Whilst it is true that newspaper circulation figures have probably halved in the last twenty years it still represents a significant number of people that you can contact, and it is especially relevant if you are a small team with local sponsorship.
After all, mentioning your sponsors in a national newspaper, assuming they’d agree to print your press release anyway, isn’t going to raise awareness for Gregg’s Kitchens in Scunthorpe, for example. What Gregg would probably like is that his business name gets mentioned in the Scunthorpe Telegraph.
If not a direct mention then a photo of the team riders in the article in his sponsored leathers or on the sponsored bike. He may be just happy to see how his money is being spent and to be able to read about it.
Gregg’s Kitchens is a made up business name by me, but the newspaper isn’t. The Scunthorpe Telegraph website got around 615,000 visits during the month of July. So even if a newspaper has seen a fall in print sales, press releases can still find a big audience.
Social media
The material put into a press release can also serve to inform your social media followers or be re-drafted to use on a website. It can be packaged into a professional format to post on your Facebook page after the race weekend and also mentioned and linked to on Twitter, or other social media. Better still is to have it posted on your website then link to it through your Facebook and other social media, driving visitors to your website. This way you can directly contact people who have already shown an interest in your team, be it fans or sponsors, and they can read the latest news, whilst increasing site traffic.
Racing teams (and riders for that matter) with out-of-date websites are really disappointing for fans looking to find out about their teams and heroes. I cannot count the amount of dead web links from Facebook and Twitter I’ve clicked to find out more about a rider or a team only to receive 404 page doesn’t exist, page under construction (and it may have been for several years), a holding page saying a client has registered the page, or where I click the latest news page and the last entry was four years ago. Please keep it up to date.
So what could press releases for your rider or team actually do?
- It means the businesses that support you get to find out what is going on.
- You enable your fans to read about your successes.
- You might get an opportunity to mention your sponsors or at least make them visible in a photograph.
- Your sponsors might consider supporting you again if they hear how things are going, good or bad on the track.
- Increase awareness and attract further sponsorship.
- Raise your profile in your community.
- You get quality material that could be used on your social media.
- Material that can be adapted and posted on your website.
Are you getting the best publicity for your racing team? Are your sponsors getting value for money? Could you attract more sponsorship if people knew more about your team?
You might have some of the above already in place. Why not talk to us about it and we can discuss a coordinated plan that provides you with the best exposure. Press releases for your rider or race team keep your sponsors happy and you keep racing.