Forgotten free source of clients for all you offliners.

Yep! Friday night time to spend some of those beer tokens I been working for all week.
So I'll let you into a little secret of mine seeing that you're all such nice guys.
I've noticed a few of you are having trouble obtaining clients. So what do we do?
We get the clients to come to us.
How?
The good old fashion press release.

Now a press or news release is not an advertisment (well it is). It's an article
informing the readers of an event, a new product, a new service ect.
Something that would benifit the readers.
You don't have to pay for this, the newspapers will gladly print it if they feel
it is of the public interest. After all it's free content for them.
And it needs to be good content to be accepted.
I target local newspaers for this but I am going to approach the nationals
once I find someone who will write for 2 pack of Ramen noodles and a Twinky.
It works particualy well if they have a business section and
it can work for websites if you write the article about your niche and refer to your site but I tend to use them to promote my services.
Another plus is if they publish it on their website you can get a nice high PR
backlink if done properly.
Anyway guys Just thought I'd mention it as some of you are struggling.
Here's a wiki on how to write one.
Take action get you're phone ringing off the hook.

Great idea.. I'm going to have to send out a few of these. Offline marketing for online services seems to be fairly untapped around my area.

Another great idea...thanks!

Have you tested this method as a purely online release...that is getting offline clients via online PR channels? I am currently using online PRs to generate leads for local clients but had not taken the next logical step in using them to get the clients directly.

Nice post. Very helpful. Thanks.

If the PR is supposedly for items of public interest, how would the newspaper editor look upon my release about how I do websites/SEO or whatever for local businesses as a "for profit" enterprise?

Seems maybe the thing to do is to offer a PR about how your company will perform a free service for charities, and of course make mention or at least strongly imply that you do these same services for "for profit" companies as well.

I've been contemplating doing just this... remember, most local charities have local business owners on their boards, and usually influential people in the community.