Free Exposure to Hundreds of Thousands of People?
Whether you are an individual loan officer, a branch manager, or the owner of your own mortgage shop, you can benefit from exposure available through the media. It’s usually free and has tremendous reach - are you taking advantage? Everyone has a story to tell and often times that story is newsworthy, especially if you are in a relatively high profile position in the community. Mortgage and real estate companies should defnitely consider themselves as having a high profile community position, and as such, a well-formed press release can get you more high quality exposure than any other advertising campaign could.
Before you start copying down the information from your latest sales brochure for a press release, consider the following. When you write a press release, first know your audience. Your story must appeal to both your target market (potential borrowers, real estate agents, etc) as well as an editor/reporter. The release must be approved by the media outlet first, so be sure to keep that in mind while writing.
The next thing you want to do is come up with an interesting headline that captures attention. If you are having a hard time coming up with an interesting headline for your chosen story, perhaps the story just isn’t all that interesting. Before you throw an idea out the window, be sure to look at it from all angles, because even the tiniest of details can transform a ho-hum story into quite captivating.
In 2001, when I was still in college, a couple of friends and I built a website to connect local homeowners in Salt Lake City with people looking for housing during the 2002 Winter Olympics. Telling our story never crossed our minds until one day another friend called me out of the blue to tell me our website was being mentioned on the radio. That particular mention at first appeared negative - the Olympic committee was upset with us because we were using the word “Olympics” on our website. We quickly got that sorted out and went back to business. The 30 seconds of infamy on the radio brought a rush of traffic to our little website and caused us to question whether we could get more of the same if other media outlets picked up our story. So I wrote a release, which wasn’t very good, and emailed it to all the reporters covering the Olympics in Salt Lake area papers. One of those reporters called back the next day for more information and published a story the day after that. The local exposure was great, but it was the fact that this reporter’s story got picked up by the Associated Press that really made a difference. We were getting inundated with traffic from most of the major news portals on the web at the time. From ABC News to the San Francisco Chronicle to news websites in launguages I didn’t recognize - it turned into a world wide story. That single press release made our project a great success.
So what’s the point of this story, you’re probably asking yourself. The point is that the story wasn’t news around the world because there was a website out there to connect Olympic travellers with local homeowners in Salt Lake City. There were a number of those, in fact. The story was news merely because my partners and I were still in college. All the headlines were prefaced with “College Students…”. So consider all the angles to your story before deciding it’s not interesting.
The third thing you want to be sure to do in your press release is be accurate and don’t exaggerate. Your story won’t get published if it’s a sales pitch, and neither will it get published if it’s incorrect or embellished. You can come up with something better than “100% Non-owner Occupied Financing with the Best Rates, Guaranteed” as your story line.
Next, be concise. Tell your story in as few words as possible, with the meat at the beginning. If the reporter wants more information they will call you.
Lastly, triple check your English. Grammar and spelling are easily checked with your word processor. Another good idea is to take a break after writing and re-reading with a fresh mind, just to make sure things sound the way you want them to.
Once you have your story written, along with an interesting headline, be sure to attach your contact information and some basics about you and your company at the end. If there are date restrictions, be sure to indicate when it is ok to publish.
Finally, you’re ready to submit your press release. A good place to start is PRWeb. Many media outlets scan PRWeb for news to publish on a regular basis. For $30 you get guaranteed inclusion to Google and Yahoo News, as well as statistics on how many times your release is viewed and picked up by media. Don’t stop there, however. Search out media sources that apply to your target market and story, and submit the release directly to that source. Reporters usually publish their email address on all of their stories.
In conclusion, if you aren’t already taking advantage of the media, consider doing so now. Just be sure to submit quality stories that are newsworthy and accurate, and you’ll have success.