When you write a press release, how many different versions do you write?
Just one? You’ll kick yourself when you hear about what Publicity Hound Kathi Petersen does.
When Kathi told me she wrote nine versions of one release for a fund-raiser she was publicizing, I thought she was kidding.
Then she told me about “The Doors of Asheville,” a fund-raiser in which local artists in Asheville, North Carolina painted doors that were sold at an auction to raise money for an affordable housing agency.
She could have written the same one-size-fits-all release, then crossed her fingers and hoped for the best.
Instead, she identified nine different media where she wanted the story covered. And because no two media were the same, she wrote nine different versions of the release.
The result? An absolute glut of publicity in local newspapers and magazines, on TV and in community newsletters. Each media outlet felt as though the press release it received was exactly what their audience wanted.
I asked her to write about her strategy for the March/April issue of The Publicity Hound subscription newsletter, and she did. Her article shows how she took just one event–and with some creative twisting, tweaking and retooling–turned it into nine separate stories.