Press Release
This was a successful, strategically targeted press release, designed to push a sales initiative as an “exclusive opportunity” to share lifestyle brand with celebrity and elite visitors.
Result
This press release was sent to only 5 outlets and blogs around the immediate neighborhood of the fitness center, and then picked up by larger news sources. All 200 promotional memberships were sold within 4 days of the announcement, netting an ROI for this release of over $40,000.
Blog Post
This post was contracted but never ultimately used as part of a campaign to promote a lifestyle website and email marketing company. The objective was to attract clicks via high-volume search terms and structured FAQ, enticing headlines, and then to convert clickthroughs to email subscribes.
Headline 1: How to lose 1% of your body fat EVERY WEEK – without crash diets or workouts
Headline 2: Dump the diet: lose 1% of uncomfortable body fat every week with these easy hacks
Email Subject: Real (easy) ways to lose 1% of your body fat every week – without diets.
Post Body:
If ever there was a season for weight loss, it’s definitely the post-holiday bump when it seems almost everyone is looking for ways to undo the mistakes of huge family dinners, snacks and drinks at parties, and an endless procession of seasonal desserts everywhere from the office to your kids’ schoolyard. Google reports a 60% increase in search terms like “weight loss” and “lose weight without dieting” just from January to March each year. It seems like nobody can find the answer they’re looking for.
But does it have to be such a struggle? Or can you lose weight without forcing yourself into an unpleasant diet or uncomfortable exercise?
It turns out it’s a lot more simple than you might expect. Here’s our 5 tips for dropping body fat (whether it’s seasonal or not) quickly and without changing your whole life:
Strength training focuses weight loss by burning body fat
If you’re already somebody who likes to move about and has a gym membership, learning how to do basic strength training workouts (with the help of a personal trainer) is the best way to burn body fat while maintaining muscle. That means you’ll keep your strength and energy, while still losing weight – no more feeling decimated by endless cardio workouts.
Higher protein intake supercharges weight loss
With an ample supply of protein, your body doesn’t need to store fat from sugars and carbohydrates and can process them more effectively (meaning you digest them better and they don’t tend to stick around as stubborn body fat). Doctors and nutritionists recommend eating about 1g of protein for every pound of bodyweight.
More sleep = more weight loss
Not getting enough quality sleep throws your body completely out of whack. Sleeping less than the recommended 8-10 hours per night leads to the body becoming unable to properly regulate things like hunger and metabolism in an efficient way. Get that shut eye and retrain your body to respond to hormone signals about food and fat.
You can easily cut back on calories without a “diet”
If you’re keeping track of your caloric intake, it can quickly become evident that there might be room for reduction, without compromising your favorite meals and snacks. Nutritionists suggest hitting the low-hanging fruit first and watching the impact it makes on your weight loss: drop sodas and sugary beverages in favor of club soda or flavored waters. An average Starbucks beverage can have as many as 400 calories per serving! Skip it.
Alcohol is secretly tipping the scale against you
And it’s not just from the drinks themselves. In the same way that drinking lowers inhibitions and changes your regular internal decision making protocols, studies have shown it can add as much as 4-500 calories by making your weight loss goals seem less important or less attainable, in favor of the immediate gratification of late night junk food. Cut the alcohol until your goal weight loss is in reach and then evaluate how it fits into your life.
There won’t be a magical fix to drop body fat and increase your energy. But there are small changes you’ll hardly notice after the first few weeks that can make a HUGE difference in your end results.
Subscribe here for free weight loss motivation and all the latest advice and research about the best ways to stay on your health game for life.
Structured FAQ for rich result snippets on Google:
How much weight can you lose in one week?
It is possible to safely lose between 1-2% of a person’s overall body fat per week, as part of a healthy weight loss plan.
Can you lose weight without crash diets?
Nutritionists, trainers, and doctors agree: crash diets aren’t good or safe for almost anyone. Learning to adapt your current intake and exercise levels (even moderately) can help most people drop body fat and keep it off, long term.
Is crossfit healthy?
Extreme exercise and workout programs like Crossfit emphasize the wrong elements of fitness and nutrition, according to research. Most people are better off finding an exercise program they enjoy and investing some time and energy into that, rather than pushing their body too far and risking injury or permanent damage.
