Dear Subscriber,

Welcome to the June 2nd, 2008 edition of my newsletter.

Ok, so it has been just about a month (while I may not be getting these out weekly yet - I'll get there).

Let's see, what has happened in this past month - a whole lot. Jacob got his first two teeth and he is "scooting" around the house - not yet quite crawling, but he can sure get around. Mikeala, our middle child finally is potty trained. It is amazing to me how one day she refuses to go on the potty and then the next she's only going on the potty - it literally seemed like she was just hit with a magic wand and "voila" she's potty trained! Caitlyn, our oldest, had a little more of a transition before she was fully potty trained.

Business wise, lots has gone on. Web design is doing well and I'm working on learning more and more so I can expand my services and offer more to my clients. Cruise to Cash continues to go well and the team is awesome. I'm actually updating and re-vamping one of my e-books to offer again.

I just recently joined one other program to add to my income streams. This one is a much more affordable price point and offers grocery and restaurant coupons/discounts - it pays cash as well and the founder has a great deal of integrity. It is a fairly new program, which makes it a great time to join and promote online. And with the raise in gas prices and food prices one the rise as well - the discounts AND the extra cash are much needed. Anyway, if you are looking for another stream of income, something that is affordable (under $100), is easy, and offers a product that everyone is after (money saving coupons - real money saving coupons) - then check it out! http://www.lotsacashdaily.com

Enjoy the article!

Best wishes,
Liz Martinez
Cruise to Cash - Vacation Your Way to Wealth
Get Your Gas Money Here!

List Building Secret #26 - Press Releases: Not Dead, Just Evolved

Mark Twain once said the rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. The same may be said for the press release. It’s not dead, but its mission has evolved.

Those PR practitioners who are spreading these death rumors would have you believe that press releases should never be written, nor distributed. I take issue with this old-school thinking.

Now, inundating the media with press releases has not been a good practice since shortly after Edward Bernays opened the first PR firm in 1919. Any competent PR person has known for years that garnering media coverage almost never directly happens due to a press release. However, that is fodder for another article.

Let’s talk about the evolution of the press release into a solid tool for helping organizations deliver key messages to multiple audiences in the digital age.

In the not-so-distant pre-Internet past, press releases were aimed solely at trade and consumer media outlets. The media acted as the gatekeepers, taking your information and making decisions about how, or if, to use it.

Organizations today are able to bypass the media filter in a number of ways, thanks to the net.

Consider this: both journalists and consumers use the web for research. More than 550 million searches are done daily via the web. And, every month, US web-users conduct 27 million searches at Yahoo! News, Google News or other news search engines. According to recent surveys by Middleberg/Ross and the Pew Internet Project, we learn that:

- 98 percent of journalists go online daily

- 92 percent do it for article research

- 76 percent to find new sources and experts

- 73 percent to find press releases

- 68 million Americans go online daily

- 30 percent use a search engine to find information

- 27 percent go online to get news

But you need to think differently about writing your releases in this new age. You can extend the power of your press releases beyond the media by positioning them for search engine pick up. In effect, your press releases become a long-lasting, online, searchable database about your organization.

Once properly written with both readers and search engines in mind, you need to distribute the release. PR Web™ and PR Newswire are my two favorite ways to get the message out. Both services help you reach into the newsroom and beyond.

PR Web emails press releases daily to between 60,000 - 100,000 global contacts points.

Journalists, analysts, freelance writers, media outlets and newsrooms, as well as your average web users are signed up to receive this information. Also, it distributes releases via FTP, XML feeds and through a network of its own websites. PR Web-related sites are in the top 2,500 most visited sites. Every release sent out through PR Web is optimized for search engines, and PR Web guarantees your release will be picked up by Yahoo!, which is the number one most visited website on the Internet.

Does it work, you ask? Let me provide a recent example. I used PR Web to send out a release about my client Brent Dees and his Focus Four training for entrepreneurs. The editor of Leadership Excellence emailed me after seeing the release and asked Brent to write an article for his magazine.

The granddaddy of press release services is PR Newswire, which distributes directly into the central editing computers at daily newspapers, newsweeklies, national news services, trade publications and broadcast newsrooms.

It reaches a total of 22,000 media points in the US alone. All releases are distributed to and archived in more than 3,600 web sites, databases and online services. Additionally, PR Newswire’s website is in the top 2,000 most visited sites on the Internet.

Finally, let’s take a look at the online media room. Its primary purpose is to provide journalists with easily accessible data about the organization, such as executive bios, earnings figures, key contacts and other solid, factual information. An organization also should place news releases here, particularly those aimed at key stakeholders like employees, strategic allies, and investors.

Technology savvy consumers often visit online media rooms for the same reason journalists do: they expect to find factual information there.

Churning out releases and dumping them willy-nilly on the media is a dumb practice. But using releases as a strategic weapon to reach key audiences across the digital divide is smart PR. Practitioners who believe the news release is dead need to evolve, or they will be the moribund ones.

Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR <http://www.hoover-ink.com>. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Focus Four, Levolor, New World Mortgage, North Carolina Tourism, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX and Verbatim.

Have a prosperous week - I know I plan to!!

Liz Martinez