If you own a small business and are thinking of writing a press release and distributing it on a wire service, the following interview will guide you. In April, the Latino Business Report podcast invited Noticias Newswire CEO Bill Gato and Co-Owner Angela Sustaita-Ruiz to discuss the topic and share ideas. The podcast episode is titled “How Small Businesses Can Use Press Releases to Market Themselves.” J.R. Gonzalez, the executive director of TAMACC, the Texas Association of Mexican-American Chambers of Commerce, hosts this new, small-business-focused podcast.
In this interview you will learn:
- What is a press release?
- What is a press release distribution service or “wire” service and its benefits?
- What is PR or “public relations”? What do PR professionals do?
- What are the basic elements of a press release? Dos and Don’ts.
- How should we write a press release? Should we do it ourselves or hire a writer, PR professional, or ex-journalist?
- How likely is it that a press release distribution will garner news coverage?
- How can we make a press release more catchy to a journalist or influencer?
- How important are images and videos?
- What is media pitching? And how should we do it?
- Why are news cycles important to understand when deciding what to focus on in a press release?
- Which regions should I send my press release to?
- Why are image, video, and music copyrights important if I add these to my press release?
- What are the SEO benefits of distributing a press release?
J.R.:
And welcome to another episode of the Latino Business Report. Today’s episode is going to be one I’m excited about, and it’s going to be very educational for a lot of you business folks out there who are looking for a better way to market and brand your company. And that’s using a wire service. Today, we have the president and CEO of Noticias Newswire, Bill Gato. And we also have a co-owner of Noticias Newswire, entrepreneur, businesswoman, media influencer, a lady about town, has all the world at her feet, Angela Sustaita-Ruiz. Angela, how are you doing today?
ANGELA:
Doing well. That was quite an introduction. Thank you. That was wonderful.
J.R:
Okay. We’re going to talk about this company you guys started not too long ago, Noticias Newswire. Bill, can you tell us a little bit about that? What is it?
BILL:
So, what exactly is a wire service, a press release distribution service? First, let me talk about what a press release is. It’s one of the tools in the toolkit of a PR person. What is PR? I always like to say that marketing has two branches: one is advertising, and one is public relations. Most small businesses — like the members of TAMACC — probably think of advertising when they think of marketing. “We’ve got to do marketing. Okay, let’s buy ads in the local paper, per column inch. Let’s buy a 30-second radio spot. Let’s buy a 30-second TV spot or a 15-second TV spot.” They’re thinking of something they’ve got to pay for to get exposure in that local media, TV station or radio station. But there’s another avenue to get publicity and exposure, and it’s called public relations.
The idea here is to try to get free publicity by going not to the sales department to buy an ad, but going through the editorial department to try to get them to write about you. And if you’re doing something interesting — or at least you’re making noise about what you’re doing in your local community — you may garner the interest of a local TV editor, local TV producer, somebody who says, “This company is interesting, they’re innovative, they’re doing something interesting. Let’s write about them. Let’s invite them on the show” — like you’re doing right now with us on this podcast. “Let’s invite them to talk about what they’re doing.” So now you got in through the editorial side. And sometimes you get a 10-minute interview on a TV station or a radio station. That would’ve cost you thousands of dollars if you had gone in through the paid side. But now you got in through the editorial side.
A PR person does a lot of things. They create a PR plan, a strategy for you. They pitch the media, meaning that they call up reporters, TV producers, to try to get an interview for their client — for you — on that TV show. One of the tools they use is that they write a press release. It’s this article that is journalistically written. A lot of great PR people were former journalists. They know how to tell a story in a journalistic way, in an interesting way. And so they write a press release and then they send it to the media. What we do at Noticias Newswire is scale it. We make it easy for you to get it to thousands of journalists in one shot at a national level. Most people have their own list of journalists that they know personally and that they’ve pitched before. But that might be 100 journalists, or 150. If they have a national story, it’s hard to have that many journalists in your database. So they’ll use a wire service like ours to scale that and send it out in one shot to all journalists, TV, producers, radio, producers, influencers. It’s one of the tools that PR people use to make you famous, basically to get the word out there.
