If, like me, you're in the process of launching a new business, a new product, or just want to remind everyone of your existence, you might find this newsletter helpful.

We're currently in the process of launching a new service - iBlurbs (www.iblurbs.com) - so I have been learning everything I can about PR lately. As ever, the internet is a great source of useful information. A couple of excellent articles can be found here:

Internetprguide.com -
(http://www.internetprguide.com/pr_tips/article/0,3029,10193_757701,00.html)

and here,

Care and Feeding -
(http://www.netpress.org/careandfeeding.html).

For this article, however, I'm drawing on some very useful advice kindly given to me by the .Net magazine journalist Gary Marshall.

His advice is primarily about sending press releases by email. I've summarized it below.

Keep it short

1. Keep the press release short, but not too short. A paragraph or three should be all that's needed in the first instance. Give a url at the bottom of your email linking to a press pack online so that they can get more info and photos if necessary.

Avoid Jargon

2. Avoid jargon - any email that starts off "X company blah blah leading edge CRM b2b solution" gets binned *immediately*.

Send it to the right person

3. The best approach is to put yourself in the shoes of the person you send the release to (and it's got to be the right person or, again, it's binned).

Sell your message fast

4. Journalists and editors get hundreds, if not thousands, of emails a day, so you have to sell your message *fast*.

Make it obvious

5. That means a reasonably interesting or relevant title, for example, make it obvious - "Review request" or make it appealing - "Photoshop power for 20 quid!".

Highlight the benefits

6. Think of the benefits of your product or service, what makes it stand out? Why should we care about your service? Will it make our lives more interesting? Cheaper? Whatever... Identify your market carefully. Target your Press Release to the right publications. Think *readers* - what do they care about? Don't over-hype either: if you call something innovative, ground-breaking or exciting it better had be.

Put the most important stuff at the top

7. You've got the right magazine, you've got your named contact, you've got your short but snappy title; from there sell it quickly. Press releases get printed more often than you'd think, but editors chop from the bottom so you need to put the most important stuff at the top of your email.

Make an online Press Pack

8. Short is good - a few paragraphs then an online press pack does the trick. Be prepared to send a hard copy as IT magazines tend to be good with email/web stuff but some editors are old-fashioned. If it's hard copy make it double-spaced, ideally a single page.

Is it news or a feature idea?

9. Who to send your press release to? Gary's advice is News editors are best for quick stuff, e.g. new site launches if they do something amazing and innovative; and feature editors are good if you can tie it in to a feature idea.

Include a picture or photograph in your press pack

10. A final bit of advice about what to include in your online press pack: A bit of background, pricing and contact info, and a picture of some sort. Journalists can do screen grabs so unless you've got some password protected system in place that they can't see, they don't need screen shots.

Nice colour photos of key people are always handy - a photo of a person will almost *always* be used if a story needs illustration. It's much more interesting than a dull web site screen grab.

Photos should be in two formats: hi-res and low-res. A wee thumbnail so we can see what it's like; a good high-quality (300 dpi or better) one for the art bods to download. 1Mb-ish seems to be standard.

Colour is always better than black and white; head-and-shoulders shots are always better than landscape shots where you're a dot on the horizon. Busy backgrounds should be avoided unless they add something to a photo, and light backgrounds are better than dark ones.

Go do it!

So there you go. Get this right and you might get some very valuable publicity for your new venture.

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