Hiya guys One of my main blogs is called 'This Blog Will Pay My Mortgage'. I started it mainly as a bit of fun and a test to see if I could monetise a site. It has developed quite nicely and i'm getting traffic and ad income in dribs and drabs. My next strategy is to possibly send out a press release to papers and magazines saying that I have a mission to Pay My Mortgage from blogging and hopefully teach people how to do the same. I thought this might be quite topical at the moment with the supposed 'credit crunch'. What would be the best way of going about this??
There are four ways to get publicity: 1 - be controversial 2 - have a pet rock 3 - be a nut 4 - solve a problem In my opinion, the best and easiest way for most people to get publicity is #4. You can't go to the media with a story that blatantly promotes your product, service, business, etc. But, if you go to them and tell them you have a solution to a problem that the people in their audience might have, then you have a winner. So, the question is - what problem can you help people solve with your project? If I read your post correctly, that's pretty easy. You can show people how blogging can help pay their mortgage. Very good story, especially right now with the mortgage problem. You should have no problem getting interviews. When you do your interviews, you'll get plenty of opportunity to promote whatever you want. But if you do it in your press release, you're dead. Your job - as someone seeking publicity - is to be the source of great information about your topic. If you do your job, without a blatant sales pitch, the reporters will do their job and promote your product or service for you. It's the ultimate joint venture. Hope that helps.
thats good advice thanks... so I suppose a typical story could be "New Site Helps People Pay off Their Mortgage by Blogging" something like that?
Nope. You're pitching a website with that headline. If the website has nothing to sell, you're fine. If it's selling something, you're dead. A better headline would be something like: Blogging Helps Indiana Mom (Dad) Pay the Mortgage".
I am not really sure, if a press release does make much sense for your blog. If you want to be in the news, you have to present something news worthy. A person blogging to make money is not really a story. Most everyone does this nowadays. Unless you manage to make money hand over fist, there's nothing to write about and in that case, you probably do not need to do press releases to boost PR ranks anyway.