Penny Pinching Publicity is a private monthly membership forum owned by Shannon Cherry of Be Heard Solutions. I joined as a member a little over a month ago and wanted to test it out before mentioning to you all. So far, I’m very impressed with the value Shannon provides with PPP. My membership has saved me money and time so far, both with crafting my releases and submitting them online.

Participants are taught the insider secrets of working the media by Shannon, who is an expert in Public Relations and Marketing. While I’ve been doing press releases with good effect since 2004, now I feel confident that I’ll be able to generate even more free publicity and establish a relationship with the media, both local and otherwise.

The forum provides a place to ask questions about how to pitch a story to an editor, and get feedback on your marketing efforts from Shannon and the other members… this is really valuable when writing a release. Sometimes others can point out things that aren’t obvious to us, but that can hamper our efforts.

Shannon provides hot leads that members can follow up on to try to get media coverage, a free press release each month that can be edited by members (and this is worth well more than the monthly membership fee!) , notices about changes in the media and a monthly report with tips and tricks to help small business owners get lots of free attention and publicity. She also gives members a checklist to help them submit their release.

Shannon even includes a media list with 350 publications to send your release.

I have found the membership to be extremely valuable so far, and am looking forward to continually learning how to leverage publicity for more traffic and sales. The free monthly press release alone is worth far more than $19.95. Shannon provides a lot of value for a very low price.

Many of us have used press releases to get free publicity, but we no doubt are making costly mistakes and handicapping ourselves. It’s extremely valuable to learn the ins and outs from an expert. Anyone who wants to get a lot of marketing bang for their buck should consider joining.

Go here to get more information: Penny Pinching Publicity

The other week at Mom Masterminds I posted about a press release that I wrote for my Mom. It was announcing an event she was hosting for breast cancer awareness at her Tea Room in Fairburn, GA.

Since then, she has gotten several phone calls from reporters. One of whom was from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who wrote an article that appeared on the first page of the food section. Another was a local county newspaper that put her picture and a write up on the front page. And she says her phone is ringing off the hook with reservations.

Are you doing press releases to get free publicity? If not, why not? Because you aren’t sure if anyone is interested in your online business? Think again. They just might be. The key is finding something newsworthy that benefits the reporter’s customer – the readers of the newspaper.

Here is where I learned about writing effective press releases.