Learn to Master Press Release Writing and PR Distribution at Upcoming Teleseminar
St Louis, Missouri (June, 2011) The press release, once used primarily as a tool for reporting large-scale announcements and world events, is now considered an essential part of any successful sales and marketing strategy. In today’s Web-driven world, an aggressive online press release campaign can be one of the most powerful and proven tools in a company’s marketing arsenal.
Press release campaigns are like most ventures; their success begins with good planning; and in this case, good writing. With that in mind, the Academy of Virtual Professionals at http://www.academyvp.com has teamed up with Virtual Word Publishing http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com to present a powerful and informative teleseminar on writing and distributing professional press releases. The 90-minute session, entitled “Mastering Press Release Writing and Distribution” will be conducted by Diana Ennen, president of Virtual Word Publishing and a leader in the PR world.
The class, geared towards businesses, entrepreneurs and other independent professionals is scheduled to take place on June 28, 2011 at 3:00 pm EST, and will provide listeners with everything they need to know about writing and distributing professional press releases.
The teleclass will cover such topics as:
· Importance of regular press release distribution
· Key points to include in a press release
· Secret to making a press release rock
· Common press release writing mistakes and how to avoid them
· Best ways to distribute press releases
· Keys to repurposing your press release for multiple things
· Results you can achieve from your press release campaign
· Importance of including press release distribution in your marketing plan
Kelly Poelker, the president of the Academy of Virtual Professionals, as well as a colleague and co-author of Ennen’s, had this to say: “Diana and I are very excited to present this teleseminar to help businesses who may be considering launching a press release campaign, but aren’t sure how to start, or are struggling with a current campaign that simply isn’t getting the results they’re after. At the close of the 90 minutes, listeners will take away the tools they need to create and launch a successful press release campaign for their business.”
Poelker is discounting the cost of the teleclass to just $39 until Monday, June 20 at midnight. Along with that offer, Ennen is offering 20 minutes of one-on-one coaching to all participants who register within that same timeframe. In addition, one of the leading online PR submission sites, OnlinePRNews.com has come forward to offer a special discount to all attendees.
A solid press release campaign can do wonders to promote a business, a book, a product or a service. The key is knowing how to write a good press release and get maximum distribution. To learn more or to register for the teleseminar, visit
http://www.academyvp.com/mastering-press-release-writing-distribution/.
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About:
Kelly Poelker is president of the Academy of Virtual Professionals, LLC (http://www.AcademyVP.com) and a recognized leader in the VA industry. Kelly shares her knowledge and expertise in the virtual assistant industry as a coach through the Academy of Virtual Professionals, through Twitter and Facebook, and as an industry speaker. She is also an accomplished author, having co-authored several books, including Virtual Assistant – The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA, which she co-authored with Diana Ennen.
Diana Ennen is president of Virtual Word Publishing (http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com) specializing in PR and marketing. She’s also the co-author of numerous books including Virtual Assistant – The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA, which she co-authored with Kelly Poelker. In business since 1985, she knows what it takes to get great PR results and has been featured in or got her clients mentioned in Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Readers Digest, Entrepreneur, AOL WalletPop, Woman’s World Magazine, Smart Money, Fox News, CNN Radio, CBS4 News, Homekeepers TV, and so many more.
Category Our Press Releases & Articles |
Mastering Press Release Writing and Distribution
Join us for an information-packed 90-minute teleclass with Publicist, Diana Ennen.
Academy of Virtual Professionals Director, Kelly Poelker, has teamed up with her co-author, Diana Ennen to bring listeners everything they need to know about writing and distributing press releases.
During this teleclass Kelly will drill Diana on the:
- Importance of regular press release distribution
- Key points to include in a press release
- Secret to making a press release rock
- Common press release writing mistakes and how to avoid them
- Best ways to distribute press releases
- Keys to repurposing your press release for multiple things
- Results you can achieve from your press release campaign
- Importance of including press release distribution in your marketing plan
This 90-minute class will provide the information you need to master press release writing and distribution.
Date: June 28, 2011
Time: 2:00pm CST / 3:00pm EST / 12:00pm PST / 1:00pm MST
Click here to read more or register online
Did you miss one of our prior teleclass offerings? Check them out here
Category General, PR Information |
I’m asked frequently by clients or potential clients is a Google Adword Campaign really worth it? So often I’m able to say to them, well how did you hear about me? So many say, “Oh yeah, from Google when I looked for publicist or a publicity virtual assistant. I just love it when they can see it in action as opposed to me just saying it. So bottom line – it works!
