Anatomy of a Successful Modern Automotive PR Campaign
A modern press release is more than a few sentences about your product and company and a photo. We like to call what we do “content marketing,” in that we provide everything a content producer needs to create a story. The description photos, links to your brand’s website and social channels, videos, and search engine optimized copy that is hyperbole-free are all essential for modern PR success.
Essential Elements for a Great Social Media Press Release:
- Lay out in HTML to maximize distribution and minimize messages sent to SPAM folders
- Custom HTML layouts that match the branding of your website are best, but templates are also available
- Popular services include MailChimp, Emma, Constanct Contact
- A Catchy Headline – Tell the consumer or journalist what the release is about, in a short clever way
- The Subhead should flesh out the details about why they should read the release, and care
- Always have at least one thumbnail image of your subject at the top, having images or video screencaps with a link “above the fold” so it appears in the Outlook or Entourage preview window increases open rates by up to 15%
- Bullet points – many editors and bloggers are too busy, and receive too much email, to read every release they get. Include a few bullets that summarize the features/benefits as succinctly as possible.
Essential Elements for a Great Social Media Press Release: - Release copy should be hyperbole free. Avoid grandiose statements or exaggeration. Stick to facts, describe what your or your product are offering and why anyone should care.
- Read popular magazines and blogs to get a feel for their writing style. If you can mirror that style, and the writer can copy/paste your copy directly into a news or new products section without re-writing your release, the chances of pickup dramatically increase.
- Search Engine Optimized (SEO) copy can also be a benefit over time. Try to include phrases that you think potential customers will search for on google, bing or yahoo. If you make superchargers, include phrases like “supercharger company” and “muscle car supercharger” several times in the release to improve search engine results.
- The final paragraph is called the “Boilerplate,” which includes company information, your unique value proposition, and contact information including phone, address and web address.
- It is CRITICAL on social media releases, particularly those laid out in HTML, to include a link to a downloadable word document of the press release. Many people still struggle with this, so make is simple, TELL the reader how to get the document (ie: click to download)
- A very clear link to the company website
- Provide an image gallery.
- These should be thumbnails that link to downloadable high-res images. The more photos you provide, the higher likelihood your release will get picked up. Editors like variety so their new product section won’t look like their competitors’, and bloggers like including plenty of images.
- Links to social channels. This is critical for several reasons:
- You want to make it easy for both consumers and editors (influencers) to find and like your social channels
- Bloggers will often include links to your Facebook, twitter or YouTube accounts in their story
- Again for SEO, having incoming and outgoing links to and from high-traffic sites like Facebook improve your ranking
