Using TIMELINESS As A Press Release Publicity Strategy (Swine Flu)

[Justin Mandel]

After reading the post about the No Swine Flu report this got me thinking and then I remembered back to when there was the flu vaccine shortage from the winter about 5 years ago...

If you remember back to that this was a REALLY big deal. The flu was getting *very* bad and if I remember right many elderly people were starting to die. So the flu vaccine shortage was all over the media and people were starting to actually panic over what could happen.

It got me to thinking about how I could benefit someway somehow by what was going on.

So what I did was devise an experiement to see what would happen if I capitalized on the situation and what the outcome could possibly be if I did

At that point I already was successful with writing my own press releases and getting the media to release them in newspapers so I decided to kick it up a notch...

I did the research and purchased a list of the top 500 major newspapers across the United States from www.SalesGenie.com for about $200 based on having the most numbers of total readers - New York Times, Boston Herald, Los Angeles Sun, Chicago Tribune and well as hundreds of others I've never even heard of. Based on my past experience I knew that it was crucial that I got the editor's name and direct fax number from that list which my press release would be sent directly to.

I then found out about a service out of California that would do a fax blast to all 500 of the fax numbers that were on the excel spreadsheet that I purchased making sure that each individual editors bame was written on the fax cover sheet. This cost me about $120.

Then I went to work.

I wrote a 1-page press release with the title "Readiy Available Ancient Cure For Modern Day Crisis" and explained in it how Chinese Herbs have been killing the flu for thousands of years - in other words NO SWEAT, what's the big deal that there is this crisis if an entirely different solution exists that people are not even considering!

After I was done I faxed it out to California so their dozens of fax machines army could start to send out my press release ASAP. And then after I was done I did what I did after I sent out any other press release...I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then just like all the times before when I sent in a press release the phone calls started to come in

Only because of my press release reporters from states Like Texas (who would've never otherwise heard of me or contacted me) were calling and doing phone interviews with me for my opinion because I was an expert (I am Board Certified in Chinese Herbology).

So what was the outcome of my experimental press release blast?

Still to this day I do not know now if my name was ever published from anywhere across the country in any of these major newspapers as a result of any of the few phone interviews I did, but I learned an extremely valuable lesson:

You *Can* Get Publicity For ANYTHING As Long As You Take Advantage Of The Timeliness Of An Event!



SIDE NOTE: Notice how I took advantage of the timeliness of the swine flu postings to put up a post like this, HINT HINT

[kosmo101]

so did you sell a product? service?

[Justin Mandel]

I had no product to sell at the time.

My services were limited to treating patients in NY so there was no way I could offer that since my press release was probably sent to a minimum of 30 states.

It was done completely as a public relations strategy.

Originally Posted by kosmo101

so did you sell a product? service?

[Michael Oksa]

Sounds rather obvious, but a lot of people still don't get it.

I mean, would you make a press release about the 1952 presidential election? Of course not, it's not timely,and editors know it.

Of course, if you are using online services that will print any kind of ad disguised as a "press release" that's a different story. They may publish it inline for you, but your results will be less than if you tie it in to the news du jour.

All the best,
Michael

[Justin Mandel]

Hi Michael,

Of course...it's only TOO obvious

One can think about it in terms of search popularity - If you can get a timely keyword term to rank in conjunction with your own keyword term then naturally your site should get more hits since people are searching for "X" but come up with your site since it ALSO has to do with "X".

This is the same idea that if you were to approach a blog owner and be guest writer on their site, if you can relate your product/service with the keyword term their blog is about which is getting more traffic due to a timely event, then you can easily harness more natural traffic.

To make it a little more clear a press release having to do with Twitter is VERY timely, but a press release having to do with the 1952 is not too relevant to today's news.


Best,

Justin

Originally Posted by Michael Oksa

Sounds rather obvious, but a lot of people still don't get it.

I mean, would you make a press release about the 1952 presidential election? Of course not, it's not timely,and editors know it.

Of course, if you are using online services that will print any kind of ad disguised as a "press release" that's a different story. They may publish it inline for you, but your results will be less than if you tie it in to the news du jour.

All the best,
Michael