The Daily Feed Issue #30: Are press releases worth it?

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Today we're going to chat about press releases and if it's worth the time and money to put out a press release. First lets define what a press release is. There are generally two kinds: News releases and feature releases. News press releases are announcements. Feature releases are columns, articles and essays that are designed to be republished by newspapers and magazines verbatim as filler content. 

Press releases are generally hit and miss. I have had no success putting out press releases on free services. I've also had no success getting feature releases covered. You may have better luck, but in the last 5 years and 4 separate companies, that has been my experience. 

Paid services like PRNewsWire have shown us better results. However, commercial newswire services are very expensive. The last release we did on a commercial US only network cost over $700. However, a few weeks later when a competitor was featured in the New York Times, we were mentioned in the article too. I'm reasonably sure that the press release was responsible for the coverage. 

There are certain kinds of releases that are almost guaranteed to get covered. A friend who used to be part of Microsoft's marketing team once told me that the press loves transactions. If your company just raised a round of funding, if you've merged with another business, if you have just signed a significant strategic partnership, these are all announcements that are very likely to get covered.

In general I find that paying a large commercial PR wire service to put your release on the wire is not worth it. However, I have good news: You can put out your own press release, it won't cost you a cent and you may see better results than a wire service. Tomorrow I'm going to tell you how to do it.

Regards,

Mark Maunder

Feedjit Founder & CEO.

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