Check David Meerman Scott's "The new Rules of PR.For all our readers with busy postmodern, metropolitan lifestyles, here are the bare essentials:
The new rules of press releases •Don't just send press releases when “big news” is happening; find good reasons to send them all the time. •Instead of just targeting a handful of journalists, create press releases that appeal directly to your buyers. •Write releases replete with keyword-rich copy. •Create links in releases to deliver potential customers to landing pages on your Web site. •Optimize press release delivery for searching and browsing. •Drive people into the sales process with press releases.
When you're done with that check the rest of his blog to learn other important life lessons (I did!) – and enhance the suspicion that most of PR work relates to commonsense.