Distributing your Press Release

by Daniel Janal

OK, so you've written your press release (if not, see Writing a press release), and now you're ready to distribute it to the world.

There are three major ways to accomplish this task: via your Web site, your company's list of customers and vendors, and news wire services.

• Post the press release to your Web site: Make it easy on yourself, build a template and index your releases.
• Send the press release to your stakeholders (customers, vendors, and reporters): Make sure the subject line is compelling enough to make them open your e-mail.
• Targeted lists and news wire services: In addition to Business Wire and PR Newswire, there are some new on-line news wire services to help you spread the word.
• Expert perspective: Take some advice from a pro in the field.

Post the press release to your Web site

In Writing a press release, I suggested you create a template for press releases and simply paste each new release into the template. You'll save a lot of time!

Creating a Web template for your releases should be your first activity. Posting your press release on your Web site ensures that your message will be seen by people who are looking for information about your company. After all, they came to your site. You didn't have to go about finding them. They are your most important readers!

Reporters also expect to find your press releases on your Web site. When a major company issues news, it frequently posts a link on the front page that directs people to the press release and—frequently—multimedia material, such as a video of the press conference, an interview with the CEO, spreadsheets of financial information, and links to background material and pictures.

You should also create a page that indexes all your press releases. The preferred style is the most current release on top, with all others following in date order. The home page should link to this press release index page so people can find information easily.

Send the press release to your customers, vendors, and reporters.

Every company should build databases of customers, vendors, reporters, investors, and other key communities. Marketing communications professionals call these people "stakeholders" because they have a stake in the future of your company. Stakeholders can also include employees, people in the community, and politicians.

On day one, your Web site should offer these stakeholders a way to communicate with you. After all, the 'Net is all about building relationships, one at a time. For example, I offer to send my stakeholders a free newsletter each month with my new marketing ideas and opinions. In return for giving them the newsletter, I get their e-mail addresses so I can send them the latest news about my company, and even current events as they pertain to my business.

Other companies that use newsletters to build databases and create dialogues with stakeholders ask for demographic and contact information as well. I prefer to ask one question, their e-mail address, so I can get the highest possible return. However, my colleagues who use this technique say they get a good return as well as useful information. The trick here is to find the happy medium: getting as much information as you need, without turning people off—and away.

You can even ask people to subscribe to different lists. Customers can sign on to one list, reporters can sign on to another. "Meet the Press at ShowStoppers," a media reception for reporters at major trade shows that I co-own, offers two lists: one for sponsors to find out the latest news; the other for reporters to find out the news from sponsors. 

For an example of how this list-gathering process works, go to ShowStoppers and look for the link at the bottom of the page for sponsors and the media. If you click on the link, you'll see a form that asks for basic contact information. After people fill in the form, the material is sent to a mailing list program, MessageMedia Unity Mail, where the information is sorted and stored for future use. You can also use e-mail newsletter mailing sites, such as Topica and eGroups. To read more about this, see eFuse's E-mail lists, E-mail for fun and profit, and Direct Marketing via e-mail.

Whenever ShowStoppers has news, we can select the appropriate list or lists and send the press release immediately. So can you.

Of course, don't abuse this privilege by adding people without their will, harassing them with a press release every day, or selling the list. These actions would be seen as violating their trust. If you do this, you'll only burn yourself.

Compelling subject lines

To get attention from reporters or your own private list is a very important matter. People get so much Spam every day, they need a compelling reason to open a message, or they will simply delete it. To gain attention, your only tools are the sender's line and subject line in the e-mail program.

Your sender's line should contain your company name, i.e., mediarelations@yourcompany.com. That should make your message stand out from the Spam.

Now you need to create a subject line that compels them to open the message. You have less than 60 characters to work with, or about eight words. So you have to be very selective and to the point. Consider using subjects such as:

• New product announcement
• Product upgrade announced
• Earnings report
   

Be creative, but be on the point. Remember that people can hit the delete key very, very quickly.

Send the press release to reporters via targeted lists and news wire services

The most important advice I can give you is that PR is not a numbers game. It doesn't matter how many times your press release was reprinted or rewritten—it matters that the right publications wrote about your company and delivered the messages you wanted to the public.

That means you need to create a defined message that appeals to a reporter at a publication that targets your audience. Do your research and find the right publications and the reporters at those publications that write about your field.

You can find the right reporters by using the targeted research created by companies such as Press Access, Media Map, and Corporate News.com. You'll have to pay a fee to use these services.

News wires

Another important tactic is to send press releases over the news wires.

News wires have been the valuable allies of public relations people for several generations. Business Wire,  and PR Newswire have been the two leading players in this market.

They will send your press release to hundreds or thousands of reporters at daily newspapers and trade publications. You can select the list of publications and reporters to include (for example, the lifestyle editors of daily newspapers or the leading high technology publications).

These news wires will send the release out for you. The cost is based on the size of the list and the length of your press release. Fees start at $75 for a targeted list of industry-specific reporters (such as technology or automobiles) and go up from there based on  the number of recipients and the length of the press release.

An added advantage of these two services is that on-line news services, such as Yahoo Finance!, frequently post these releases on their sites. If your company is public, your press releases will be listed for anyone to find. If your company is not public but you are doing a deal with a public company such as Coca-Cola, your press release will appear whenever anyone does a search for that company. Try it now! Go to http://finance.yahoo.com/ and search for COKE, the company's stock symbol. You'll see the company's press releases as well as those offered by PR Newswire and Business Wire.

