Press releases

[LawontheWeb]

Hi,

we own and run www.lawontheweb.co.uk and this week we are launching the uk's first free law documents library - 450 or so doucments for free, (NO ADVICE) just available for download etc. You can see it at http://www.lawontheweb.co.uk/Legal_Documents the template is being updated today.

Its really cool, and catchy I hope - martin lewis style, and we need to get this into the media....any ideas on how we do that? Press releases? Interviews etc....

I know there are PR companies but my impression is that many would charge me £8k to advise.......

I am a bit of a novice to PR and need some help. I essentially want to get this launch news out to every journalist in the UK with an interest in legal matters....

Help! Thank you in advance.

Brad

 

[Alby10]

Hi Brad,

Your best bet would be to write up a quick pr regarding the service and make it newsworthy. Something like the fact that your service offers free law documents would be a good idea, but also tag something relevant to the current financial situation, something such as the money saving concept of your service.

Then utilise a service which offers the ability to target specific individuals within the media with an interest in legal matters, which may be somewhat more difficult.

Cheers

Alan

 

[OldWelshGuy]

The service Alby (above) offers is good for this, also give 10yetis a phone call, they are pretty good and sensible on the cost front.

 

[LawontheWeb]

thanks guys - what service do you refer to? as far as i can tell alby does backlinks and articles etc?

 

[UKSBD]

I can't comment on the documents, but have to congratulate you on the site, it looks great.

 

[iArtist]

I also agree with UKSBD and FREE legal documents is a great idea

Can't you in the meantime get Citizens Advice Bureau and other charitable advisory services on baord to promote this for you? It is afterall in the interests of their consumer base too!

Other avenues

Libraries etc.

None of which need cost you a great deal

 

[iArtist]

Meanwhile

I bet people search

'free legal documents , uk law' so perhaps an article regarding this on a high ranking site would help.

 

[SearchBlogger]

One way to get noticed would be to write and distribute a press release via prweb.com which could lead to lots of press coverage and interviews.

I would also get yourself on other popular business forums such as 4Networking.biz which allows you to post a blatant advert for your services online for free.

 

[pktruevision]

Hi Brad

I am a sales marketing and profit coach and I specialise in small business low cost .High impact marketing to get small business up and running.PR is one of the many ways you can get your name out very quickly and have mass exposure .However PR companies cost hefty fees for what seems to be classed as very mystical and high specialised(which it isnt).
One of my goals is to destroy the myth of PR and help small business gain maximum exposure.Give me a call and I will run through with you some key points F.O.C . no problem .


Regards

Phil
Truevision sales and marketing

 

[AndyPhelps]

Very good idea and great site

 

[FunkyBears]

Very good idea and great site

Hi Andy
Seems like your link is broken?

 

[fozzmeister]

nice idea, although working in PR myself I would never recommend going for an £8k service, and especially when there are no gaurantees of success in PR.

If you do go for an agency, I would recommend focusing the PR efforts online, after all, its a website and so even if people read about it in a newspaper or magazine, they can;t click their papers and check it out straight away and you'll be forgotten about once something else interesting comes into the paper by most readers who are initially interested.

If you're super keen to do it yourself, which is by no means a bad thing, then focus on the reasons WHY this service is of use, instead of how good it is. this can then become a story or something newsworthy, i.e a campaign to help expose such documents to the general public because you believe they should be available to anyone free of charge etc

This is much more likely to gather interest, but also, don't be surprised if your free press release distribution doesn't result in, well anything at all to be honest.

Take the time to research the publications you wish to target and get coverage with, find previous articles written by journos on a similar topic and contact them directly (AND PERSONALLY - v important!) and let them know just WHY they should read the email..

As these editors and journos get so much email, a useful tip is to pop their publication or name into the title of the email alongside your product to ensure they know it's going to be a personalised email and thus more likely to open it against their army of spammy emails awaiting them in their inboxes on a daily basis.

Hope this helps

Also, contrary to what Phil from TrueVision "Sales and Marketing" seems to think, PR is actually a highly specialised and creative skill - something to bear in mind if you decide to work with him, perhaps he might be better on your sales team?

PS- I see you've already got coverage from the site with big newspapers - you should personally contact the folk who featured you before and pitch them this new aspect to the site, they may wish to do a follow up article

Fozz

 

[10Yetis]

Agree with what Fozz says above /\

Only two penneth to add is to ignore the advice of a previous poster about PR web. It is not worth the money (even the free service)

In all my years of playing around with this PR Malarkey I have never seen any good come from PR Web (even from an SEO/Links pov).

Instead, Google Daryl Willcox and use one of his paid for wires, ResponseWire or SourceWire... around £40.00 and real journo's/bloggers use them.

Only put the release on the wire once you have sent it to media (they may want an exclusive if it is a good story and reading it on a wire will put them off).

As for £8k fee for one release... WTF? Which agency have you been speaking to?

 

[adamcjames]

Hi Brad,

Your business seems solid.

If we were handling your PR we would first identify the most media-worthy aspects to your business.

We would then individually approach journalists and editors on your target media.

We would not even consider using an online PR service. Why? Because if the story is good enough, pitch to the media themselves. They want to be first to the story, not picking it up second-hand from the web. That's the nature of news media.

For a one-off PR campaign, costs can vary from £200 to yes, £8,000. Depends who you use, what they offer, and the size of the PR campaign.

You have to decide which companies offer the best deal and value for you. My advice is chose an agency that is run by proven journalists.

Best wishes,

Adam

 

[marketingquotes]

Hi Brad,

Certainly it would be good to get some free advice from a PR professional (best one that knows a little about the legal sector).

If you want to click the link below we may well be able to help you find the right sort of PR agency to chat to.

Regards,

Marketing Quotes Support.

 

[fozzmeister]

Agree with what Fozz says above /\

Only two penneth to add is to ignore the advice of a previous poster about PR web. It is not worth the money (even the free service)

In all my years of playing around with this PR Malarkey I have never seen any good come from PR Web (even from an SEO/Links pov).

Instead, Google Daryl Willcox and use one of his paid for wires, ResponseWire or SourceWire... around £40.00 and real journo's/bloggers use them.

Only put the release on the wire once you have sent it to media (they may want an exclusive if it is a good story and reading it on a wire will put them off).

As for £8k fee for one release... WTF? Which agency have you been speaking to?

Rather happy to see 10Yetis ageeing with my point above, happy because I've actually been following them for a while now and admiring their work. 10Yetis if you're reading this, you're one of my top 5 agencies that I actually follow via Twitter and your posts etc

Lawontheweb, didn't realise 10Yetis were on this forum, would recommend you give them a shout if you're looking for some help, check out their website for why!

Best of luck with it, but yeah, sticking to my point, these free distribution sites are rubbish

 

[UKSBD]

Maybe the first thing that any PR agency who works with them could advise is, that if they post in a forum like this, they could at least come back and acknowledge any replies they receive.

 

[10Yetis]

Hey hey FozzMeister, thanks for the kind words... much appreciated.

We started out on here, grew our business from advice offa UKBF and lurk around with the odd post every now and again.

Like I say, appreciate the kind words...
Andy