Delroy A. Whyte-HallWHYTE-HALL COMMUNICATIONS

http://www.whytehallcommunications.webs.com

I’m Delroy A. Whyte-Hall and I’ll be your guide as you go through this course. I’ve worked with many small business owners since establishing Whyte-Hall Communications in January 2009 , and each of them have started out asking, “What’s public relations?” You might be asking the same question.

In this short course, I’ll answer that question and give you a quick start to using public relations to get the word out about your company.LinkedIn Profilehttp://www.linkedin.com/in/whytehallcommunications

¡ Public Relations As A Marketing Strategy

¡ How Can My “Small Biz” Be News?

¡ How Do I Write A News Release?

¡ Sample News Releases

¡ Your Turn

¡ Where Do I Send My Release?

Simply put, public relations is a marketing strategy that can propel your business forward faster than even the best advertising.

The keys to getting good press are building relationships with reporters and editors, sending news, and consistently sending out messages –building good public relations.

Do you read the newspaper or listen to the news? Most of that news began as a news release as part of a public relations strategy. Surprised?

Very Easy…

You’ve got lots of news to share about your business, you just need to have the right mindset to discover it.

Ready?

1. Take out a piece of paper and pen.

2. Write “My Business News Is…” at the top of the page.

3. Take five minutes and brainstorm what’s been happening in your business in the last month. Just make a list as quickly as you can.

Go ahead – I’ll wait…

So how did you do?

You should have been able to come up with at least 25 items about your business.

Maybe a list to work from would help.

Here are 90-Plus Reasons To Issue A Kick Ass News Release

Compare your brainstormed list to the 50 Plus Ideas for Writing a Kick Ass Press Release! PDF file.

. Are there any similarities?

Do you see any items on that list that make you say,“Oh yea, my business did that!”?

That’s how easy it is to come up with news release ideas. Now set the list aside and we’ll move on to what you will do with that list.

Writing a news release is pretty straight forward.

Three things to remember1. Your news release is not advertising.2. You have about ten seconds to grab the

reader.3. Your news release is not about you.

There are six basic elements that every press release should have in terms of content and appearance.

1. For Immediate Release2. Contact Information3. Headline4. Date5. Lead Paragraph6. Text7. Boilerplate

Okay, so let’s define each of those six elements so you know what goes where.

Item #1: For Immediate Release

These words should appear in the upper left-hand margin of your release. Some experts say you should capitalize every letter. I’ve found that’s not critical. If your release date should be some date in the future, indicate for release on that specific date.

Item #2: Contact Information

Skip a line or two after your release statement and list the contact name and title of the person who is the expert for this release, plus your telephone number, company name and an eMail address.

Item #3: Headline

Skip two lines after your contact information and use boldface, underline or ALL CAPS type for your headline. Your headline should be informative, not full of hype.

Item #4: Date

The information identified in this spot is the city your press release is issued from and the date you are sending our your release.

Item #5: Lead Paragraph

The first paragraph needs to grab the reader’s attention and should contain the information relevant to your message such as the 5W's (Who? What? When? Where? Why?).

Sometimes you also need to add the How? Element.

The first 10 words of this paragraph will make the difference between a news release that is read and one that is thrown away.

Item #6: Text

This is the main body of your press release where your message should fully develop.Make it easy for the reporter to do his / her job. Deal with the facts and avoid excessive use of company lingo and fancy language.

Item #7: Boilerplate

The last paragraph should be company boilerplate, a brief description of the company, and any information you want people to know about it, such as what type of business it is in, what its annual sales are, where it is headquartered, where branch offices are located, number of employees, etc.

That’s it! Yes, it really is that easy.

If you’d like a printed template to work from, you can download the News Release Template.

News Release Template (PDF)News Release Template (Word)

http://whytehallcommunications.webs.com/inthenews.htm

One of the best ways to learn is by studying other news releases.

I place all of my news on my web site once it’s been published.

You can hop on over there to take a look at some samples.

It’s at IN THE NEWS http://whytehallcommunications.webs.com/inthenews.htm

Let’s dissect the second release titled: Jamaican Publicist Offers Free "Small Biz-Focused" Publicity eReport!Here’s the first paragraph.Every business needs publicity, but the small the small business owner needs it the most! There is no better way to help jumpstart your business or supplement your company’s ongoing advertising than doing a good job at public relations, and so, Delroy A. Whyte-Hall, head of the new internet-based publicity-marketing consultancy Whyte-Hall Communications (http://whytehallcommunications.webs.com), wants to make life a little easier, publicity-wise, for the nation’s entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Before you go to the next slide, take a piece of paper and identify what the five Ws are in this first paragraph of this release.

Here Are The Five W’s In This Release

1. Who? Small Business Owners2. What? "Small Biz-Focused" Publicity eReport!3. When? Now4. Where? On the internet5. Why? Need help jumpstarting their business or

supplement their company’s ongoing advertising

How did you do?

See how easy that was?

That’s all you have to do. This news release was picked up by both local and national newspapers.

Yours can be too. Just follow the formula on the News Release Template and you’ll create some winners. If you need more practice, feel free to dissect the rest of the news release on my web page.

Time to write your news release.

Take that brainstormed list of topics you created a little while ago, pick one of the topics, and using the News Release Template , write your news release.

Bingo! You’re done.

Well, that depends.

What you’ll need to do is identify those media (newspapers, radios, TVs, Internet, Blogs, Newsletters, Magazines, etc.) and reporters who write about your type of news. It will take you a little leg work, but the time spent will be worth it because you will be targeting your release to the people who have the means to use it.

So spend some time finding that list of people and media before you’re ready to send your first release. You can find places on the internet by searching press release distribution.

I hope this short course has been helpful to you.

Feel free to email me at whcomn@gmail.comwith any questions you have.

(I’d love to hear about your success too!)

You’re also invited to visit me at WHYTE-HALL COMMUNICATIONS.

You are invited to subscribe to my blog The Ultimate Publicist !

http://whytehallcommunications.webs.com/apps/blog/And you can follow me on twitter at

http://twitter.com/theprwriter