J.R.:
Angela, you’re a PR practitioner. Do you find this to be a valuable service? And do you use a wire service?
ANGELA:
Of course. Most companies, small businesses, and large Fortune 500 companies use some form of wire distribution to tell stories. Small businesses and new entrepreneurs may get scared away by some of the larger companies’ pricing because it can be quite expensive to distribute a wire over some of the larger companies. The beauty of Noticias Newswire is that the rates are much more affordable and it’s something that puts it in arm’s reach for small businesses that typically have not had that option, to be able to distribute a press release to the media they’re intending to target.
J.R.:
What should be the basic elements of a press release? What needs to be in there for it to possibly catch somebody’s attention?
ANGELA:
Well, the first is the headline. You want to make sure you have a headline that’s going to be interesting. Just imagine, there are a lot of press releases distributed on a daily basis, millions. So you want to make sure that your press release stands out while also tying back to what the release is about. So, a succinct, catchy headline is important. There are creative ways of developing those.
And then, the first paragraph really should get to the point of what the story is about. Think of a two-page press release that includes a catchy header, an intro paragraph that really gets to the point of what it is you’re wanting to announce, a quote — or two quotes max — from the founder of the organization, or a partner you’re working with, to help bring the story to life. And then, simple information about what it is you want to announce. You don’t want to be too text-heavy, too wordy. You don’t want it to be too long. Really, the average press release should be one and a half pages to two pages max. Anything beyond that, people will lose interest and it’s not an efficient way to get your story out there. You want to catch media attention with your headline and the brief write-up.
A cool image is also super important. Having a creative that really is interesting. That is what’s going to catch the media’s attention because you want that to open an opportunity for them to call you. Like, “This is a really interesting story or a new business you launched.” So that’s how you capture their attention.
And as a follow-up to that, Bill mentioned pitching media. Pitching media means in addition to distributing a release over the wire, you call them, or you email them. A very short email. The media does not like getting long emails. That’s why it’s important for the press release to be well-written. And when you follow up and pitch them individually, it’s a very short e-mail — not more than a paragraph — about why you’re reaching out to them. So you want to make sure that when you’re communicating with any media, it’s very short and to the point, and you follow up. Sometimes they don’t respond right away. And if you’re doing your own PR, don’t get discouraged. That’s part of the process of pitching media. Make sure to follow up with them. And a lot of times they’ll be responsive. Especially if it’s a story about their local community, a Latino-owned business story, depending on the media you’re pitching. So that’s part of it and it’s definitely a great tool to use. And I think a lot of the TAMACC members would benefit from doing their own PR, using a wire distribution, and making sure that their company has that awareness.
J.R.:
Okay, well, let me ask you this, either Angela or Bill. Let’s say I’m a small company. I don’t have a lot of advertising budget. I’ve listened to this podcast, or I’ve heard other people mention the advantages of a press release, but I don’t know how to write one. Where could I find somebody that can write a press release? Do I go to a local college? Do I get an intern? Do I hire a writer? Where do I find someone to help me with this?
BILL:
I’ll take that one. That’s a great question for small businesses, because it’s like, “I’ve never hired a PR firm. I can’t afford a PR firm. How do I even write a press release? I’m not a writer.” There are a lot of freelance journalists right now — particularly right now — because of all the downsizing that happened in the big newspapers in the last 15 years because of the internet. There are a lot of ex-journalists who are available now. They are offering their writing services at really affordable rates. We have partnerships with several ex-journalists from the Miami Herald. For example, Elaine De Valle comes to mind as someone who works with us when we have a client that needs a press release to be written or edited. You can find freelance journalists that can write press releases for you on Fiverr.com or Upwork.com, a lot of these types of sites. But we have our own vetted roster of ex-journalists who are professionals, who know how to tell a story, who know how journalists think when they get a press release.
