Press Releases Are My Secret to Marketing on a Small Budget: Here’s How I Do It With No PR Background

When my sister and I started Vinat to make buying wine online more accessible, I thought that any kind of PR was going to be prohibitively expensive for our small brand. Previously, I had worked in corporate finance, so I knew exactly how much the companies I worked for spent on engagements with PR firms.

And then we attended a webinar where we learned about platforms that help businesses write and publish press releases that get picked up by major news outlets like The Associated Press.

It was less expensive than we’d have expected ($125 on the platform we went with). It was a cost that felt very doable, so we decided to test putting out a press release as part of our launch strategy. 

I was blown away: Within a week of publishing this first press release, we saw our web traffic increase by 220 percent. Not only did several publications in the wine industry republish the release, but we also had inbound requests from journalists who wanted to include us in stories they were working on, brands who wanted to partner with us, and even potential investors who wanted to learn more about what we were doing. 

This cost us a third of the price of influencer marketing tests we had done and drove far more sales and visibility. Plus, having our brand associated with a legacy publication like The Associated Press helped improve credibility, something that is critical for a young food and beverage brand. 

We’ve since published a new press release about once a month and have continued to see the impact on website traffic, sales, general brand visibility, and consumer trust. Best of all, it’s really not that hard.

Here’s what I wish other business owners knew about publishing press releases so they can see similar benefits.

Choose the right angles

Initially, writing a press release felt intimidating — we thought we needed to be announcing huge news, like landing a celebrity client or appearing on Good Morning America. 

We’ve since learned that announcements don’t have to be big to be newsworthy — they just have to be interesting. Many topics can make a press release compelling to journalists or potential partners, such as: 

Tying it to current events

Our first press release came out in advance of Women’s History Month. We mentioned that our brand is making wine more approachable for women and made it clear to journalists that we could be a great fit for any stories they were working on for the holiday.

Pulling in recent studies

Anytime there’s a new industry market report, there are probably journalists writing about it, so if you can tie your press release to that data, you may increase your chances of getting coverage.

In our first press release, we also shared recent research that had come about about women’s perception of wine labels, underscoring how our approach of rebranding wines could bring in more female buyers. 

Associating yourself with well-known brands

About a week after our launch, we were invited to serve our wine at a collection release with Wolf & Badger, a store, and Maison Tai, a fashion brand, in New York City, and we published a press release about it.

While we got less press coverage from this type of press release, we were able to leverage them to get more partnerships.

When you’re considering writing a press release about a facet of your business, ask yourself: Who cares? Why is this newsworthy or important? Is it relevant to what journalists are covering right now?

Sometimes, determining relevance involves a little bit of Googling, but other times, it could simply mean paying attention to the topics and themes circulating in industry publications. 

We also found resources like Gloria Chou’s small business podcast and Ronjini Joshua’s DIY PR newsletter helpful in learning more about what media is interested in and when. (For example, we were surprised to find that pitching for holiday gift guides starts as early as July!)

Learn to write a compelling press release

Writing a document that will go out to professional journalists may seem overwhelming, but I’ve got good news: Press releases are meant to be short and concise.

We make sure all of our press releases have these simple elements:

A catchy headline and a short summary of the news

You want the announcement you’re making to be front and center in both the headline and the first sentence of your press release, and the headline to be interesting enough that folks want to click to learn more.

I love leveraging AI tools for the headline: You can drop in a written press release and have ChatGPT or similar apps suggest catchy titles, giving you ideas to start with. (Just double check they aren’t already being used by another company before clicking publish!)

Boilerplate information about your company

Many people reading this press release will have never heard of your brand, so include a short paragraph explaining who you are and what you do. 

An insightful quote

My sister and I always write up a relevant quote from one of us so that, if a writer wants to publish an article related to the press release, they already have a snippet they can include without even reaching out to us.

Information on relevant current events or studies

As mentioned above, if we can, we’ll include a few sentences tying our news to a trend journalists may currently be interested in. 

And that’s it! A paragraph or two is enough to pique interest and make publications want to reach out to you to learn more. 

After writing up our press release, we’ll often use Grammarly to help us make language more concise or ensure we’re conveying a professional tone. EZ Newswire, the platform we went with, also has an AI writing tool that creates a draft based on basic information you drop in, which is incredibly helpful for folks not familiar with press release structure. 

Maximize each release

Press releases are multifaceted marketing tools, as they can be used for promotion on other channels as well. A lot of times people don't realize a press release was written by the company — they think you’re just getting coverage. 

We typically post an announcement about every press release we send out on our Instagram, company LinkedIn, and each of our personal LinkedIn profiles.

After publishing our first press release, we also did more individual outreach, sending it to people in our network who are connected to journalists or who might offer credibility if they like the post about our launch announcement. This took more legwork, but it helped maximize the traction of that release.

We’ve also found press releases helpful in getting our foot in the door for exciting brand opportunities. For example, my sister has a friend who works at a major publication in NYC, so she shared the release with her and ended up getting invited to host a happy hour for the editorial team. When I was recently pitching us to help out with an event for New York Tech Week, I was able to include links to our press releases to help the team learn more about us. 

Finally, we’ve started building closer relationships with journalists in our industry to send them a heads-up about a press release before we publish it or even offer them an exclusive on the story. 

We’ve found the most success taking a niche approach to this outreach — focusing on local newspapers in Austin (where our company is based) and our hometown as well as journalists who specifically write about the wine industry or female-founded projects — since they may have fewer people contacting them constantly than brand-name, general-coverage publications. Over time, we expect this approach to help us get even more traction when we make company announcements.  

Ultimately, publishing press releases isn’t about driving immediate sales. It’s about boosting our credibility, getting our name out there, opening up new opportunities, and making our two-person, four-month-old company look incredibly legit.