Oct 07 ' 20 - by Kevin Petersen - Press Release - 0

Using Online Press Releases During The Holiday Season

As we round the last corner of the year, it's officially time to start thinking about holiday offers. For most brands, the holiday shopping season kicks off with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, followed by a whirlwind December. And the time to start promoting your holiday offers? Now. We recommend you start gearing up in September by creating content like email campaigns and social media posts, and shoring up your website with conversion marketing strategies like onsite retargeting offers, a streamlined checkout process, and a cart recovery campaign. 

Then, you're ready to hit launch in late October, early November.

While we always recommend a smart mix of communication strategies, including email, social media, in-store, and online promotions, don't forget the value of using online press releases as well. Here are 5 advantages of using press releases during the holiday season. 

#1 - Promote Your Holiday Deals

The primary reason for using a press release is to share your news! Let potential customers know about special offers and promotions, one-day-only shopping events, in-store events and promotions, temporary holiday hours or policies, shipping offers, and anything else that affects their holiday shopping experience. 

#2 - Get In The News

Especially for local and brick and mortar stores, your holiday promotions could have a big impact on your community. If you're hosting an event, like pictures with Santa, attending local pop-up shopping events, or donating a portion of your proceeds to a local charity, try and get your name in the news!

Publishing your press release is the first step. Next, you should share it on your website and social media sites. Finally, you should do some digging to find the contact information for journalists and editors at your local newspapers, community magazines, and television networks and ask them to share your holiday happenings. 

#3 - Boost SEO 

A natural benefit of publishing online press releases is the SEO value they have. A well-written SEO press release that answers a question or solves a problem, that contains strategic anchor text links, and that is optimized for long tail keywords is more likely to rank organically in the search engine results pages. 

#4 - Increase Website Traffic

In addition to your release potentially ranking in the SERPs for keyword searches, online press releases also help drive website traffic directly from the news and media sites where they're syndicated. Online PR Media partners with more than 5,000 news and media sites, and many customers receive 100+ full-page reprints on these reputable outlets. When you upload your press release for distribution, you can choose up to 7 industries that help us decide where to send your news. By choosing relevant industries, your news goes directly to the news and media sites that cover those industries; whose readers consume news just like yours!

This gives you direct access to a previously untapped and unattainable audience that may see your news and visit your website. 

#5 - The Wire Is Quiet In December

Using press releases to share your holiday offers in October and November is pretty common, but December is a slow month for press releases. Why? Maybe because companies are in holiday mode, wrapping up the year and waiting for the New Year to start "working" again. Maybe retailers assume shoppers have already made up their minds by December or they're just too busy with the holiday rush to focus on marketing. 

But December is the perfect time to publish press releases because the wire is quiet. There will be less competition for placement, journalists will be actively looking for stories, and customers will be looking to snag last minute deals. Even online retail giant, Amazon isn't above using press releases to communicate their December promotions! 

Plan Your Holiday Press Strategy Now

There's still plenty of time to incorporate online press releases into your holiday marketing strategy. Need help with writing or selecting a distribution package? Online PR Media is here for you!