But it’s important to know that you have to do it right. If not, you can spend a small fortune and get little results and we don’t want that. Hopefully these tips should help.
Everything works together to make it successful. First you need to have the right ad, the right keywords, the right amount of money for each keyword so that it you get on the front page, and the right amount of luck!
What I recommend you doing first is to look under your keywords and see what other ads are there. Or look under a topic that really interests you and you know a lot about. What ads are on the side there that would interest you enough to click on? Also, just start paying attention to the ads over the next few weeks. Everytime you type in Google, just glance over there. That can be a tremendous tool is helping you compose your ads.
Now when you sign up for a Google Adword campaign it walks you right through the steps. What I do, and just personal preference here, but anytime it asks for “automatic” or manual – I go manual. I want to have full control of my keyword rates, etc.
You set your default rate for keywords. I normally go for around 30 cents. I know I will need to change upwards for individual keywords, but I want any low ranking keywords to be at the lowest rate. I normally go up to $1.00 a keyword, but not much more. Some can go up as high as $15.00. (YIKES, yes you heard that right!) Now with those high-ranking keywords, I won’t use them in my Google campaign, but I will use them in my other marketing. If it’s that popular of a keyword, I’ll write an article with that in the title. I’ll blog with tips on that topic again using it in the title, and I’ll add it to my website, etc. Google Adwords is great to help you do some major SEO.
Have a strong ad. Make sure to include your keywords. Capture them with that title. This is what is going to sell them. Again, once you have reviewed others that can give you some tips. Also, read as much as you can on creating Google Adword campaigns by simply doing a Google search on that topic. Now not all of it is terrific advice. But you will start seeing some common demoninators in its success. Also, when you sign up for Google for the first time they offer you training. Take it!
You set your daily budget. The higher the better. But remember this can add up substantially. Go with what you can afford. Also, for those that are doing it for the first time .. see if you can find a coupon. For example, on Alexa.com on the site it has a link for $75.00 to be used towards your Google Campaign. That’s free money that you can now use to finetune your campaign. They hope you find it so successful that you continue, and more times than most, I believe most will do that.
You can see it’s not that hard. But one thing to remember you want to constantly monitor that ad. That’s what makes it so successful.
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Diana Ennen is the President of Virtual Word Publishing, http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com offering PR and marketing services. She has been featured on Fox Business News, CBS, CNN Radio, USA Today, Woman’s World, Entrepreneur Magazine and so many more. She’s also the author of six books on starting your own business including VA the Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA, and So You Want to be a Work-at-Home Mom. Article is free to use as long as bio remains.
Category PR Information |
Our article, What Can a Virtual Assistant Coach Do For You, Everything, was recently including in the SOHO Newsletter. We are so excited that they accepted it.
What Can a Virtual Assistant Coach do For You? Everything!
by Diana Ennen
Does it always seem that someone else is more successful than you in their virtual assistant business? I know sometimes it’s hard to hear about all those virtual assistants with too many clients, or those virtual assistants all making six figures when you are barely surviving. Don’t you always wonder just what they are doing to make it happen?
Well, wonder no more. You need to know that there truly are some secrets to success. There are things that when you do them consistently and do them well, business success is sure to follow. The problem is, how can you get those secrets? Easy – Hire a virtual assistant coach.
I truly believe to be successful in your virtual assistant business, sometimes you need help. Imagine meeting weekly with a coach that has been already been there and done that. A coach that can review your media, offer recommendations, provide solid tips on what you need to do better, and just walk you through the ups and downs of running a business.
So what exactly can a virtual assistant coach do? Here are our top 10 things we feel a VA Coach can do for you:
1. A virtual assistant coach will help you establish your goals and find ways to meet them.
2. A virtual assistant coach will help you define your niche and make sure that the marketing you do leads you in that direction.
3. A virtual assistant coach can help you in all your marketing efforts to enable you to find clients. That’s right, a good virtual assistant coach will help you secure clients and isn’t that the name of the game.
4. A virtual assistant coach will review your pricing and offer recommendations. It should be noted this is one area where more times than not, the coach will insist on increasing your rates. That same coach will also show you how to do that, raise your rates and really charge what you are worth.
5. A virtual assistant coach can hold you accountable. Many virtual assistants don’t succeed just because they don’t have someone to personally walk with them and push them when needed.
6. A virtual assistant coach can review all your media including your website, media, blogs, etc.
7. A virtual assistant coach can help you discover what is holding you back from being successful and offer you solid tips on moving forward.
