The ever-growing popularity of social media marketing and online reputation management has cast a tremendous shadow over traditional print marketing efforts.  Promoting brand image through eye-catching flyers, creatively designed signs, and clever promotional materials (while still effective) has significantly fallen to the wayside.  However, the most severely impacted facet of your marketing campaign is, truthfully, the most cost effective method to spread the good word of your business:

Press Releases

While press releases are the cheapest way to reach your target audience (especially when you release the content to local papers, radio stations, etc), a majority of companies have not taken full advantage of their efficacy.  With that said, the only way that you can truly realize the full impact of your article submissions is through headlines that create results.

Concise Yet Engagingly Descriptive

The title of an article, press release, or blog post is something that (unfortunately) goes unnoticed on a regular basis.  The best way to get your headlines back on a results-oriented track is to keep them concise and engaging.  You need to not only be as descriptive as possible with regard to your main content, but you also need to ensure that you have less than 60 characters. It doesn’t seem like a lot to work with, but (from experience) it is absolutely achievable.

Keyword Rich and Client Friendly

Some of you may find it interesting that your press release titles need to also be keyword rich.  However, due to the wide-range of use with regard to search engines, your audience’s browsing methods through their local papers has also shifted to topics that interest them.  A keyword rich headline that is customer friendly will drive significantly more traffic than an inflated or exaggerated title.

To further the benefits of using keywords, not only are your press releases submitted to papers and radios for their print releases, but a majority of those local media outlets also include your release on their web updates.  This, consequently, means that the search engines will notice the post title as well as the sites’ internal search results.  Utilize the primary keyword (or longtail keyword) within the post title to better drive search traffic and readers.

Sell Emotion but Provide Facts

Emotion engages readers.  It is as simple and as difficult as that one statement.  As a business owner or marketing manager, you need to take the time to understand the perspective(s) your target audience has with regard to your content and play your headline to take advantage of that knowledge.  Use emotional responses to encourage a “buy-in” to your information.

As important as it is to introduce an emotional response, make sure that you also state specific facts as well. Provide insightful and knowledgeable quotes throughout the content, and site other information that makes your company’s reputation stand out.  In other words, this is your opportunity to “wow” the readers with stats and your expertise.

Yes, all of the information above may sound too easy to really make that big of a difference, but the inclusion of effective headlines is the first step to realizing the maximum potential of a tried and true marketing method.

*For help creating or disbursing your press releases or other marketing content, contact IMPACT today*

Need Help?

If content creation is something that you are interested in but don’t know how to get started, contact us today to schedule your free marketing analysis.

Sources:
“The Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing”-E-Book
SlideShare.net
Image Source: HubSpot, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing”, E-Marketer.com