Effective PR Campaigns: Submit Free Press Release to Reach Wider Audience

This article will help businesses understand how to submit free press releases and tips on how to reach out to journalists and write a pitch email to them.

Writing a press release in one thing and submitting it in another. Understanding how to submit free press releases is the key to becoming successful in public relations.

Publishing your press release by the media is more complex than it seems. It requires a deep understanding of how to send a press release correctly to journalists and bloggers, which is essential to getting media coverage.

The following are the steps businesses must follow when sending out their free press release.

Before you submit your free press release

Before you send out your press release, ensure it contains newsworthy information to get the desired media coverage.

Ensure your press release follows a standard pattern

PR distribution services follow a standard pattern to write press releases, which consists of the following:

Headline

Company Info in the header

Logo

Contact Info

Lead Paragraph

Body Paragraph

Media Links

Your Press Release should be newsworthy

Consider why press releases are written first: to spread the news, right? If the press release is full of fluff, what is the point of doing the PR campaigns? This is why the press release must consist of newsworthy content that gets the attention of the media persons or journalists.

How to submit free press release?

After you ensure that the press release is worthy of sharing the news with the public, follow the next steps in the distribution process.

Select the Right Journalists

Businesses need to understand the quality over quantity phenomenon. Sending out press releases is the core part of PR services. Therefore, it is better to identify journalists who work in the same niche as your business.

To do so, businesses must have the answer to the following questions:

Which journalists would love to publish the press release in your niche?

Which media channels does your target audience follow?

Having these answers will make it easier to identify the journalists. This research will benefit the business by enabling it to pitch to journalists who are ready to read your story or announcement and publish it.

However, the question is how to find journalists and submit free press release.

Suppose the business is announcing a new product or service. Look out for journalists who have worked with similar companies in the past.

If the press release covers something local, search for local journalists based on the location the business is targeting.

Attractive Headline

To stand out from the crowd, the headline of the email pitch should be attractive enough to catch the journalist's eye in a pool of emails. This will help businesses pass the response-waiting time by leaving their competitors behind. The headline should consist of:

50-60 characters. Be playful with words here to maximize the chances.

Do not try to be witty with journalists; they do not like it.

Avoid excessive usage of uppercase, exclamations points, and other unnecessary punctuations to be seen as spammy.

Write the headline in a way that intrigues the pitch.

How to write an email to submit free press release?

After completing the above steps, it is time to write an email to the selected journalists.

This is the groundbreaking step to submitting a free release; ensure it fulfills all the following criteria so you can take advantage of every chance.

Greet Them

Greeting the journalist is essential but the most ignorant part of an email. Do not greet them like a 3rd grade student; instead, do the following:

 If this is the first business interaction with the journalist, greet them with the usual Hi, Dear, Hello, etc.

Mention their name as well, and double-check the spelling of their name.

If the business has worked with the same journalist before, write a more personal greeting and mention your past work with them.

Introduction

Write a personalized introduction to develop a connection with the journalist; this will show that the business did its research and is not sending out bulk emails.

In the introduction, write about the reason for contacting a specific journalist. Keep this limited to one sentence. There is no need to flatter them with words here; use them wisely.

Email Body

This is the central part of an email. This is where the business will put its angel and the necessary press-release information. In the intro, business got the attention of the journalist; now make the body a bit spicy to increase the reading time:

The most crucial piece of news is in the first sentence. Mention stats where necessary.

Include the 5Ws- what, where, who, why, and when.

Offer them exclusive access to the business by giving them some benefits.

Attach the press release to the email.

The final step is to attach the press release to the email and send it. Double-check everything to avoid errors.

Final Thoughts

Submitting a free press release involves multiple steps, and it can be tiring and boring at the same time. However, once the business gets the media coverage and brings many results, all the work, the PR distributors, did will be worth the effort.