I wonder, how do you measure impact from press releases?! (== Why do you submit press releases and how do you know they work). There are a number of press release submission services. Some are paid (send out PRs to paper magazine editors and have a long list of emails) and some are free, well almost free (I've thought about PRWeb), where you submit PR like you do for article or link directory. Please, share your ideas about measuring impact of the press release. What I have in mind: - Major: direct traffic (it is easy measurable, especially for sites like PRWeb). Minor: - The number of quotation of my PRs after 1-2 weeks after submit. - The increase in backlinks number. When submitting PR in most cases there is no way to specify anchor text (or there is some I don't know about?), so checking the position of web-site on some keywords in SE will not tell us anything... Any thoughts about measuring results from press releases?
I actually just wrote on this in an ebook that I'm selling - $7 just through tomorrow, and for DP members only - Press Releases Made Easy Direct traffic doesn't necessarily say your press release was successful or not, b/c that traffic isn't necessarily high quality (people just glancing at the site to see if it's worth a story, and not genuinely interested visitors). Backlinks also won't tell you much quickly. You'd have to monitor it over time, and you'd have to weed out backlinks from low quality, irrelevant sites like scraper sites to really judge value.
jhmattern, thank you for your suggestion, I will learn it carefully. While, I'm sure it would be great if other people could share their experience related to putting press releases on-line.
Whatever you do, if you do end up using PRweb which I believe you mentioned, don't rely on their stats as an accurate representation. All that really matters with press releases are genuine pickups... not spammy links from scraper sites, not unknown blogs that just repost your whole press release, etc. You'll know if it's successful by whether or not any kind of authority on the subject matter actually covers you, and those are the results that lead to a trickle down effect of better blog and niche site coverage (including their relevant links) as well as the ones that are going to drive traffic from your targeted audience.
...and I'll throw in that just because Google and Yahoo! News pickup your release, nothing special has happened. That's not a real result, as folks just are not likely to see it. To reiterate what jhmattern has already said, go for real results.
Well, in terms of backlinks it supposed to work better than submitting links to catalogs, as in case of PR you will have a backlink from a page with relevant content. Any other results I can expect?
Using press releases for nothing but backlinks usually results in press release spam, b/c people doing that very rarely have anything newsworthy to say. If you want quality backlinks, target your news angle and make sure it's written well first. Whatever you do, don't write an "article," call it a "press release," and start randomly uploading it to sites. Those links won't be worth much in the long run. Here's why: 1. Those links don't stay on pages with any kind of PR value for long (maybe a day if you're lucky unless it's a little-used site). 2. Those links aren't from relevant sites, and the pages w/ the relevant content will almost all be looked at as duplicate content. 3. Many of the resulting links (like from scraper sites that just keep a running list of feeds) aren't even permanent. The only result that matters in the end is exposure. The backlinks and traffic come naturally from that at a much higher quality than what you get from spamming every press release site on the Web with the same release. Decide what you can invest time-wise and / or financially for the distribution, and work to get the best ROI, just like you would with any other kind of marketing or PR tactic. There's no general answer or solution here that's going to get you anywhere near the best results possible.
I think everyone wish to have an exposure, but I think that it's not so simple as write great PR about great product and you will have results. I'm sure you can compare PR world 2-3 years ago with what we have now. Few years ago it was enough to write and send out a PR with some professional (I used the service of Al Halberd (sorry, for possible misspelling) and he was writing great PR about our software products, and what we have as a result was about 10 responses and 2-3 publications in niche magazines. That's was great as Al wrote great PRs and we have an exposure for very specific software products. Then it started harder to get noticed by press (not just for me, I'm sure most people in software industry will confirm this). I think that one of the reasons is what you called "PR spam". Another reason I think is that press started getting more information (especially about software) from blogs, social networks, etc. As a PR specialist, don't you have a filling that PRs dies for some niches (such as software)?
You're right... it's not as simple as just writing a great PR. You have to have a combination of a very newsworthy angle, a well-written release, and the proper distribution model to get it in front of the right eyes. The PR world isn't as different now from 2-3 years ago as many would like to think. It's never been enough to just send out a release, even through a professional. Journalists get hundreds of them, or more, even via fax still. It was about the angle, well-written releases, and effective distribution back then, and it's exactly the same now. The real change is just that there are other distribution models to choose from, and that everyone and their brother thinks they can write a press release, so good ones have to compete with a lot of garbage to get seen, especially when using some of those newer distribution outlets. That's exactly the "PR spam" you mentioned, and one of my biggest pet peeves actually. But it's not hopeless. Keep in mind that those blogs and social networks have to get their information from a source. That source often originates back to a release from the manufacturing company in some way or another. It's just a part of the trickle down effect that you should be hoping for. It's simply become more important than ever to focus your distribution. You need to get it in front of influential people in the niche in order to get the news to spread. Once in a while, an online distribution service will work (especially with tech issues). But in most cases it's still best to manually pitch the story to an editor or journalist, even in online media. I don't think PR really ever "dies" in any niche. If anything dies, it would be the originality of what's being produced in the niche. For example, if you released the first social networking site, you would have gotten points for creativity and originality (if promoted well), and gotten tons of press coverage. Now social networking sites are launched left and right, but they're not being covered in the same way. It doesn't mean PR is dead for the niche. It means no one's doing anything truly newsworthy in that niche at the moment. The same is true of software. If the type of software being released has been around through other companies for a while, it won't lead to a lot of exposure. But if it's entirely new, tied to something newsworthy in itself (like now maybe software for mobile devices would be more buzzworthy than others), etc. then you'd have a better chance. PR never "dies." News just becomes old.
jhmattern, I think your post is a great contribution to "PR philosophy". I'm going to share this thread with my colleagues in software industry. Thank you a lot!