets the reader know how the new model will help them.

    Make It Interesting: If your writing is boring, no one is going to want to read it. Try to find a balance between straight facts and excitement. Using the example of the food processor above, announcing that “our new food processor will be available this spring” isn’t as catchy as “our new space-saving food processor will be available this spring, just in time to help you chop fresh vegetables for your summer salads”.

    Remember Your Target Market: As you write and submit your press releases, keep your target market in mind at all times. By keeping your audience in mind, you will be able to focus on what information to include and where to submit your press releases. For instance, if you are promoting an event related to children’s health, submitting a press release to the travel editor of your local paper isn’t going to help you.

    The media cannot run a story on every press release they receive, but implementing these tips will help you write press releases that grab, and keep, the media’s attention. The old saying “practice makes perfect” rings true for press releases; the more you write them, the better you will get.

  • Blog All About It: What to Say in Your Blog

    Blog All About It: What to Say in Your Blog

    Writer’s block is a common ailment among writers, whether it is a news reporter under a deadline or a student trying to finish a report.  If you are a blogger, you may find yourself suffering from “blogger’s block”, the condition of not knowing what to put in your blog.

    Your blog should feature your voice. It is easy to find reprint articles when you feel stuck, but try to avoid putting them in your blog. You can publish a reprint article on your website and create a blog post that links to it, but keep the blog content your own. This will enable your readers to get a feel for your personality, as well as develop a relationship with you.

    The media is a great place to find things to blog about. Watch the local news, read the paper, or check media websites. Take a look at what is going on in the world and spin the stories into a tale for your readers. If you have a website about home schooling and come across a news clip that features something they would find interesting, by all means, blog about it. After you give your opinion on the story, link to the original news source as a convenience for your readers. They may find your post so interesting; they’ll want to read the original story, too.

    You can blog about your affiliate programs and make money at the same time. If you are an affiliate for something, find a way to create a blog post about it. You can review the item, give tips on how to use the item and so forth. You will have something to write about, and if your reader clicks on your link and purchases the item, you’ll make money at the same time.

    Blogs are also a great way to promote your website. Let your readers know when you have made a change to your site, such as publishing a new article. Create a blog post that contains the first few lines of the article to tease your readers, as well as a link to the page that features the full text.

    Keep your posts timely and helpful. If it is almost Thanksgiving, adding a post with tips on celebrating St. Patrick’s Day isn’t timely or helpful.  However, a turkey recipe or a how-to post that explains a quick and easy craft in the shape of a pilgrim would be both timely and helpful.

  • 5 Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your Business

    5 Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your Business

    Using social media to promote your business is a no-brainer today.

    All types of businesses need to promote online today. It doesn’t matter if you have a bricks and mortar business or a completely online business. You need social media to promote your business because that’s where your audience is located. It’s imperative that you ensure that you put your business in the sight of your audience by being where they are.

    1. Don’t be afraid of Reddit – This is one of the best places to get links back to your site and have a blog post or other newsworthy information go viral. It can be nerve-wracking due to the fact you can be voted up or down but it can help you get to know your audience’s thoughts better than ever which you can use for future blog posts, product creation and more. You can get a huge following, increase your newsletter sign ups, and improve engagement by becoming active on Reddit and engaging with your audience.
    2. Get Creative with Twitter – Twitter is a fabulous research tool. Due to the lower character count it’s prefect for testing out headlines, subject lines, and titles for all of your articles, email messages and blog posts. Share the same information twice using different words, see which one is clicked on and engaged with more. Then share the one that got the most engagement in other places.
    3. Use Facebook Ads – Facebook ads are a very easy way to market your business. You can micro target your audience in many different ways. You can boost a post, or even place and advertisement for a percent off sale for your products or services. You can also use FB to remarket to your audience.
    4. Research Your Competitors – You can use all your social networks to research your competition. Find out what they’re doing and don’t copy them, but do it a little bit better than them. Fill in the gaps of your competition so that you can come out ahead. If you do everything just a little bit better, you’ll win more customers.
    5. Use Video – People are more likely to share video on social media. Therefore, if you share videos of information you want to share in this manner, keeping the video short (under three minutes), you can get your information shared more often by your audience. More than likely your audience hangs out with like-minded people, therefore you’ll reach a wider berth of audience members.

    These five ways to use social media to promote your business are very effective if you do them strategically and often. Consistency is what pays off best as does understanding what your goals are for each action.

  • Formulas for Copy that Sells

    Formulas for Copy that Sells

    The best thing to remember when it comes to copywriting is that the tried and true works.

    PhDs from across the world have been studying what works to get people to act for as long as marketing and advertising has existed. The main formula that is taught in schools is the AIDA and it works.

    AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and action.

    When you use the AIDA formula, you want to grab your audience’s attention or make them aware of your offerings, grab their interest enough that they study you and then make them want and desire your offerings and finally make it easy for them to act upon your offering.

    No matter what formula you find out there on the Internet, they all start with AIDA and they all do essentially the same thing.

    They give you a mode to explain what you have, what it’s going to do for your audience, and what the audience can do next. It’s all about the way in which you deliver that message that’s going to make a difference. How you deliver the message all depends on your audience.

    Some audience’s prefer to read offers in story form. This formula tells the story of a main character who is suffering from the same problem as your audience, and who found the solution which of course is your product or service. You’ll explain how, in story form, everything works together. The story grabs their attention and makes the audience aware of the problem, and aware of a solution, and then explains how the solution works.

    Another audience will react better to being taught directly about the problem (awareness), and the consequences of not having the solution immediately (desire), and then providing the solution in a clear, concise way that helps calm their fears and solve the problem once and for all. Using this method works well with highly reactive audiences.

    You can improve upon AIDA by expanding on awareness and attention, as well as interest, desire and action in ways that work best of your particular audience but that’s where it all starts. For example you can expand on awareness by explaining the problem more thoroughly so that you improve your audience’s comprehension.

    Further, you can expand on desire by discrediting other solutions when you offer your own. The sky is really the limit, but every formula you use must have at least these four criteria to expand awareness, get their interest so that you can develop their desire for your solution. Finally, you can expand their action by creating exceptional calls to action. Everything in the copywriting formula works together to create a desire and a need in the audience to buy what you’re offering.