8. A virtual assistant coach can help you at any phrase of your business. Don’t think a coach is just for starting your business. A VA coach can help you even if you’ve been in business for years. They can take you to the next level of your business.
9. A virtual assistant coach can re-motivate you and get you back into the thrill of being a virtual assistant.
10. A virtual assistant coach can help you focus and crack the whip when you go off track.
When you’re ready to really start seeing some results in your VA business, we recommend looking for a coach. Just make sure that it’s someone with an outstanding reputation and one that is active in the VA community. That way you know they are walking the walk and talking the talk.
Diana Ennen offers specialized virtual assistant coaching services and has recently released her new coaching packages, http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com/tips.html. Best known as the co-author of Virtual Assistant the Series: How to Become a Successful, Sought After VA, she is passionate about helping virtual assistants succeed.
Category Our Media |
This week I exhibited at a two-day event in Margate. It was the Margate business street festival. And it was awesome! I met so many great businesses and got the opportunity to connect with my local businesses. I do highly recommend doing this. Thought you might enjoy these tips I put together to help with your next event.
Getting the Most out of Your Tradeshow, Exhibits, Etc.
Have Something They Can take Home – Often times as you are talking there can be a lot of background noise and you can’t get your message across as much as you want. Therefore, have a folder or additional material they can take with them to read later.
Have Something Available to Collect their Information – It’s so important to try and get their information so you can contact them. Consider a bowl for business cards and have a contest (i.e., winner gets a free book), as well as a sign up sheet for their emails, etc.
Talk to the Other Exhibitors, but Don’t Push – You can do some excellent networking and in fact some of my best leads came from the other exhibitors, so get out there and chat. However, don’t push too much.
Think Visuals – The layout of your booth speaks volumes. I had a banner made from VistaPrints which rocked. (And it was free), I also had a stand-up board so I could present my books and write a message. My table was visually appealing. I tried to make sure that the table didn’t appear crowded, but that they could receive what I was trying to say.
Have your Soundbytes – So important. Describe what you are selling well and be ready for questions. By being prepared it can quickly get to the point of what you are offering while you still have their interest.
Don’t Oversell – You want to realize that most people are there to have a good time and hopefully find out about your products or services, however, they don’t want to sit through a 20 minute presentation. Save that for when you have more one-on-one time with them.
Have Fun – People take notice when you sit there and are bored, discouraged, etc., and honestly that alone can keep them away from your booth. Yes it can be hot and long hours, but do your best to enjoy it. It’s a break away from the office and truly can be a good time.
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Need more tips? Sign-up for newsletter!
Category Work at Home Moms |
Join us this Tuesday, February March 1st at 12:00 noon, EST. Jill Hart and I will be discussing marketing basics for your business. We will go over social media, article marketing, utilizing blogs and MORE. Sign up below.
Category General |
Today is the final day for Early Bird Registration. You know you want to go, so sign up now! http://ow.ly/3X4xn
TOP TEN REASONS TO ATTEND THE IVAA LIVE SUMMIT IN PORTLAND
10. You spend all year doing the virtual thing – time for a real face off. (One on one w/ your virtual buds)
9. You’ve heard about the “Voodoo Donuts” and are TOTALLY READY to find out what the heck they are.
8. The VA gurus will be there and you don’t want to be square. Many leading VAs attribute their success to attending the Live Summit
7. Smooze fest, time to talk some smak with your fellow VAs
6. You’re tired of being left out of all the latest Industry news and trends. Did you hear about this thing called Facebook? Amazing!
5. Great info – so “learning” is not a 4-letter word
4. You need your annual booster shot – that shot in the arm to get jazzed and rediscover why you still love your VA biz
3. The chance to take part in history – This is the 10th year and one of the leading VA conferences
2. You can’t wait for the goodies – Did you hear what was in those goodie bags last year?
And the #1 Reason to Attend Live Summit ….
1. Who has more fun that we do? No one! Last year’s programs totally knocked my socks off – I’m ready for Reaching New Peaks in Portland!
Find out more about the Live Summit and why 100+ of your colleagues feel it is the MUST ATTEND event of the year!
