Dan Lok, a reputed marketer and web site conversion expert, has reported that he issued a press release recently and received very good success. He quoted some statistics:

This press release was done at an investment of $80 on PRweb.com and after 30 days has resulted in:

* 21,439 page views of the release on PRweb.com

* 406 estimated pick-ups

* 59 one-way incoming links to the site

He has attributed the success of this campaign to the ideas covered in the Press Release fire ebook by Brad Callen. This is a useful guide and you can pick up some very good ideas as well as free press release sites. Check it out!

Russell Brunson just posted this on his website:

“How A Simple One Page Press Release Helped Me Get To Page 1 For The Keyword “Internet Marketing” And Helped Put Me On TV!!!”

I have been silently getting my clients page 1 rankings, even #1 ranking on pretty competitive terms with press releases - however coming from a respected marketer like Russell, this is a nice confirmation of my findings.

Happy about your success, Russell

Chris Anderson, the author of The Long Tail has recently put a nice note about getting publicity without press releases in the age of Web 2.0 and PR 2.0. He articulates the hustling that goes in the process of getting mentions and backlinks from other bloggers, which is the secret of publicity in the age of hyperactive social media.

Get the full post about publicity without press releases here.

David Meerman Scott has updated the wildly successful publication “New rules of PR“, which acts as the guiding light for the new age PR professional to take advantage of the ‘direct to consumer press releases’ and Web 2.0 concepts.

Social media such as blogs, podcasts, wikis and message boards can play an important role in the dissemination of your news and company developments and if you can make your consumer aware of these developments, you can easily expect better branding and higher traffic to your site, thereby improving the results from your web site in all fields.

This is a must read for anyone interested in using press releases and blogs for their site promotion. To download Scott’s e-book, “The New Rules of PR: How to Create a Press Release Strategy for Reaching Buyers Directly” (second edition), please go to http://301url.com/NewRulesofPR.

If you are a business primarily serving a specific geographical region, you should include mention of the city/town and the state, even ZIP in your press release quite prominently. This will help attract the local media, both print and online varieties, who are hungry for good stories related to their territories.

If you get a mention in a local publication, that can do wonders to your promotion efforts. Read more details on this PRleap note about localized press releases.

We recently helped a new Outsourcing portal create a buzz about their site with a press release and are glad to inform you that the site hit the coveted top 10 on Google on their prime keywords - “outsourcing portal“. This site also got top 20 rankings on several other important keywords as reported by this post on their blog - The Power of Press Releases in your SEO Campaigns.
This is another proof that well written press releases and well planned press release campaigns can seriously benefit your SEO campaigns at a terrific value per dollar.

PRWEB, the leading online news release submission and distribution portal is raising the bar again. It has announced the upcoming demise of free podcasts (available with news releases contributions of $200 and above) in a mail to its users.

You might know that PRWEB allowed a free podcast of 3-5 minutes wherein a PRWEB staff interviewed the contact person for the press releases and then, they would distribute this interview through iTunes and several other online podcast directories.

Now, starting December 18th, this option will not be available anymore. They have introduced an additional fee of $100 for each podcast of 3-5 minutes duration. The mail does not clarify whether this option will be available at every contribution level or only for $200 and above.

As an incentive to offset the new charge, here is what they are offering:

You may upload images to be used in the promotion and circulation of your interview. We will continue to distribute and promote your podcast interview through our existing podcast distribution channels.

They are also introducing a new option of 10-20 minute detailed interview at $200 over the press release contribution.

For those low on budget and not interested to shell out extra money, PRWEB will resume a self-service podcast where you upload your podcast (under 10 MB, so must be very compressed or really short) from January 1st 2007. Thus they have not killed the free podcast but the free podcast interview.
PRWEB also does not want to be left behind in the online video phenomenon sweeping the Internet. See this:

Starting January 1, 2007, PRWeb Podcast will also be offering a premium motioncast service for $250 in addition to a press release that will include a motioncast in addition to the three to five minute podcast. Melding your photos, videos, and fireside chat interview into a video, this motioncast will be tagged and uploaded to popular video sites such as YouTube.com, MySpace.com, Google Video, and Yahoo Video.

In essence, there will be powerful services to give you cool exposure but you have to make much larger investments overall. In any case, the investments for top or near top ranking on any day has been steadily going up and is above $600 on most days.

What do you say to this trend?

Update: Joe Beaulaurier (in a comment) pointed out that my post might give an indication that one needs to spend $600 and above to get on PRWeb. What I really mean is that you need to spend $600 and above for getting your press release in the first few results on the PRWeb home page on any single day. If you can afford this, it can get you much higher exposure to your release. Of course, you can issue a release through PRWeb for as low as $10.

I just released a fast start kit for those considering to use press releases to promote their businesses. It is a quick read at 2 pages, FREE of cost and does not even require you to subscribe to anything. All I request is - please add a comment to this post whether you like it or dislike it and tell me your frank opinion about the guide.

Get it here -
Business Press Releases Fast Start Kit (PDF format, right click and choose Save-as).

When you launch a new web site or relaunch your web site, consider issuing a press release highlighting the special features that your web site offers. This way, you can expect to drive a bunch of qualified visitors your way as well as get some quality links for quicker indexing.

I recently issued 2 press releases, one for the new launch of Esalesguru.com, an outsourcing portal focussed on Internet marketing outsourcing and another one for the relaunch of the web site of Safestyle Uk, a leading replacement windows and doors company in Britain. Study these releases - you can pick up some good hints in there.

While I advocate using PRWEB.com as the best place to issue your press releases, you should also consider PR.com. I have used their $10 offer for a few of my clients as additional avenue and got good results.
I strongly feel that creating a profile at PR.com and then issuing your releases through them can be quite cost effective.