Converting a Press Release into a Call to Action for Your Existing Clients

I’d like to begin this article with a set of definitions from certain words and phrases within the title. These words are important to the concept of this article, as are their definitions. To find creative ways to use existing tools will require that we morph the definitions to meet our needs. The result is a marketing tool that is measurable and interacts on specific segments of your consumer base.

According to dictionary.com:

converting: The act of changing something from one form to another, to transform.

call-to-action: The implied suggestion of marketing, content designed to produce a measurable action from the reader.

press release: A statement or missive written for the press, usually from a governmental agency or PR Firm.

existing clients: People who have already made a purchase or performed a task in conjunction with a call-to-action.

How to Integrate the Morphed Press Release into Your Marketing Plan

First thing’s first—you need to make a plan. The plan is important because it must define what you’re asking your customers to do and provide a way to measure the success or failure of your plan. With today’s online technology, marketing plans can be designed to target a portion of your total existing customers or a segment of that population. The following steps are the basis of your marketing plan.

Step 1 & 2: Develop a plan and define your call-to-action.

Once you have created a plan, you must design your press release. There is an art to writing press release statements. It is sometimes best to use press release writers to do this for you rather than struggle with the formatting, content, etc. The strength of using a press release is that it doesn’t have to contain a lot of information. This is what makes them so perfect for this task. The first goal is to get the reader to go to your website or a specific page on your website, and you do that by withholding part of the information. That is your first call-to-action.

Step 3: Determine what it is that your client must do once they reach your website.

Subscribing to a newsletter, making a purchase, referring a friend, or sharing your really well-written product description across social media are examples of important calls-to-action.

Step 4: Determine what your client receives for performing the action.

Reward loyalty, reward conversion. What the client does at this point is measured as a success or failure of your plan. Because you are measuring response, even a failure is valuable.

The result of your converted press release is a marketing tool for a product or service, or as a reward to loyal customers. It retains the fact that it is announcing something, but the announcement is targeted. Here is what it should include:

• Title with a product or service name.
• A blatant call-to-action. Do this to receive this.
• Several active links to your website.
• Several active links to whatever page you wish to direct your client.
• Any video or multimedia content.
• Contact information to a specific sales person or representative.
• An opt out link.

Everything on this list can be measured, and those measurements are key to refining this process and correcting your marketing plan.