Effective press release distribution
By Paul Green
I’m frequently asked by business owners what the most effective way is to get a press release to journalists.
It’s an easy question to answer with some distinct rights and wrongs.
First off there are two important issues to consider.
1) You must remember that a press release is just a tool to communicate a great story. You can have the best distribution in the world, but if you don’t have a decent story to tell you won’t get publicity.
2) Any press release you send out must be relevant to the journalists you send it to. This is a key mistake made by business owners (and PR agencies) the world over. Why would a journalist who writes for a model railway magazine want to hear about your new cake baking business?
So once you have taken those issues into account, there are five options open to you:
Email it directly to journalists: The easiest and most common option. Build your own database of journalists who are interested in the kind of stories you might send out and email your press release straight to them. Generally speaking, specific named email addresses are better than news@ addresses, as they should get fewer emails giving you a better chance to stand out. Remember journalists will happily receive your emails so long as they are relevant to them.
Fax it: Does anyone still use fax? Some still do, and because so few people fax messages these days it can be a good method of press release distribution to make sure you stand out. Ensure you include a website address on your fax where a journalist can view your press release online. This will help them copy and paste elements of your press release if they want to.
Post it: Just as with fax a great way to stand out. Put something bulky in the envelope to make it really demand to be opened first! Remember to put your release online and give the journalist a website address.
Free PR distribution websites: Used in the States but mostly pointless in the UK. Most journalists here get so many press releases emailed to them; they don’t have time to go looking on free PR sites (if they even know they exist). So ignore these. Free PR sites may have a place in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but not as a way of getting publicity in the mainstream media.
Paid for PR distribution websites: These however are an effective way to get your release in front of journalists, especially if you don’t have your own distribution list. Most of these services email your release to journalists as well as displaying it online. I highly recommend ResponseSource as the best mix of distribution power and value for money (distribution starts at £45 a release). Most of the time your release gets straight into Google News, even if human journalists don’t pick it up and use it. Journalism.co.uk also has a distribution service that is worth considering if you send a lot of releases out.
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