Can alcohol make people fat?
For people who consume even a moderate amount of alcohol each week, cutting back can have tremendous results. Alcohol contains sugars and calories most people don’t consider, and the lowering of inhibitions and decision making capabilities means more unnecessary calories on a night out than without drinking.
Result
Because it was never used, the resulting impact was never measured. But focusing on key work distribution for terms like “weight loss” and “diet,” as well as subject-relevant alt-tags and h-tags, ensured this would be ranked as high-quality, informative content by Google.
The addition of structured data like the FAQ here would allow this article to be included in Google’s rich snippets or rich results as an answer to queries like “can drinking alcohol make me fat?”
Written Interview
Press Interview with Company A CEO, designed to talk up successes and garner new links, as outlined in the case study. After working closely with her for several months, I was asked by the CEO to begin responding in her voice to media inquiries (with her final sign-off before delivery).
Written to be conversational in style (as though the CEO herself were speaking directly to the journalist), educated and informed in delivery, this reply to an interview request was strategically drafted to ensure three key points were included in final quotations:
Company A is known for ethical treatment of users and community
Company A has donated over $25,000 in recent years to community initiatives
Company A understands personal hardships of users
1. What’s your name, job title, and can you tell us a bit about your background?
Sure. My name is [Name Withheld] and I have been the CEO of Company A since its inception in 2011. Before establishing this brand, I was the director of a private equity firm.
2. What were you or others using before Company A came on the scene?
Well, it’s silly to pretend that there aren’t competitors for our platform – everyone knows some of the higher end brands that have been around seemingly forever. What was lacking when I sat down to examine those brands though, was a platform focusing on the actual needs and wants of this community, rather than trying to sell a high-gloss package that took your money and ultimately didn’t deliver on results.
3. What are some of the unique points of frustration you have faced?
Beginning any new business is going to feel challenging and insurmountable at times. And working in our sector, there was stigma and distrustfulness from day one. We have been excluded from vanilla advertising platforms like Yelp, Google Ads, Facebook Ads – you name it. We were blocked from traditional paths to success on a lot of fronts. So in some ways, we understood the frustrations and concerns of our users in a very profound sense, since we were also experiencing some of their same exclusions, but as a company on a grander scale.
Beyond general stigma surrounding the adult industry, we were confronted with users who had been abused by other sites and bad actors – there’s no more delicate way to say that; they were defrauded, they were publicly outed, and many would tell you they simply didn’t get their money’s worth at the end of the day. This really drove home the need for us to act in an ethical manner in all of our decisions, no matter how trivial. This became a defining element of the Company A brand.
4. What was the big a-ha moment when you decided you needed to try something new?
The first three people I proposed the idea to each replied “Oh, my god. Please do this!” and I knew then that there was something to it.
Not one original investor or early adopter told me “are you sure this is something nobody else is doing?” We all knew from experience that it wasn’t. We felt like revolutionaries.
5. Tell me about the most positive experience you’ve had as the head of this company?
In the last few years, we’ve had enough success that we have been able to reinvest in the community we serve, and that has felt really positive and really significant. Company A has given away more than $25k in cash donations to local aid groups as well as to individuals coping with hardships. It’s really important that while other brands are maybe making similar moves for press reasons, that Company A is being mindful of where the money really goes and keeping our funding local – in many cases also anonymous.
6. Do you have advice for other people using this product or service?
Don’t accept what already is if what already is doesn’t work. You know? Take the landscape that exists and find ways to make it work for you. Don’t assume that because nobody else is doing it, or nobody else is doing it the way you think it should be done, that it can’t be. You might just be the first one to do it your way! Once you’ve broken through, others will follow – as has been the case with Company A! We’re thrilled to have brands imitating our style and offerings; it makes clear the unmet demand within the community as a whole.
Result
The final article included all three strategic points in a combination of direct quotations and editorial comment, and the site garnered a branded linked mention from a high authority news outlet, as well as a targeted keyword mention link to an blog post about stigma.
30 minutes of thoughtful writing resulted in a glowing article praising the brand and CEO, and 2 SEO-relevant links valued at over $2500 (if they had been purchased as sponsored mentions).