Which news wire?

Business Wire and PR Newswire work with large, public companies, as well as small start-ups.

Although these companies have been in business for years and dominate the marketplace for the traditional media, a number of new press-release distribution companies have established a beachhead for the on-line media and numerous traditional reporters who subscribe to their lists.

These companies include

• Internet Wire
• Internet News Bureau
• URLwire, which promotes new, content-based Web sites, not products.

Since I haven't used these services extensively, I posted a query on the I-PR list, which is read by people who are involved in their companies' public relations activities. Here are a few of the responses I received to the question of how these new services compared to the traditional ones:

"I've personally used INB and am very happy with the results.  For on-line news,
it FAR surpasses the traditional distributions (PR Newswire and BusinessWire)," wrote Janet Westergaard, Avalon Communications.

PR veteran Knox Richardson uses the new services as well as the traditional ones. "I use these wires to supplement Business Wire to ensure that my core targets will be exposed to the messages more than once—without double planting.  Here are my estimates:  With Business Wire I reach about 25 percent of audience with a frequency of 1.  With Business Wire plus one service, I reach 40 percent with a frequency 2.  With Business Wire plus two services, I reach more than 50 with a frequency of 3 and altogether at least 70 percent with at least a frequency of 1," he said. "I see a fairly good spike on pickup with Business Wire plus 2 on 'Net stories."

However, he uses these wires only for Internet-based companies. "I would not use the supplemental wires for non-Internet news since the majority of editors who opt-in for these services cover the 'Net space, some exclusively.  And they won't get you picked up by the big search engines where Business Wire and PR Newswire will," Richardson said.

"I recently started distributing press releases for high-tech clients and have spent a lot of time researching various distribution services," said Paula Harvan. "I finally opted to go with Business Wire because of its reach (high-tech corridor circuit) and customer service, and long-standing credibility." 

Bob Harris, Manager, Creative & Research / Press & Publicity for eduverse.com, used Internet News Bureau's International Services module for the United States as well as Spain and Latin America. "Their targeted module/journalist subscribed news distribution vehicle is the only way I'll travel when I need immediate on-line results!"

"We recorded a flood of media and consumer traffic to our freeENGLISH Web site—specifically, on the day of the news distribution and for two days immediately following the distribution of the news release. We continue to be picked up by Spanish media 30 days after the initial distribution!" said Harris of eduverse.com, a technology-based company at the forefront of creating and marketing on-line educational programs for use in school systems around the world. He also uses Business Wire for corporate press releases.

Expert perspective—which service to use

Eric Ward has studied the on-line press release distribution business for five years and makes his living editing and publishing an e-mail news service, Eric's URLwire. Here is his perspective.

"There are several very good e-mail based news release services. The problem, and I see it every day from very savvy PR folks, is that they use the wrong service for the news they are sending. Part of the blame must go to the news release service for too eagerly taking the fee to send a release that has little chance of getting any pick up," he said.

"The 'Net-based services can be used as an alternative or in tandem with the biggies like PR Newswire or Business Wire. The services reach different places in different ways. For example, you can get Business Wire releases via Yahoo as a search result option, something that only a service with the clout of a Business Wire could make happen. However, Business Wire, PR Newswire, will never get into the personal inbox of a targeted journalist. They are about mass, not granularity.

"Likewise, each of the smaller 'Net-based services are good, as long as you know which one to use for what type of news. The key is to match your specific news to the service you are using based on the service's strengths.

"Use InternetWire for news related in some way to the Internet, but not so much for announcing a new Web site, finance, a merger or acquisition, or personnel matters.

"Use Internet News Bureau for Internet and non-'Net news. It has several different 'modules' or segments of journalist groups you can send news to. Best for news about a new Internet software or hardware product, or news related to a Web site that is not a brand new site. Also good for news about a product for sale at a Web site, and for E-commerce related news.

"Use BusinessWire or PR Newswire for any of the above, and especially if the news is for a public company that trades on one of the stock exchanges, as any stock symbols contained in the body copy of a news release will be returned in the 'news' section for quote searches at most financial sites. The advantage being that they have enormous distribution throughout the portals, i.e., the average surfer might well come across your release when doing a search at Yahoo. The negative? I'm a writer myself and I attach no psychological urgency to anything they send. I know that a gazillion other people are getting it.

"Use URLwire for announcing a Web site for the first time, or to announce a massive redesign/relaunch of a popular existing site. Also good for announcing a major new content addition at an existing site and for live Web-based events or when the site itself *is* the news.''

Ward hand-selects the editors and reporters who will receive the press release from a database of 13,000 subscribers who have provided a personal profile of the exact types of site launches they want to hear about.

Now you've done everything right. What are your results? We'll explore that issue in the next article.

About the author

Speaker, author, and consultant Daniel Janal's new book is called Dan Janal's Guide to Marketing on the Internet: Getting People to Visit, Buy and Become Customers for Life. He also has written How to Publicize High Tech Products and Services, and Publicity Builder (a book with software). He can be reached at dan@janal.com, www.janal.com.

Illustrations: JensBonnke for Artville