You must identify your target audience before sending out your press release. What action do you want readers of this news release to take after reading it? Where will you publish it so that your intended audience may find it?
What Is the Audience for Your Press Release?
The truth is that these news releases are no longer reserved for journalists and reporters in this age of online press release. As you can see in the table below, the audience for today’s news release is substantially larger. So you need to target your press release to the right audience to reach the people who will be interested in the news.
Traditional Media: Readers of the initial press announcement. Too many companies disregard the influence of traditional media in this new era of press release distribution. They target blogs, podcasts, and searchers rather than newspapers, TV, and radio. While those audiences are fine, you must not discount the buzz that can be generated if a significant media outlet picks up your story.
Modern media: A low-cost method to raise brand awareness and boost sales is to get in touch with bloggers, podcasters, and other internet influencers. When pursuing new media, it’s important to research which publications cover the subject you’re interested in, get to know the bloggers and their readers, and have a compelling story that grabs their attention. You must be persistent and consistent, just as with other distribution and outreach strategies for press releases. To foster familiarity and trust, regularly distribute high-quality press releases.
Investors: Press releases can notify present investors of your company’s success and growth and entice prospective investors. Making investors pleased is always crucial, so be sure to emphasize the subjects they find most interesting.
Consumers: Online press releases can be used to target your customers directly. You can set up your own online newsroom with the most recent stories that interest your audience. Use the same search terms that buyers use to increase their exposure to these press releases. Focus your press releases on the issues and specific pain points experienced by your customers. Note: This is not a justification for turning your press release into a commercial. It must still be newsworthy.
Partners: Do affiliates aid in the sale of your goods? To keep these affiliates informed and motivated to promote your items, you can produce press releases just for them whenever you modify your products or introduce new ones.
Research Tools: The search release has gained popularity as more businesses distribute news releases exclusively to boost search rankings. Without a doubt, SEO is a critical component of press releases today. My main issue with the search release is that too many businesses are producing low-quality, uninteresting releases and posting them to “free” press release websites with low authority, where they do nothing except sit there. While SEO is vital, never compromise quality for a few links.
5 Tips for Success
The following five steps will determine how successfully you target this audience:
- Increase brand awareness: Make sure people notice you. Think about how spreading news might increase brand recognition as you do so. Make sure your releases have a consistent tone and, where appropriate, use your company’s taglines and goal statement. The top of each release should also have your branding. Ensure you’re utilizing the opportunity because each release you disseminate is another chance to establish your brand further verbally and aesthetically.
- Recognize your audience: Although you should already be aware of your target audience, perhaps you are increasing your geographic reach or product offerings. Whatever the situation, doing a little demographic research will help you connect with your audience. Avoid jargon and unfamiliar terminology to your readers because it will hinder your ability to establish momentum. Be sure to avoid becoming overly technical and stick to everyday vocabulary. Before you write your newsworthy release, consider your target demographic and the type of reader you are writing for.
- Pay attention to the influencers your clients are following: You want to target consumers and prospects to improve sales but think bigger. Using influencers, expand that sphere of influence. The audience you believe you should target might not be the key influencers. Discover the influencers your target market of customers and prospects actively follow on social media or the publications they read by listening to them. You can develop an influencer targeting plan with the aid of this research to create a longer targeting list.
- Use targeted messaging that is consistent: Maintain consistency and don’t water down the message. Making sure a press release is concentrated on a single, newsworthy subject is crucial when creating one. The message is weakened and confused when too many news items exist in one publication. A press release with a well-defined topic and keywords important to your target audiences is more likely to be found, read, and comprehended by those people. Sharing the targeted message on social media is equally simple. Save the extra news articles for upcoming releases to maintain brand awareness.
- Increase exposure via SEO: The days of distributing a news release, uploading it on your website, and expecting that people will read it based only on the name of your business are long gone. The Field of Dreams maxim, “Build it and they will come,” applies here. Utilizing the appropriate industry buzzwords and keywords and considering search engine optimization is crucial for modern targeting (SEO).
Your target audience will be able to find your news if you have a well-developed SEO strategy and potentially individuals you are not currently considering to be in your target audience but should be. Your news will rank higher in searches if you ensure that SEO, especially long-tail keywords, plays a significant role in writing the headline, subhead, first paragraph, and throughout your material. The press release will be seen by a much larger audience that may transition into the buyer category in addition to customers and prospects who are currently interested in you.
Depending on how you target a press release, it can succeed or fail. It may mean the difference between receiving thousands of reads and having a lot of traffic flow back to your website or total silence. Understanding your audience, honing in on your targets and influencers along the road, and researching every industry your business, products, or services apply to before you write your release are the keys to effective targeting.
Featured Image: Megapixl © Icefields