The beauty of being an ex-journalist is that you know what it’s like to be on this side of the equation, getting press releases and then filtering them and saying, “Do I want to write about this? Oh, this is interesting. That’s an interesting angle.” They also know how not to bury the lead. That’s a big concept in journalism, the idea of “What is the most interesting thing about this company?” You should always lead with that in the headline or the top paragraph, the most interesting thing. Oftentimes in journalism school, journalism students start out writing stories and the more savvy advisors or the staff editor will say, “Look, you buried the lead. This is actually more interesting than what you led with. Put that at the top.” So, that’s the value of hiring a pro, a former journalist, to help you write your press release. We can help you with that.
J.R.:
Okay, Angela, you have thoughts on that.
ANGELA:
That’s a great point. There are definitely freelancers or journalists who would be very well-equipped to help you write a press release. A lot of people have skills that they don’t realize that they have. There are a lot of business owners that, when they make an effort to do something, actually do a good job of telling their own story. You as a business owner are the one that’s able to tell your story the best. So there are a lot of tools you could also look at online to see templates of how press releases are written, and write them yourself. But I think it’s important to make sure that it’s short and to the point, that you get to the main point of your story in the very first paragraph.
And there’s also something important, a component called a boilerplate, because I know you want to tell everyone about your business. The boilerplate is where you get into it. It’s a short paragraph that talks about your business. TAMACC uses boilerplates on their press release, like “What is TAMACC? TAMACC is…” it goes on and on. Sure. But a lot of people want to bury that in the top part where they should focus on their main news announcement. That really goes at the very bottom in a boilerplate. That’s where they find out more information about your company. Writing a press release is not as scary as some people think it is. There are times that maybe you want to hire someone, but I think that there are probably a lot of your members who could develop a release on their own and have someone proofread it to make sure it makes sense.
BILL:
Also, one of the values of hiring a professional ex-journalist is that they understand news cycles. Sometimes what may not be interesting in 2019, in 2020 takes on a whole new significance. And we saw this last year with the COVID crisis. We had a dry cleaner who ran a press release because they were doing something for the community. They were offering free dry cleaning services because of COVID. So even if you’re a small business that otherwise wouldn’t get the attention of an editor during normal times, in a pandemic, if you’re doing something for the community, that’s newsworthy. That’s interesting. So you could get a write-up. A savvy PR person will say, “you know, do something for the community and that could get you coverage.” That’s a fascinating topic for me, by the way, how small businesses can get publicity through an indirect news angle, where they can get coverage,
ANGELA:
Right. And also another angle could be, you won an award, your company won an award, right? You won a community award. So look at all the different things you or your members are probably already doing. There are probably a lot of you that are being acknowledged in your community. And those are all newsworthy moments that you should develop a press release for. You want to get out there and tell your story. A lot of times when PR people are planning like six months to a year ahead, they put together a calendar and they’re like, “Okay, we have this award that we won. Maybe our business has something we can promote for specific holidays, or if there’s something in the news that ties to your business. This past year, those medical people or the companies that create masks or things like that. There are different ways that businesses can look for areas or times that they can help get out there in front of the media to build that awareness.
J.R.:
Explain this one to me. You put out a press release. Obviously, not all releases are going to be picked up. Not every journalist out there is going to have a stack of press releases and go, “Oh, we’re going to print them all.” I heard you say headline, but it also has to be newsworthy, doesn’t it?
BILL:
Absolutely. That’s a great question. I get this question all the time when I’m talking to potential clients or people that call us to ask about our services. They say, “Can you guarantee that if I distribute my press release, that I’m going to get written about in the New York Times? Or Despierta America will call me for an interview?” And so, as a wire service, no service, whether it’s us or anybody else, can guarantee that if you distribute a press release, you’re going to get covered in all these major media outlets. That’s impossible. That would be a lie. Nobody can guarantee that. We can guarantee that we’ll get it into the inboxes of the current editors and reporters there, but we can’t guarantee coverage. So back to your question…it’s “How do we make it newsworthy?” Or how do we increase the chances that you’ll get coverage? So again, it’s understanding what’s relevant right now to journalists.
