Posts Tagged → Follow-Up Tips
Follow-Up Tip: How to write a follow-up email
Image Credit: Follow The Leader by KaCey97007. Licensed through Creative Commons on flickr.com
If you’ve read my previous articles (How to Follow-Up in particular), you’ve seen the OvernightPR way to follow up on your press release. I’ve said this before a few times, but I’ll mention it here again: your press release is a tool for you to use to get PR coverage, not and end-goal of your PR efforts. In order to maximize your return on the investment of writing a release (or paying a writer to do it for you) and distributing it, you need to have your all your ducks in a row.
I’ve given dozens of tips away on how to line those little guys up to make sure that you don’t miss your opportunity with your press release, but I’ve also received a few requests from readers of past articles asking how exactly they should phrase their follow-up email. That’s largely a matter of personal taste, but I’ll share with you my template that I use when I’m doing follow-up emails.
Make the Most of Your Release: Make a List
If you’ve read any of my articles, you know that I’m fond of lists. On the heels of my last article about how to follow up on your release (See “Trevor’s 7 Rules of PR Pitching”), here’s the second of 6 tips to help you get the most out of your follow-up (read the first here).
Make a List: of the people who write about your industry or business.
Image Credit: To Do List by °Florian. Licensed through Creative Commons 2.0
Who talks about your industry? Your company? Keep track of blogs, journalists and commenters who seem especially influential or knowledgeable. They’ll come in handy later. Don’t get creepy about it, but take notice of what they’re talking about.
Unless you work in an incredibly niche market, you should be able to find at least a half a dozen good writers who cover your industry or something that is close enough to it that they might be interested in what it is you do. (If there *aren’t* a half-dozen people who write about your industry, then you definitely should take advantage of tip 7 on my list of making the most of your release, which will admittedly not appear for a few days.).
Make The Most of Your Release: Listen
If you’ve read any of my articles, you know that I’m fond of lists. On the heels of my last article about how to follow up on your release (See “Trevor’s 7 Rules of PR Pitching”), here’s the first of 7 tips to help you get the most out of your follow-up.
1: Listen: Find out who’s talking about your field now.
Image Credit: "Listen" by ky_olsen. Licensed through Creative Commons 2.0
Google has an incredible tool called “Google Alerts.” (http://www.google.com/alerts) If you are a web-savvy businessman or businesswoman, you will come to love it. Basically, you tell Google what you want to know about. Then, on a weekly, daily, or “as it happens” basis, Google will let you know when its search engine encounters a new web page with the terms that you’re interested in. Include your company name in these alerts, as well as some terms that are common in your business. “OvernightPR, Fast Press Release, Social Media News Release, and Fast PR” are some of my Google Alerts.
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Make the Most of Your Release: Intro
If you’ve read any of my articles, you know that I’m fond of lists. On the heels of my last article about how to follow up on your release (See “Trevor’s 7 Rules of PR Pitching”), here’s the intro article to my list of 6 tips to help you get the most out of your follow-up.
The reason for paying a service like Marketwire or PRWeb to distribute your press release for you is that they can get your story in front of people who you can’t—at least, not without difficulty. Depending on how much you pay, you can get your story released over the AP Wire and Reuters. This gives you an channel to communicate with that ties directly to reporters all across the globe, which is a great way to make sure your story is covered, right? Write a press release that’s full of good content, has clear links back to the source for the content, and you shouldn’t have any problem getting covered by the media, right? Sadly, not as much as you probably hoped.