A business must not consider a press release to be necessarily an SEO tool.
A release is much more than search engine optimization. You are reaching out your product or service to the target audience and effectively branding it.
If you have crafted it well enough, your online press release will pull organic traffic back to your website and create interest beyond borders.
But is it a cakewalk to do so?
Certainly not, you need to put in some effort to get the word out.
Your business may have some positive news and you may be excited to share it. But before you craft your story and send it over to a PR distribution service, there are a few important steps that you must keep in mind.
One of them is very important and the deciding step.
Who is your target audience?
In simple terms, a target audience is the people you work with, and the potential customers you want to reach out to. And in this list you must not forget the key influencers interested in your brand and products.
In another context, a targeted story is served to a specific audience which could be a group of individuals or a particular demographic.
There are other modes of targeting too.
Here are some examples:
Geotargeting – This involves serving your press release to a specific audience based on the geographical location of your prospective customers.
Affiliates – Some of your affiliates help sell your products/services. So whenever there is some newsworthy stuff about your brand, your press releases must be targeted to these affiliates so that they are enthused to sell your products.
Investors – If your release is about the launch of a new product, then surely your investors will be interested. It can attract new investors too.
Traditional media – In this era of the internet, businesses focus on blogs and social media and ignore radio, TV, and newspapers.
Keep in mind that the traditional media does have keen followers, so you must not miss them out while targeting your story.
A well-executed press release distributed over PR distribution service has the potential to reach a wide array of people.
But what is of importance to you is that the story must reach the right audience.
Fortunately, a professional online press release service understands the people who read and engage with stories similar as yours.
In the days gone by, access to audience data was out of the realm of press release services.
Now press release professionals have access to the same data ecosystem that marketing experts have.
For small and medium businesses, structuring the right message has always been a challenging task. Getting to know that your message has reached and engaged the target audience can be tough to say the least.
But a good press release distribution service has the wherewithal to evaluate the press release audience data and see which audiences read your story.
Mind you it may not be enough to know how much interest your story generated through metrics like traffic and clickthrough. You must have access to firmographic data to be sure your press release has not only reached but also resonated with the target audience.