First of all, what I recommend to clients is to think about the five or 10 media outlets that you would love to be featured in. Let’s say you want to be featured in the New York Times. Let’s say you want to be featured in the Houston Chronicle. Let’s say you want to be featured in the Dallas Morning News. Find the reporter at that outlet who tends to cover what you’re doing, your industry. Nowadays on the internet, it’s so easy to go back and research what a reporter tends to write about, to look at their tendencies. What do they tend to write about what? Reporters are human. They have preferences. They have biases. There are certain things they love covering. So get inside the head of each reporter. What is it that they love to write about? What is their focus? And then if you have something that you think would be relevant to that reporter, and thus, the audience that reads that reporter, send them a press release with an angle toward what they cover. And then of course send them an email saying, “Hey, I think I have something that could be of interest to your audience. And I’m doing this, this, this with my company. And I think that would be interesting to your audience.” That’s one way to increase coverage. Just understand the reporter and their thinking, what do they tend to write about.
J.R.:
Let me throw this one at you. You’re giving us some great advice of how to help a small business, but you guys are a small business within yourself. How do you help yourself when you are in this industry?
ANGELA:
When it makes sense, we do send out releases for our companies. Being a member of organizations such as TAMACC is also important. Networking. A lot of that networking has been virtual over the past year, but it’s been doable. There are different ways to make sure that you stay relevant. When you work with your clients, you should maintain those relationships. And deliver a quality product on an ongoing basis. So a lot of the clients we’ve had over the years have been returning clients because we’ve done our best to make sure we’re providing quality service, and maintaining those relationships. It takes work. But it’s one of the important parts of being a business owner. You are the best representation of your business. So, when you’re doing your own personal PR it’s important how you position your business within the community. They say that your reputation is one of your most important currencies. And I think that’s very true as a business owner, regardless of what industry you’re in.
BILL:
There are other techniques and tactics that PR people use to increase the newsworthiness of a press release. One is using images and videos. If your client has a good high-resolution color image, add that to the press release. Because, again, if you make it easy for the reporter to cover your story, you increase your chances. I remember when I was at the Miami Herald, I was the radio columnist back in the early 90s. And there was a PR woman that reached out to me about a new radio host she was promoting. She was pitching me to write something about that radio show. And she sent me this really creative package in the mail with like high-resolution photos of her host, and a nice press release with a lot of background information. I mean, she just made it so easy for me to write about this, that I was like, “Sure, it’s really interesting. Got a nice photo I can use for this week’s column.” They might be short on topics that week. Sometimes the reporters are struggling, like, “What should I write about this week?” And if you provide them with a lot of tools, that makes it great. Now our wire, again, I don’t want to make this a commercial for Noticias Newswire. Well, a little bit, but not go over the top. But a lot of wire services tend to charge extra. If you include a photo, if you include a video, it’s like a hundred dollars more for a photo, a hundred dollars or $150 more for a video. We’re trying to be a multimedia wire by default so that every press release that we post on our website and distribute has a photo that goes along with it or a video. We make it very multimedia, very visually attractive. All wires offer it. It’s just that some of them charge more for it. Just be aware.
J.R.:
And I think it’s important. Go ahead.
ANGELA:
One of the really great benefits — especially for small businesses — is the SEO optimization of having your business sharing news on the wire. And the reason for that is when people Google you or your company, they’re going to see these releases that help tell your story. So while you may have a website — and maintaining websites, we know can sometimes be challenging for small businesses — having that extra layer when someone Googles you, they see activity with announcements you’ve made over a wire. So that’s definitely another bonus to consider when looking at a wire distribution. (Read also: SEO Tips to Improve Your Next Press Release)
J.R.:
Right. And Bill, to your point, I do realize that any time you have any type of artwork or photographs, that it increases readership — when something’s laid out with a graphic in there. But as you’re talking about high-resolution photos, just make sure you own the rights to those photos, because that can get you in trouble.
