“It’s too expensive.”
“I don’t see the value.”
“We don’t have anything newsworthy to write about.”
These are just a few of the comments I hear from clients when the subject of PR comes up. Most people still believe that press releases are only for large corporations with deep pockets. But it’s time to put away those antiquated notions and recognize that a press release program has a place in any size organization.
Press releases not only work to build company credibility (something you need especially when you're starting out), they are a source of new website traffic, they help boost SEO rankings, and they can be a relatively cheap way to reach your target market. Yes, I said cheap, because I’m not talking about the big-three PR distribution services. I have found that you can have just as much success (sometimes more so) using a combination of low-cost and no-cost PR distribution services.
Without giving too much away, I wanted to share with you the results of a recent press release I did for one client. The primary goal of this particular release was to announce a new software version, but they also wanted me to weave into the story some tantalizing information about a new international partner. Pretty standard stuff.
I issued their press release through two of my freebie PR distribution favorites and one paid PR service, which cost just $99. I also embedded two videos in the press release distributed over the paid service: a software overview and video testimonial, and I pushed the press release out to several social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, and Digg.
In total, the press release generated eight Google News alerts and attracted more than 500 sets of eyeballs over a 10-day period. As you can see from the chart below, the paid PR service outperformed the two freebie PR services by a factor of 2:1. The press release issued over the paid service was picked up by more than 56 online media sites, including Google News and channel behemoth ChannelWeb.
That's great, but what effect, if any, did the press release have on website traffic?
You'll have to wait until my next posting on July 20th. In the meantime, check out my story, "3 Tried-and-True Free Press Release Distribution Services," to see three of my favorite freebie PR services.