Tags: IVAA, VA conferences, virtual assistant, virtual assistants
Category Virtual Assistant Information |
PR in Today’s Economy – Businesses Learning to Master PR Themselves
Today’s economy has made more and more businesses forego marketing because of economic concerns. At a time when businesses should be doing more marketing, many are losing clients and sales because of the expense of hiring a PR professional or losing the assistance of a marketing department due to budget cuts. Fortunately, on February 1 that changes. Beginning on that date, authors and businesses will be able to discover the techniques needed to get great publicity by attending the Publicity Success Series http://tinyurl.com/62btshj
The Publicity Success Series is intended to help businesses master PR skills and get the publicity needed to succeed. The same techniques that the marketing department used to handle is now being taught by public relations specialist, Diana Ennen. Ennen states that over the last few years, a clear new role is emerging where businesses are required to handle more and more marketing tasks. Many businesses just aren’t equipped to do it right. But by learning the basics to writing and distributing press releases, mastering social media, understanding the secrets to pitching the media and more, businesses will now be competing and getting the word out about products and services and get great results.
Ennen has been successfully getting PR for clients for 25 years and has received or secured clients media mentions in such major media as USA Today, Woman’s World, Fox News, CNN Radio, Reader’s Digest, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and so many more. Ennen is eager to reveal the secrets to success.
Ruth Martin of MapleWood Virtual Assistant had this to say about the Publicity Success Series. “Diana covers how to pitch concisely written and topic focused ideas for optimum exposure. It’s like having your very own coach guiding you through the hurdles towards the ultimate goal of getting more PR.”
The classes take place weekly starting on February 1st. All classes are recorded and available via download to listen at any time. Email assistance is also available throughout the course.
For more information contact Ennen at http://tinyurl.com/62btshj or email directly at diana@virtualwordpublishing.com. For those that want to hire a PR professional, Ennen is also available.
Tags: marketing, online marketing, press release writing, public relations, publicity, VA, Virtual Assi
Category PR Information |
During the free press release writing call last week I asked if people would tweak a tip they got. Here are a few of them.
TIPS …. TIPS … TIPS … TIPS … TIPS … TIPS … TIPS …. TIPS…
My tip is regarding coming up with the title for the PR – I skip writing the title all together until I’ve written the release. Then, I can look at the direction the release actually took, and using the keywords, go back and come up with a better title than if I do that first. It saves me a little time, since the beginning title is rarely ever the one I end up with.
My other tip is to have a great PR coach backing you up! — Marilyn Stafford, www.alliancevs.com
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For less procrastination & more consistency, create a standard press release template, plus a press release ideas folder!
Keep your press releases short & sweet, between 350-600 (preferably 400-425) words…and make EVERY word count!
Martina Srblin, Money Coach & Creator of the “10 Steps to Business Stardom” System, themultipassionateentrepreneur.com
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As the owner of an online store that sells skin care products, I wasn’t entirely sure how to incorporate press releases into my website, nor was I sure how I would even begin one. So I listened in on Diana Ennen’s Press Release Writing 101 Class. What I came away with was two pages of notes, and the confidence to put my writing skills to work to give exposure to my business.
A few tips I learned:
keywords are vital: you get returns in the form of Google searches and the best title is catchy and incorporate your keyword(s)
don’t forget the call to action paragraph your press release can go into your media kit make your media kit in a Q & A format.
Now I have several ideas to work into a pitch – I’ll bet my community would like to find out if a family can make it on a mom’s online side business when Dad gets laid off from HP (we’ve got a story there), or how a local family can get their 8 children involved in a family business, or how a local mom turns a summer of selling at the local farmer’s market into an online business, or how a home business takes off when they find the secret to blog advertising… I get it now, Diana! Thanks!
Renee Harris
MadeOn Hard Lotion
www.hardlotion.com
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For your PR, use holidays to tie in with your product or service to have a newsworthy event. – Megan Barber http://www.barbervasolutions.com
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Use holidays to tie in your product or service to create a newsworthy event for your PR
Don’t be a 1 pitch hitter! You want to be writing a PR once a month
Keep your PR energized, not flowery (stay away from advertising)
- Stephanie Fish, Buckeyeva.com
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Great tips from today’s press release call! My fave-the importance of having keywords in 1st 4 words of your title. Sharon Towsley – www.maydayva.com
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You have a boatload of energy and great ideas…thank you for today’s session!
My TIP
Effective publicity requires that you:
Articulate the value of what you offer, i.e. why does your product/service matter? What does it change, transform, solve?
Jane O. Smith, Maryland
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The tip: Create a file folder on your computer to store press releases and write ideas as they pop up! (I liked this one)! **I have random ideas that pop up all the time** So great!
Sharon Mobley
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Awesome tips! BTW, sign up now for the PR Success Series. It starts this Wednesday. http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com/blank.htm
Tags: marketing tipcs, pr tips, public relations
Category PR Information |