BILL:
We had an issue with that with TAMACC, you know. Oh my God, where we ran a press release. I forgot who it was that was featured in an image. Oh yeah. It was Estrella TV. Their press release had an image of Hillary’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kane. That got distributed through our wire. And then there was this law firm that reached out to a bunch of our partner sites. And they were like, “Hey, you know, this image was from the AP. You can’t use that image.”
J.R.:
Well, since you brought it up, I mean…actually, for our listeners out there, that’s the way Bill and I got to know each other, it was over a potential lawsuit for using an image, but it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault. It was just a mess. And it’s a litigious society. And this firm was looking to do a little squeezing. So, yes, definitely. If you’re out there and you do use the wire service — which we use at TAMACC all the time; I highly recommend it — but at the same time make sure that you own the rights to your images because it can come back and bite you.
ANGELA:
Right, right. That also applies to videos with music. Make sure that you have the permission. A lot of times, people wanna use their favorite songs and videos, but you have to be really careful when you’re distributing those over public domains, such as a wire, or if you’re using that video on any social media platforms because they will not like that. Facebook will just pull it. Or they will mute it sometimes. So you will not get the effect that you had initially wanted.
J.R.:
Yeah, don’t get me started about Facebook and some of the things that they do. Okay. Bill, let me ask you. Either one of you. Okay. So I’m a small business. I see the advantage of using a wire service, but I’m just a small business. I just service a geographical area or one Metro. Would it be worth my time to use the wire service because if you send ’em all over the country, wouldn’t I just be wasting money?
BILL:
Yes. So, so we offer geo-targeting, you know, geographical targeting. So if you’re only targeting the media in your community, we can just narrow it down to reporters, influencers, editors, TV producers in your city, or your Tri-County, what they call Designated Market Area. Like South Florida is comprised of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. It’s considered the Tri-County, the South Florida area. We charge less if it’s only going to a local market.
J.R.:
That’s what I was about to ask. So you can go local, you can go statewide or multiple marketplaces within your state or across the country, or go national.
BILL:
Right. One of the phenomenons about the internet is that a lot of businesses that saw themselves as local before, thanks to the internet, became global because your website can be found globally by anybody in, say, Paris. So oftentimes you can adapt your services for a global marketplace, you know? So just something to think, just to expand your thinking about the nature of your services, right? You may think you’re local, but you can actually offer it now on a mass scale.
J.R.:
You really do. Just for the young life of this Latino Business Report podcast, as I look at the analytics, we have somebody in France that is constantly listening to our show and I’m going, “I don’t know if there’s a Latino in France over there or who’s radar screen are we on” but it’s out there and you’re right, it’s a global market. My recommendation is…You’re a small business. You guys are the experts. You know your market. Don’t overextend, because you’d be wasting money. Focus on that market. And as your company or business grows, if it gets out there and starts going statewide, national or even global, utilize the service, grow with it.
BILL:
Exactly.
J.R.:
So both of you are experienced, you’ve been in the public relations business, you’ve been a writer, you’ve been these things. What gave you the idea? How did you start this company? Why did you start this company?
BILL:
Well, Angela’s husband, Manny Ruiz, he’s a dear friend of mine. In the early 90s, he and I were both working at the Miami Herald. And at the time — this was right before the internet exploded — it was hard to get a full-time job at the Miami Herald when you were a college in intern like we were. So he went off in the mid-90s and ‘94, I went to work in radio and he went to work at Ketchum Public Relations. He was there in the late-90s at Ketchum Public Relations in South Florida and Coral Gables. And he was working with a lot of Dot Coms. It was during the late-90s Dot Com Boom. I love when Manny tells the story, because it’s so interesting. He kind of caught the bug, the entrepreneurial bug because he was helping entrepreneurs who were raising all kinds of capital. It was like that. That Dot Com bubble that you remember well in the late-90s. I love when Manny told me this story, he was like, “I was helping all these entrepreneurs. And I’m like, man, these guys got $5 Million for this idea. I could do something better than that and raise money probably.” So he was distributing press releases through PR Newswire at the time, but he realized that his own list of Hispanic journalists was more robust than what PR Newswire had. So that’s where he got the idea of like, “What if I launch a Hispanic press release distribution service?” And he did it out of his bedroom in the year 2000. So it’s, it’s a wonderful story of just bootstrapping entrepreneurial stuff, like out of his bedroom. And then he partnered with Business Wire in that same year and it just kind of took off from there. He saw the need, he saw that he had something more robust at a niche level than what the big wires were offering. And that was the Genesis. Then he called me three years later when he was building websites for Hispanic newspapers. And so I helped him run that. And so we just expanded from there.
