Repurposing Good Content: 5 Non-PR Uses For Press Releases

Editor's Note: The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Mickie Kennedy, founder and president of eReleases, a cost-effective electronic press release distribution service, and a widely-regarded and well-respected PR professional who maintains the company's popular PR Fuel blog. For both corporate and agency PR practitioners, Kennedy offers some excellent and timely advice on how to maximize the utility and reach of the most common deliverable found in PR campaigns: the press release.

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It may seem like a bit of an oxymoron, but press releases don’t just have to be for public relations (PR) anymore. There are, in fact, several uses for that great little story you just wrote besides sending it out to endless news desks and tired reporters. Try these five suggestions out before you resort to using your press release to wrap fish!

1. Turn it Into a Blog Post
The press release is already practically in a blog format, why not go ahead and throw it up on the company blog? If you don’t have one set up, use it as your first blog post! Readers of your press release expect you know what you’re talking about, considering it’s your business; use that same expertise in relating that info to the endless flow of readers on the Internet!

Alternatively, split the press release into multiple blog posts for extra mileage. Find five solid pieces of information you can expound on and turn them into their own individual posts.

If the tone of the press release isn’t quite conversational enough for your blog, do a quick rewrite to bring it up to speed. Also, make sure to update it to include up to date information if you happened to write it a few days or weeks prior – things might have changed in the interim. Of course, you also can’t forget to…

2. Use It As SEO Bait
Reconfigure your blog post to incorporate keywords to bring your website up in its Google ranking. This is called search engine optimization, and should be done to get people to read your blog and, more importantly, visit your website and buy all your products!

Find some other blogs and websites that cover some of the same ground as your blog does and link to them. Eventually you can strike up a relationship and they will help you with your SEO efforts by linking back to your website.

3. Integrate It Into Your Sales Kit
You wrote the press release as a sort of pitch for readers to come to your business, so why not incorporate it into your sales kit? Bringing in new clients and new customers works roughly the same way; convince them that you’re a company worth dealing with and your products or services are something to spend money on. Reconstruct your press release to be more of a direct sales pitch as the original incarnation was (presumably) more neutral. You might even change your sales kit to reflect information in the press release.

4. Start A Social Media Program
Tear that press release apart and find info you can use for a Twitter and Facebook series. Were you using it to announce the specifics of your new product? Spread your posts about all the juicy details across a series of social media posts to create a sense of excitement with your customers. Ask your followers and friends questions about what they would like your product to feature and what they might like to see in future releases. You might be surprised when they state some of the new features you’ve already implemented! And then, of course, you can focus on them for the release, pleasing your customers and making them feel heard all in one fell swoop!

5. Write Your Own Feature Story
Forget submitting the release to news agencies; just write your own feature story with your press release! Use your own writing expertise or hire a writer to take the info in your release to craft a story fit for newspapers or magazines and query them to publishers yourself. This way, you skip the whole process of relying on a tired, grumpy journalist to notice your press release among the huge pile in their inbox.

Send your story out to several possible places for printing – don’t just send it to your local newspaper, also consider trade magazines that deal in the same topics your business does. (Of course, be careful not to anger editors who frown on simultaneous submission.) If your business is releasing a new brand of pet food, send it out to the animal and pet magazines of the world and see what happens!

Make sure, however, that there is no conflict of interest with the story you’re submitting. Does your magazine have a deal to advertise in one pet magazine? Then it probably isn’t the best idea to submit it to their competitors.

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