With major retail chains throwing hundreds of millions of advertising dollars into the marketplace, it’s becoming harder and harder for independent retailers and small businesses to be heard by current and potential customers. Add a prolonged economic recession into the mix, and the need for more aggressive and creative marketing programs becomes essential.

Developed by Emerge Communications, the Retail Equalizer Email Marketing Program creates a level playing field by giving independent retailers an effective, low-cost way of connecting with their markets. The Retail Equalizer creates targeted email marketing campaigns that help companies stay front and center in the minds of their customers and prospects.

What is the Retail Equalizer?

• The Retail Equalizer is a low-cost, proven EMAIL marketing technique for developing retail businesses.
• The Retail Equalizer is a custom-designed, permission-based email marketing solution developed specifically for independent retailers and small businesses.
• The Retail Equalizer EMAIL MARKETING PROGRAM increases traffic to retail stores, builds customer loyalty, and increases revenues per customer.

Custom-Designed Email Marketing Campaigns

The Retail Equalizer custom-designs and delivers powerful, creative email promotions to each retailer’s permission-based list of customers and prospects. Working with the client’s specific promotion idea and specifications, the Retail Equalizer then designs the email campaign using lively and colorful graphics and effective sell-copy that gets customers into the retailer’s store.

The Retail Equalizer will also help retailers develop their email marketing list with creative promotion ideas. Their list development program is great for retail employees, too, because it makes getting new sign-ups easy and pressure-free.

Along with the creative benefits, the Retail Equalizer manages their client’s email list, sends out the emails, monitors and report backs the results — how many emails were opened, how many clicked on links in each message, how many were bounced or non-deliverable.

The Retail Equalizer adheres to strict anti-spam standards so that retail customers and prospects will welcome their messages.

Get more information about the Retail Equalizer.

So, if all this seems like a waste of time and money, it probably is. The story does not get picked up by traditional media, and the release just languishes unseen and unread on the Internet.

Now comes Emerge Communications and a timely article giving you Twenty Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Press Release.

Almost all the ideas they suggest are good ones, especially if you are a small to medium-sized business. Send the release to employees? Makes sense! Send it to your customers? Probably makes sense! Include it in your press and shareholder kits? A no-brainer!

If you have wondered how you can get your releases to work harder, this article offers some good suggestions.

Internet businesses, consultants, coaches, service businesses — all have a nearly insatiable need to market their services. “Keeping the pipeline full” is a constant source of worry and an on-going battle.

Most businesses wisely use an integrated marketing approach: networking, directory advertising, local and Internet advertising, and participation in various online social networks. One marketing tool that is often under-utilized or applied ineffectively is publicity, either generated by news releases or feature stories.

Although ”getting ink” in the local newspaper and business magazine is a terrific lead generator, many other publicity channels are frequently overlooked. Blogs, web sites, RSS feeds, and online news outlets are all hungry for new information. And one of the best methods of delivering news to these channels is through online news distribution services.

We’ve put together a list of the ten best free press release services. All of these sites are suitable for businesses trying to market their services. In fact, there is no reason why you could not use several of them to extend their reach. Most offer additional, fee-based products in addition to their free services.

Of course, to distribute a press release for free means you need to write a press release, or have one written for you. At the end of this article, we provide links to three short, but helpful articles about writing press releases.

If you are looking for professional assistance, Frank Marafiote offers press release writing and other marketing services through his company, Emerge Communications. Frank has been writing news releases since 1976 and promises a professional job.

Here’s our list of the Ten Best Free Press Release Services –

#1 Free Press Release.com
Free-Press-Release.com has been the No. 1 in the free press release distribution service area since 2003. Customers can submit an unlimited number of release, up to 3,000 words in length.

#2 Prlog.org
Some of the features of this service include: HTML links in the press release body, search engine optimized dedicated web page & PDF version, multiple categories & keywords, spam protection on your email address, the ability to edit/delete press releases, press release scheduling. Press release distribution includes Google News, numerous search engines, numerous javascript, html & RSS feeds.

#3 1888pressrelease.com
Customers can distribute releases to search engines, news-wires and websites to help increase awareness of their product, company, or self.  Services aim to help customers reach journalists and improve visibility in search engine listings, a concept known as search engine optimization, so customers can get the most publicity possible.

The service allows customers to attach files, logos or images to their press release so they’re ready for journalists and others who need the information for publication. A customer’s website can also be displayed within the press release to make it easy to lead readers directly to the site.

#4 I-Newswire.com
Customers may only submit one release per week per website per company. Customers found abusing the free submission can be banned from using the service. They do not allow the placement of html in the releases; however, customers may use complete URL’s in their releases.

#5 PR.com
PR.com is a directory of businesses, products and services, a press release distribution service, job search website, and online publication of articles, reviews and celebrity interviews.  Customers can submit news and press releases via their global online news and press release distribution service with distribution points such as AskJeeves News, Excite News, Topix.net, MSN News.

#6 Free-Press-Release-Center
This is an online news and press release distribution service for small and medium-sized businesses and corporate communications.

The service allows keyword linking. With each press release customers can choose a keyword and a URL which will appear as a link (using the keyword as the anchor text) in their press release.

#7 24-7 Press Release
Through their strategic partnership with PR Newswire, this service’s Mass Media Distribution distribution package offers broad exposure for customers. The PR Newswire network allows press releases to be accessed by nearly 80,000 journalists and distribution to approximately 4000+ web sites including Yahoo News, Google News, CBS Marketwatch, MSNBC, ABC News, CNN.com, and AOL.

In addition to their free press release service, they also offer submission approvals within 48 hours, the ability to schedule your release for a future date, over 400 industry channels, distribution to opt-in journalists, freelance writers and RSS/Javascript subscribers, and press releases stored in database for possible future story seekers.

#8 Free-Press-Releases
This service says its press releases end up on Google News and thousands of niche sites across the Internet. Many websites with focused subject areas take content from its categories relevant to their readers and display as news on their own sites.  Freepressreleases is also indexed by many global news mining organisations that hunt for specific information.  Freepressreleases also offers each category as a specific RSS feed.

#9 PressAbout.com
PressAbout.com is a free press release distribution service in the form of a blog. This allows customers to distribute press releases to search engines, news-wires and websites to help increase awareness company or personal products and services for free. The service aims to help customers reach the public directly and improve visibility in search engine listings. All press releases will be read to ensure the quality of the site is maintained.

#10 PressMethod
PressMethod is an international free press release distribution company. Their mission is to help the Internet community access interesting stories happening in the business world.

Want to write your own release but need some pointers? Check out these brief articles –

The Basics of Press Releases

How to Write a Press Release

Release Writing Tips