User group is a society of people keen on computer and software news. People regardless of their age, sex or occupation join such groups to share news, introduce new software, learn something new or simply to communicate. Beside common interest in software and video games user group members are united geographically. Usually they are the citizens of the same city or county. Usually they meet in person once or twice a month.

You should not confuse user groups with newsgroups such as Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, Usenet and the like. User groups are not forums; however each of them usually has its own website, forum and/or newsletter.

One group has from 10 to thousands members, depending on the group location and its special interest. There are a lot of groups which are of general consumer interest and also the ones focused on Macintosh, Unix/Linux platforms or software development.

Approaching user groups is an efficient word-spreading technique. The news about our software gets spread not only among the members of the group but also their friends, families, co-workers, etc.

Letters for user groups are usually sent to the moderator, news editor or director depending who is in charge of receiving press releases/news sheets.

Yes, it is different. User groups require a more personal approach than editors, probably because they have more time than the latter.

We recommend salutation and by-name address to begin the letter with. Then explain the reason why you send your news to the recipient. User groups love all kinds of bonuses, discounts, lotteries, prizes, etc. Decide if you want to offer something special to the user group and if so dwell upon this next. Then comes the reference to the press release or more product information available below or on the website.

So, a well-structured letter to user groups has the following look:

1. Salutation and by-name address;
2. Reason to write and send the letter;
3. Special offer if any;
4. Reference to more information about the product;
5. Press release.

No, if you agree to follow our recommendations on press release writing and distribution.

1. We send press releases only to editors and journalists who are in charge of receiving press releases/news sheets. We use only email addresses publicly published on magazines’ websites or provided by the editorial team.
2. We’ve worked for 4 years already and systematically update our database of addresses. All recipients who had ever sent us unsubscribe requests were immediately deleted from the database and apologized by our manager.
3. We take all the responsibility so that if you face any problems you can refer to our team and we will handle the situation. Besides, by your request we can add the distributed-by note to the bottom of your letter.

After the mailing has been done, our manager can provide you the report on:

• actual number of addresses the letter was sent to;
• topic categorization of the custom mailing list;
• country/language categorization of the custom mailing list.

We can not provide you the list of names or emails of publications your press release was sent to, sorry.

With a systematic work with the press and the interesting focus of the press copy you can expect online reviews in 2-7 days and printed reviews in 3-6 months after the mailing. We strongly recommend preparing the press release long beforehand than the time you want to get you software reviewed.

To increase the effectiveness of press release delivery, we provide an method to personalize letters sent to the editors of computer editions. This means that each letter is addressed to a particular person – the editor of a magazine. Personalized letters prove to be far more appealing to the editor than those just describing a product.

You can create such introductory parts of the letters using special macros (computer code) %%name%% и %%edition%%. For example: