What should be in your electronic press kit?

So, you've got a great product or service that's just dying to get out there to the public. You know the best way to get noticed is to be featured in magazines, newspapers, etc. You've done your research, made a call to that editor you know will be interested in your product, and the editor says, "great! Just send me your electronic press kit, and I'll take a look at it." Then you realize that you don't have an electronic press kit - and you have no idea where to start putting one together. What the heck do you put in this thing?

The most important things to include in any press kit (digital or physical) are:

• info about your company, you and your products;
• any press coverage you've already received;
• basic contact and where-to-buy information (this should absolutely be separate and easy to find)
• print-quality, professional images of your product, and possibly yourself holding the product. You can also include low-res photos with a note to contact you for high-res photos, since most digital press kits will be e-mailed.

Add to this a sample of the product and a professional photo (8 by 10) of the product for editorial use, and the same thing can go in a snazzy folder to make your physical press kit.

Aside from that, you can also think about things like: what section will this be good for? What makes this product newsworthy? Is there anything unique you can pitch to a specific editor's audience that's different from what everyone else might think of?

For example, most publications already drone on and on about the health benefits of green tea, etc. - but what could you bring to the table that's a new way to think about it? Maybe a recipe for cookies or ice cream that uses green tea? Green tea/honey sorbet (which would, by the way, be amazingly easy to make)? Green tea popsicles with mango juice? What are ways that folks can have green tea without having to drink it as a cup of tea every morning?

Mind you, if you really feel stuck with this, then it's probably time to get in touch with a PR professional to help you get the process going. Public relations is an intense, time-consuming process, and a good PR professional will not only take on that process for you, they'll know outlets you might not have thought of, and can come up with good ideas beyond submitting the product to magazines.

What to do with your press releases?

Recently, someone on one of my mailing lists asked our thoughts about submitting releases to places like PR Web, which allows you to submit your press release to thousands of media outlets, sometimes free, but often for a fee.

Writing a release and submitting it to a place like PRWeb can definitely get you SOME traffic; however, I have found that it’s much more effective to create a list yourself, and start making friends with editors.

Some questions to get you started:

• Who are you trying to reach? How old are they, what level of income/education/etc.


• What are their interests?


• What do they read? What shows do they watch/what radio stations are they listening to? What trade magazines might they have subscriptions to?


• Where are they? Are you looking for local or national?

From there, you should have a pretty good list to start out with. Once you have that, you start looking for contacts. Magazines and newspapers are the easiest – in the first few pages, you should be able to find editor’s names. Give them a call and introduce yourself. Ask if it’s a good time to chat and let them know that you’d like to submit some press releases to their organization, and would they be the person to send them to? What format would they prefer – e-mail, Word Docs, snail mail? Make a note of all this in your contact management software and then, when you have a release that’s perfect for their outlet (make sure it’s newsworthy and something they’d be likely to publish; editors HATE getting press releases that have nothing to do with their magazine/paper), send it to them along with a note saying, “thought you’d be interested in this thing I’m doing; thank you for taking a look!”

It takes a while to do all this, but it’s MUCH more effective than the “spray and pray” approach of places like PRWeb, although using this approach in conjunction with PRWeb would be a good thing – they can get attention from a wide array of outlets you might not have thought of. And mind you, this is just a very basic outline of PR; if you want to REALLY get into this stuff, work with a PR professional that specializes in your type of business. They'll often have contacts that you don't, and you'll save time and stress in the long run, and get better results!

The power of keeping in touch

So, recently, I got into a very unfortunate and stressful situation that forced me to rethink the way that I do my contracts. In almost 2 years of being in business, I've never had a lawyer (I used LegalZoom to set up the zen kitchen back in January of last year, and haven't really determined what kind of legal needs I'd have; I also had a lawyer ex-boyfriend of mine approve my original contract), and now I needed one - and fairly quickly - because what should have been a fairly straightforward situation turned nasty quicker than I wanted it to.

Enter Jessica Manganello of Exemplar Law in Boston. I met her at a networking event back in Marchish and we kept in touch over the months afterwards. She's been very thoughtful about sending me articles and info about things she knows I'm interested in (I've even blogged about some of the sites she's pointed me to), and when I realized that I needed help with the stuff I'll be dealing with, she was the first person I thought of. We're meeting for lunch tomorrow.

This is the power of keeping in touch - not just on the monthly newsletter level, but on the occasional "just thought of you" level that so many marketers tend to forget about. It's a more personal - and dare I say, feminine - way of marketing, and some folks do it phenomenally well, while others - well? Yeah.

So here's an idea. When you meet someone at an event - Chamber, Women's Business, whatever - find out a bit about them and make a note of it on the back of their card. Put it in your contact management software. Then, if you happen across something that might be interesting to them, pop them a quick e-mail. It's quick, dirt cheap, and can grant you the helpful, thoughtful image that might just get you the sale. Not that hard, is it?