Every successful business from Fortune 50 companies to the entrepreneurial CEO recognizes the power of publicity and the media. And, the most successful of those companies have developed a strategic publicity platform as an integral part of their business plan capitalizing on the power of the media.

Following are five of the most important reasons to market with press releases:

• Prospects must know that you exist before they can buy from you. And, they have to believe what you say. In other words, you must be visible as well as credible. There is no better way to generate visibility and build credibility than through the systematic process of writing, pitching and placing press releases both online and offline.
• Publicity is FREE! Or, practically free. If you can craft a good pitch, you can easily capture media attention that can generate thousands of dollars worth of coverage without spending any money.
• Publicity is more believable than advertising. Because publicity appears as editorial it is more credible than paid advertising. Most media consumers believe that if the media runs a story, it must be true.
• Publicity has a domino effect. Once you get the first story, a ripple effect often leads to another and another and another. This happens because the media wants to cover what is hot and what everyone is talking about. They monitor other media and will often make referrals between themselves.
• Publicity can make you famous - and for more than Andy Warhol's 15 minutes! Publicity is the best tool available to take you and your business from commodity position to expert position. Through systematically marketing with press releases, you can quickly become recognized as a leading expert on your topic. All without claiming to be the expert, the media will do the positioning for you. The result is clients will seek out your services and will pay you more money.

However, knowing why you should use press releases as a marketing tool, will not do anything for your business until you actually write and place them. So challenge yourself to begin marketing with press releases today and get publicized.