Are Press Releases Still As Important As Ever?
Yes, But You’ll Have To Pay A Princely Fortune To Run A Newsworthy One
I must admit that it has been more than one year since I last wrote and distributed a press release for a client. No, I haven’t removed myself from this important segment of freelance writing nor have my customers decided to avoid me. Rather, most of my clients (who are small business operators or entrepreneurs) realize that in order to have a press release that gets their news noticed, it must offer two all-important things – compelling writing and rock solid distribution.
In order to hit your target, a winning press release must be newsworthy and properly distributed. Without both of these components, which collectively can cost you a handsome fee, the likelihood of success for your release is small.
Providing top notch, search engine optimized writing is standard for all of my customers. However, when it comes to distribution, only the best distributors are really worth using and they come with a price.
As far as my crafting the release, allow me to offer to you a sampler for a client who asks me to write a 500 word release announcing his new product: I fashion the release based on what the product is all about, including relevant information about the designer, distributor, pricing and perhaps some marketing information. I also include a pair of quotes, one from the designer of the product, the other from the American distributor, concluding with a non-promotional call to action.
Writing Plus Distribution Adds Up
My charge for writing this type of release is $149, but that price doesn’t include distribution. Some of my clients prefer to handle distribution themselves, while others use me to find the right package for them. I provide this step for no extra charge — a pass through expense with no mark up – which means I add the distributor’s cost to my charge to determine a final price.
A few years back most of my clients would have been happy to use a middle of the road distributor such as PR Leap, one who offered a flat fee of about $50 which included Google News distribution as well as being picked up by Ask.com, Moreover and a handful of news aggregator sites. At that price my clients would also be able to link out to relevant sites and eventually the hosted press release would gain PageRank which would be an additional plus for the linked site.
But there was a fault with this plan and a big one at that – the press release would get published as expected, distributed via Google News and disseminated by several news aggregators, but as far as being picked up and turned into a story by a reporter, that rarely happened.
Top Notch Distributors Rule
The problem with middle of the road distributors is that they have been overwhelmed by the low-budget sites, those distributors who offer their services at cut-rate costs while allowing virtually anything to be published. This means that both the “news” and “worthy” aspect of what a press release is supposed to contain is missing, the sort of “spamtastic” information ignored by the media.
Now back to the middle of the road distributor. PR Leap currently offers three plans priced at $49, $99 and $149, based on length of the release, media attachments, SEO tagging as well as Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) distribution. AP, UPI and Reuters are among the top news agencies, places where reporters frequently go to source their material. This means that if you want maximum pull via PR Leap, you’ll need to choose their top package which along with my fee will cost you $298.
That $298 fee may be something that larger businesses can swallow but it can be a stumbling block for some smaller operators. Even then, if reporters are cutting through the noise and going straight to the major press release sites (e.g., PRWeb or Business Wire) for their news, then the Media Visibility Package offered by PRWeb will cost my clients $360 in addition to my $149 fee, making it a $509 cost to run just one press release. Obviously, a press release can be a very good thing to do, but if you’re looking for guaranteed exposure through news organizations or other sites, then that $509 expense may be more of a gamble than what you can afford.
If I Had A Hammer….
As mentioned, I haven’t stopped providing press release services, but I do try to lower the expectations of clients who unreasonably expect to pay less in hopes of still getting more. With noise on the internet becoming louder and louder, getting the news out there becomes more difficult to do unless you’re willing to use a bigger hammer and bell in order to be heard. That hammer comes with a price, one that some aren’t willing to pay, which is fine as long as they are still investing in other means of getting the word out.
See Also — Increase Your Visibility: Getting The Word Out!
Tags: freelance writing, General, journalism, news release, press release, press release distributor, reporters
General | Matthew C. Keegan, 16 Jun 09
By Jeet, June 17, 2009 @ 11:49 am
I have tried PRWeb’s distribution before and it’s definitely one of the costliest. My stories didn’t get picked up by any reporters but a couple of local bloggers did include posts with their interest.
How do you rate PR Leap as compared to PRWeb?
By Matthew C. Keegan, June 17, 2009 @ 11:54 am
Jeet, I still like PR Leap and plan to use them the next time I do a press release for myself. I’ll probably choose one of their upgraded plans ($99), writing the release for myself.
That being said, I have expectations that my press release will be picked up by a reporter. It could gain their favor if they find it on PR Web, but the $360 investment is a bit steep for me. Instead, I have a handful of fellow blogger friends who might take the story and run with it, just the sort of dissemination I like.
Truly, PR Web has a broader audience, but it may disappoint small business owners whose news may not be what others are looking for.
By Stancje, June 18, 2009 @ 2:37 am
Press releases are just so damn expensive. In the age of the internet I just don’t see a point in spending that much money when you could easily use it for something a lot more worthwile.
By Matthew C. Keegan, June 18, 2009 @ 5:30 am
Stancje, you make a very good point. Which is exactly why a number of my clients are no longer doing press releases. When you have to pay big bucks to even get your release noticed, then you have to rethink your strategy. Some of my customers have turned to link exchanges and are paying advertising, all in a bid to get the word out. Others are setting up new blogs and posting news to them.
Individuals and small businesses are weighing their options and finding out that press releases just don’t have the bang that they expect.
By Ryan v.@las vegas web design, June 18, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
I use to work for a local business that had me writing press releases every other hour for any little action they took. Really annoying and terribly inaccurate. It’s definitely true that the only worthwhile ones are the ones that cost buku bucks.
By Matthew C. Keegan, June 18, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Ryan, I hear you. Those discount “press release distributors” have turned news dissemination into spam propagation. Real news is seldom shared and what floods the internet is usually stuff that is marketing material and little else.
By Jay, June 26, 2009 @ 1:06 am
A lot of people are recommending that you distribute your release to the many free press release directories that are floating around online. Do you agree with this or do you think it will just be a huge waste of time? I’m kind of worried about dropping $100 for distribution unless I know for sure it will pay off. But I’ve heard both good and bad things about prweb, for instance, so I’m a bit hesitant.
By Matthew C. Keegan, June 26, 2009 @ 4:48 am
Jay, there are a number of reasons why I don’t like the proliferation of press release directories/distributors out there.
First of all, they cheapen what was once a fairly unique and limited practice of sharing news. Now, everyone’s self promotional effort, thinly disguised marketing campaign or personal accomplishment is suddenly deemed newsworthy by them.
Second of all, if you publish to multiple directories over time only one of those links will be kept by the search engines. Initially, you may find several copies of your press release published and searchable with Google, but eventually the duplicate entries fall away.
Third of all, when you publish to freebie sites you are telling people like me who scour the internet for news (I also write as a journalist) that your release isn’t worth much. True, even PRWeb and some of the other sites take questionable releases, but they are at a minimum. Many of the freebie sites are over run with promotional stuff or poorly written pieces.
I can’t tell you if the $100 you plan on investing with a press release distributor will have the impact you want. Minimally, you should get whatever exposure is promised to you (i.e., Google News, placed in front of real journalists, etc.) and you may get some backlinks which seems to be the reason why freebie sites are so popular. That is one reason why I have curtailed writing releases and distributing them — I want maximum bang for the buck, but I don’t want to constantly lay out the cash.
By Jay, June 26, 2009 @ 7:00 am
Thanks for the detailed response, Matthew. I really appreciate it.
By Matthew C. Keegan, June 26, 2009 @ 7:04 am
You are welcome, Jay. I certainly wouldn’t want to flush one hundred dollars down the drain either!