Many business owners know that sending out press releases is a great and cost-effective way to create brand awareness and get their name out there. However, a press release is only effective if it is properly written. If you’re considering writing press releases as part of your business’ insurance marketing strategies, consider these writing tips:

• Make sure the information is newsworthy and it is clear how the information contained in the release will be beneficial to readers.
• Start with the actual news announcement and then identify your company as the entity that is making the statement.
• Make sure that the first 10 words of the release are especially effective because you will only have a short amount of time to grab a journalist’s or reader’s attention.
• Avoid overly promotional language and stick to the facts.
• Provide as much contact information as possible, including your individual contact information and the company’s address, phone, fax, email and website. If an inquiry comes in, you do not want to turn the person away by being unreachable.

If press release writing is one of your insurance marketing strategies, it is essential to understand the basics before you start trying to brand and pitch to news sources. Once this foundation is strong, your company can start optimizing releases to build a stronger Web presence.

You can’t deny it anymore; marketing is not what it used to be. Using traditional tactics like placing print ads in newspapers won’t get you very far these days and certainly is not the most cost-effective way for small businesses to reach potential customers. Where are the majority of consumers looking for products and services? Online, of course! So, if you’re looking for insurance marketing ideas or strategies for any small business, the answer is only a click away.

Press releases have been a staple of marketing and PR for what seems like forever, but the strategies behind crafting press releases have evolved quite a bit. With the advent of PR 2.0, small businesses don’t have to wait until they win an award to send out a press release. Writing for the Web is a whole new ball game, which centers on creating engaging, informative and shareable content. For this reason, new-age press releases may look more like blogs in the sense that they can be about timely tips, a quirky characteristic of your small business or simply a “cutest pet” contest that your business is hosting on Facebook.

As your company begins to navigate the new terrain of PR 2.0, keep these things in mind when it comes to submitting press releases:

• While the focus should be on making content engaging, be sure to answer the key questions who, what, where, when and why.
• Get local by mentioning the city in which your company is located and other surrounding towns. This will help you reach your target audience.
• Include a press release section on your company website so that you can archive copies of your press releases and also help them maintain their SEO value.
• Promote your press releases via your social media accounts.

In order to keep up with the changes in marketing and public relations, small businesses must be flexible with their strategies. Even if you need a little help along the way with Facebook training or a rundown of new PR techniques, you will be successful as long as you stay open-minded!

Everyone knows that good public relations is essential for any business, regardless of how large or small it may be. Public relations plays a role in how the public perceives your company, whether or not people find your business to be reputable and the level of expertise your employees are believed to possess. While big corporations may have an entire team of PR experts working on their behalf, smaller companies do not have to forgo some of the most effective PR and insurance marketing strategies just because they think that they do not have room in their budget.

Here are some of the low-cost, yet highly effective PR tips for small businesses:

• Write articles on industry-related topics and submit them to online services like ezinearticles.com. This will help establish your credibility as an expert and help drive traffic to your company’s website if you use back links within the article.
• Submit press releases on new initiatives that your business has taken on, charities that you are involved with or simple current events that relate to your company.
• Profile your company on Wikipedia so that when potential customers want to get more information on your company, they can find it on multiple sites.
• Get active within your industry by attending trade shows. This can be a great opportunity for networking.
• Use social media to help brand your company and reach out to other businesses and potential customers. Not only is it free, but it gives companies the chance to show their office culture and make their employees more relatable.

Good PR doesn’t require a fancy agency or lots of money. Whether you just want to get your company’s name out there or put your insurance marketing ideas into action, it’s all possible with a little dedication and with the power of the internet. Take some time today to think of creative ways to execute PR strategies for your small business and you may be surprised by the results!

Bloggers Beware: Five Common Writing Errors to Look Out For

In today’s fast-paced world, online writers are expected to be able to pump out fresh and informative content on a regular basis. Furthermore, it is essential that this content is readable, shareable and correct. People who blog for their business carry a lot of responsibility since every piece of work they publish can reflect on the credibility of their company.

As all writers know – whether they publish online or in print – it’s all too easy for mistakes to slip through the cracks and make their way into a final copy. However, simply being aware of some of the most frequently made errors may be enough for bloggers who want to avoid making them in the future. The top five include:

• Mixing tenses
• Misplacing apostrophes in plural or possessive words
• Missing words, often prepositions like “to” or “in”
• Dangling participles or modifiers. For example, in the sentence “Researching insurance marketing, the team developed a great idea,” the first part of the sentence is “dangling” because it is not associated with the subject that the author intended.
• Lacking proper subject-verb agreement

These types of errors may not be as glaring as misspellings, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t apparent to attentive readers. Keeping these things in the back of your mind can help ensure that the content you post to your company blog is engaging and easy to read. Nothing can drive people away from your insurance website like content that requires re-reading in order to understand it!

Today, everything is fast. The days of waiting patiently for dial-up Internet connection are long gone and now, we simply expect to be able to obtain all of our information and share our thoughts with the world instantaneously. There is a caveat to all of this lightning-quick content, though. As information is loaded onto the Web at an increasingly quick pace, those who post it are not taking the time to ensure that what they write is high-quality content.

Even if your readers are unlikely to carefully read through everything you post, glaring spelling and grammatical errors can be a serious turnoff and diminish the credibility of you or the organization that you’re writing for. Now that regular Facebook posts are essentially a requirement for retail companies and blogging is one of the most popular insurance marketing strategies, it’s more important than ever that online writers represent their business in a positive way by ensuring that their posts are clean of any errors.

Here are some helpful tips on how people can edit their own work quickly and efficiently, before clicking “publish:”

• Just because you write something at night doesn’t mean you have to post it immediately. Wait until the morning to edit it when your mind is sharp.
• Although it may seem tedious, you might be surprised how many small edits you will find when you read through a piece of writing several times. Read your writing at least two times before posting – once for continuity and once for spelling and grammar.
• Editing can be exhausting, so take time in between editing sessions to switch gears and work on something else like your company’s insurance website design.  Coming back to a blog post with a fresh set of eyes can make all the difference.
• Whether you’re editing your own or someone else’s work, compiling a list of common mistakes that you find can help expedite the proofreading process in the future. Going over this quick list before posting can help ensure that the writer did not make one of his or her signature mistakes when he or she was writing while tired or in a rush.

You might not think you have time to implement an editing process, but it’s important not to underestimate the value of high-quality content. Although the Internet has somewhat generated its own language, modern readers need to be able to breeze through content without stumbling over awkward phrases or grammatical errors. Dedicating a few extra minutes to quality control can help ensure that your words are heard and that you’re message is not undermined by simple mistakes.