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Well, not really dead, but...
Talk with any professional PR agency and they will tell you that press releases no longer do what they used to be capable of doing. In a pre-internet era, the press release was the way you could access media and attempt to get your news into circulation. Back in the day, you would have a press release drafted and then manually circulated to reporters and news organizations hoping it would catch someone's attention. I am old enough (sigh) to remember when you literally would draft a press release with a future release date, typically around 14 days from your mailing date. You would then mail the press release to your targeted media outlets (actually, your PR agency would do all of that) and hope for some attention from a news paper.
Then, fax. Same process, only shorter lead times. Then, email. Shortened the news cycle to 48 hours initially, then 24 hours. Now, in the Twitter era, companies have direct access to media feeds, news organizations, and directly to targeted audiences. The press release... is it DEAD?
Not yet. Publicly held companies still use official company news releases to feed stock market investors and prognosticators official company news. There's no "leaking" news out on Twitter or through other means, as in some cases this can even be a violation of insider trading laws and fair disclosure. So, there's still a formalized process for using press release distribution services to enter into the stream of public company disclosure news.
What about for the little guy? There is still a need for the press release, but now for a different purpose. Since your news can circumvent news editors and go directly to the target, now you craft a news release to play directly to your audience. While there is still limited value in using a low cost distribution service for your news, moreso you are using your writing skills to draw up messaging to be exposed to a specific audience (demographic) that you want to reach. You control the message, and the medium.
For this purpose, I propose that professional news release distribution services are insignificant. By way of example, if I am speaking at an event, the people who I want to get that message are people in the vicinity of the speaking engagement, people who would track or care about that engagement, people who would follow the company and use this type of news as social proof of legitimacy, and people who may be influenced by that type of news credibility such as retail buyers. So, for my speaking engagement, I might draft a press release and then circulate that news :
1. With the event organizer to their fans and followers
2. To my personal following on LinkedIn
3. To my company following on LinkedIn
4. To my company Facebook page
5. On twitter
6. I still may try and network it to local news organizations who may have some interest in the content
For that, there are a couple ways of making the message appear professional even though it is "garage." First, draft the release professionally, following all normal press release template suggestions for professionalism. Once you have a newsworthy press release put together, you can :
All of the above can be done on a shoestring/bootstrap (or no) budget. These are the ways that I built my last company's marketing messaging from obscurity to prominence and eventually SALE, and these are the same simple guerrilla tactics I am currently using for several concepts I have in the startup stage as we are pushing several new consumer products out to market.
The press release is not DEAD but your need to engage professionals to craft your marketing message may be. You can now engage with your audience carefully, intentionally and successfully.
Talk with any professional PR agency and they will tell you that press releases no longer do what they used to be capable of doing. In a pre-internet era, the press release was the way you could access media and attempt to get your news into circulation. Back in the day, you would have a press release drafted and then manually circulated to reporters and news organizations hoping it would catch someone's attention. I am old enough (sigh) to remember when you literally would draft a press release with a future release date, typically around 14 days from your mailing date. You would then mail the press release to your targeted media outlets (actually, your PR agency would do all of that) and hope for some attention from a news paper.
Then, fax. Same process, only shorter lead times. Then, email. Shortened the news cycle to 48 hours initially, then 24 hours. Now, in the Twitter era, companies have direct access to media feeds, news organizations, and directly to targeted audiences. The press release... is it DEAD?
Not yet. Publicly held companies still use official company news releases to feed stock market investors and prognosticators official company news. There's no "leaking" news out on Twitter or through other means, as in some cases this can even be a violation of insider trading laws and fair disclosure. So, there's still a formalized process for using press release distribution services to enter into the stream of public company disclosure news.
What about for the little guy? There is still a need for the press release, but now for a different purpose. Since your news can circumvent news editors and go directly to the target, now you craft a news release to play directly to your audience. While there is still limited value in using a low cost distribution service for your news, moreso you are using your writing skills to draw up messaging to be exposed to a specific audience (demographic) that you want to reach. You control the message, and the medium.
For this purpose, I propose that professional news release distribution services are insignificant. By way of example, if I am speaking at an event, the people who I want to get that message are people in the vicinity of the speaking engagement, people who would track or care about that engagement, people who would follow the company and use this type of news as social proof of legitimacy, and people who may be influenced by that type of news credibility such as retail buyers. So, for my speaking engagement, I might draft a press release and then circulate that news :
1. With the event organizer to their fans and followers
2. To my personal following on LinkedIn
3. To my company following on LinkedIn
4. To my company Facebook page
5. On twitter
6. I still may try and network it to local news organizations who may have some interest in the content
For that, there are a couple ways of making the message appear professional even though it is "garage." First, draft the release professionally, following all normal press release template suggestions for professionalism. Once you have a newsworthy press release put together, you can :
- ghetto publish it on your own company blog, and then simply distribute the link to your targeted distribution
- find a "free" press release distribution service, of which there are dozens, and upload your release to them for distribution. After they publish it, you still then share your link with your network(s).
- use a modestly priced PR distribution company, like PRWeb or EINNewsWire
All of the above can be done on a shoestring/bootstrap (or no) budget. These are the ways that I built my last company's marketing messaging from obscurity to prominence and eventually SALE, and these are the same simple guerrilla tactics I am currently using for several concepts I have in the startup stage as we are pushing several new consumer products out to market.
The press release is not DEAD but your need to engage professionals to craft your marketing message may be. You can now engage with your audience carefully, intentionally and successfully.
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