J.R.:
So as people are experiencing lockdown with COVID, it’s a short commute to the kitchen table. So Manny was just even a shorter commute. He did it in his bedroom. He didn’t even have to get out of bed to go to work.
BILL:
Yeah. It’s an incredible story. And then we sold that company. We were doing such a good job of competing on the Hispanic front with the big wires, like PR Newswire, that it was easier for them to buy us out than to keep trying to compete with us on the Hispanic front. So we’re now competing with the entity that we sold to them in 2008.
J.R.:
Who did you sell it to?
BILL:
We sold it to PR Newswire and their parent company, a British company called UBM, United Business Media, which owned PR Newswire. And to this day, that’s one of our competitors. We sold it for $5.5 million in 2008.
ANGELA:
Right before everything went downhill.
BILL:
Exactly. Right before the Recession hit.
J.R.:
Well, let me ask you this. Sounds like you have a pretty good business model. Looks like you had a little seed money going into it. How’s the company doing and where are you going to go from here?
BILL:
We’re expanding the company right now. Manny’s got a renewed focus because he had launched other companies with Angela, like Hispanicize Event. The ambition there was to make it like the South by Southwest — which you know well because you’re in Texas — the South By for the Hispanic market. And they were successful with that event. Originally we were called Hispanicize Wire. We were like a division of Hispanicize Event. And then they had an influencer network — Angela you can speak to this — called DiMe Media. So Manny was focused on the event side of the business. But now he’s got a renewed focus with Brilla Media. So now Noticias Newswire takes on a whole new importance as a partner of Brilla Media.
We’re in expansion mode right now, adding more new guaranteed placements, which I didn’t touch upon earlier. I should have mentioned, when you were asking about guaranteed pickup, I should talk a little bit about guaranteed placement at some point later in this interview. We’re just trying to expand. We just did a partnership right now with News Direct, which is owned by two of the former directors of Business Wire who launched a new wire, a general market wire called News Direct. So we just partnered with them to tap into their guaranteed placements. They’ve got over 120 general market placements that a lot of Latinos also visit, like Yahoo Finance and CBS Market Watch. That’s because there are a lot of acculturated Latinos like you and I and Angela. We’re second or third-generation Hispanics who are comfortable in English, Spanish, or both languages.
J.R.:
Oh, acculturated. I thought you said cultured. Well, I’m not very cultured, but acculturated. Angela, I have to bring this up. I really appreciate you bringing up TAMACC several times when you’re talking. When you were little, your dad used to take you to TAMACC conventions, correct?
ANGELA:
I did. My dad was one of the founding members in the 70s. Manuel Sustaita. He passed away last year. So, I don’t wanna get emotional here, but I remember going to a lot of the meetings with him. He was very involved in the community. He loved the Latino community and was trying to — along with a lot of the other founding members — they would travel to Washington DC. There’s a picture on your website of gentlemen sitting around the table. My dad is in that picture. All of those gentlemen had a shared mission of making sure that Latinos had opportunities to also be successful entrepreneurs. And so, I do remember growing up with TAMACC.
I remember the plaques. I actually have some of those plaques still of my dad’s, like awards he was given. They actually had one of their national, or one of their eight conventions was in Waco, which was our hometown. I love that. And I know that my dad — by being exposed to that entrepreneurial spirit and seeing all the amazing people that were around that — instilled that bug in me. I think kids really absorb more than we realize. So I’m grateful for that. And I do have fond memories from the 70s. I remember it from being very young. I believe in the mission that they have and I’m just happy to see it continue to grow.
For the second half of this interview, please click here: