It's been said here before: Press releases are much less powerful than they used to be for SEO purposes. While churning out news releases and submitting them to free sites may not do much, the medium can actually be more powerful than ever if used right. Convincing a single reporter or high-profile blogger to pick up your news is infinitely more beneficial than posting worthless releases all over the place and Digg'ing and StumbleUpon'ing them with your multiple accounts.
I have a somewhat unique perspective about news releases. Not too long ago, I worked full-time as a newspaper reporter, and my inbox was regularly inundated with press releases. Some of them caught my attention and were turned into lengthy stories. Others, however, failed to captivate me or my peers and, as a result, went nowhere.
Here are some tips on how to craft your releases in a way that increases the odds of them getting noticed by the media:
Get to the point. Make it clear from the get-go what your release is about. Don't try to be cute. I used to get releases all the time from PR people who buried the news or tried to get creative with their writing. Sometimes, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what some releases were even about. If you're looking for a creative outlet, press release writing is not the avenue. Try writing a short story.
At least pretend you're objective. Obviously, you have a vested interest in what you're writing about, but it's still important to craft your releases like down-the-middle news stories. Avoid unnecessary adjectives; most adjectives are unneeded. You don't want your release to read like an advertisement. Pick out the newsiest element and concentrate on that.
Speak English. I see releases all the time that are stuffed with industry jargon that most people do not understand. Don't assume that what you're writing about is a familiar subject for the people who'll read your release. Dumb it down. Assume your release will be read by the densest guy in the room.
Send it out manually. Instead of just dumping your releases into submission sites and hoping someone important notices, email it yourself to media outlets and bloggers you think might be interested in it. If you're publicizing a new product, send your release to newspapers in the company's area. If you can, find out which reporters cover the relevant beat and send it to them directly; that usually only takes a phone call.
Have good timing. If you're looking for coverage, sending your release out on Election Day or after hours on a Friday is goofy. Those are good times to release bad news you're obligated to report – any White House spokesman will tell you that – but it'll do you no good unless your story is wildly sensational. News outlets are typically more desperate for copy during the summer months and around holidays.
Act like a human. Interactivevoices' post about getting a link from CNN.com – the only PR10 news site – illustrated this perfectly. There's no harm in picking up the phone and calling reporters directly to see if they're interested in your story. For all you know, the only thing preventing your news from being published is an over-finicky spam filter.
Don't beg. When I was working as a reporter, I didn't realize why some sources were so hellbent on me including links in my stories. Now I know. If your link is relevant to the story, the reporter will probably include it. If not, you're still getting good publicity.
Of course, all of this will only help if you actually have something worthwhile to say. If you think there's nothing interesting to say about your enterprise, you're probably wrong. You just need to think long and hard to figure out what it is.
Speaking of good timing, I was just working on a press release, so this is a great reminder to have. Thanks...
If you ever feel like doing a follow-up, something I'd be interested in is knowing what kinds of releases (company-related releases, that is) fare the best. Do people respond to product announcements, partnerships, metrics (sales/profit reports), or any particular topic area, or is it really independent of topic and about writing a solid title and copy?
I think it depends on your industry. If you're announcing a new product from an IT hardware company, there are lots of news outlets that consider that news. But if you're releasing a new line of, I dunno, wool stockings, there's not that same level of interest, so you might have to go with the human interest angle instead and target local outlets. With every enterprise, there's a story that people will find interesting: someone risking it all, setting out to change the world, dooming himself for failure.
Sure Wool stockings might not be sensational enough, but if wearing them had some positive effect, like getting ten more miles per gallon when driving, curing baldness (I'll give it a shot), making you look thinner, taller, younger, smell better, save a baby seal or make McDonalds food taste like steak, well now you've got a story! Some how working human breast milk into the process seems to work well too.
Seriously, I love this article. I'll take a follow up anytime. Really good stuff.
Wool stockings can also help you earn tens of thousands of dollars of new income without requiring you to leave the house. So, there's that angle, too.
Thanks for the kind words. I'll try to think of a good follow-up.
Great observations. As a former reporter myself, I can attest to the fact that the more closely a press release resembles a the news coverage you seek, the better the odds that it'll get picked up. Yes, most editors will probably insist on major rewording, but if they can see a clear illustration of your release's newsworthiness, they'll be inclined to give it consideration.
Main Blog promotion please :)
I'm with Rishil, This is too good to be left here in YOUmoz.
Excellent advice. More please.
Great, simple, actionable post. Thumbs up! (if only you'd done a case study you might have had a chance of winning the monthly theme prize...
Good to hear the SEO power of press releases being talked about in terms of putting link worthy content in front of influential linkers (ie journos). This has become more true since mainstream newspapers have really embraced online publishing and blogging - they are in many ways the cream of the linkerati in terms of the strength of the domains they have access to.
This idea of "PR for SEO" lies in contrast, as you say, to the old school idea that its worth it from the crappy URL links from scraper PR wire sites. I have come across PR companies that still sell online distribution packages as an "SEO campaign" and charge a lot of money for it! A recent client of mine paid their PR company for an online press release distribution which contained a few TinyURL links, most of which ended up being nofollowed, sold purely on the basis of "SEO"!
Your last point is IMO the most important and should be first in your list - "Do something worth shouting about"! Google News is littered with corporate press releases saying absolutely nothing of value that wouldn't even merit a corporate blog post, usually saying 'look at us, this is what we do!'. Guaranteed PR FAIL.
Love your perspective on this Mike, and very curious to hear more on the topic. I've often wondered why it is that some press releases will actually get picked up by wire services and broadcast by major media outlets - I always assumed there was some sort of backroom deal (or networking connections) that made it happen. Is that true? Or just me being jaded?
Thanks for the reply!
I don't think there's any backdoor deal, but the media still very much have the ability to hide stuff from the public. Case in point: the New York Times reporter whose kidnapping by the Taliban was never reported, even though all the major news organizations knew about it.
A lot of it, I think, has to do with laziness on the part of the PR person. For instance: Shortly after the Virginia Tech massacre, a company in the area I covered sent out a release about a product they had in development that could help prevent similar instances from happening in the future. When I called to set something up, though, I didn't get any response back. I kept trying for the next week or two, but eventually started on something else and the story, which could've easily been picked up by wire services, never happened.
Forgot to mention: A lot of what you see, read and hear from the national outlets originates from the smaller ones. So, if you have an interesting story you can get published in even a tiny local newspaper, this could happen: A writer working in a regional AP office decides to rewrite it and put it on the wire, that story generates enough interest that it's promoted to the national AP wire, and the story winds up going everywhere (hopefully with a link attached to it). That may seem unlikely, but it happened to me sometimes with stories I never thought had national interest.
Hi Mike.
Very valuable contribution to the blog and sheds a lot of light on things!
I run a hotel reviews site - not exactly news worthy and I have tried press releases in my time but with little avail - mainly as a review of a hotel is hardly newsworthy.
The ideal thing for me would be to get one of the reviews published in syndication with a news site (ahhh....the dream beckons...) but I know that this is very unlikely to happen.
I know what you mean though about the laziness of the PR person - there are so many times that I provide editorials for hotels, just for them to get used or quoted with no link to the site or even mention of the site in any way (very frustrating and makes you wonder what the point of bethering was!), or just for people to not bother contacting you once you have provided the copy for them.
@randfish - there is no backdoor deal in place (that i am aware of) - I provided an article a while ago on hotel security after a hotel bombing, this suddenly became very popular and appeared in a lot of places - unfortunately mentions of me were few and far between.
In my experience press releases are often just selfless promotion and usually get viewed as such - I gave up publishing them!
I know what you mean, Mike, about the national stories coming from local ones - so many times I think its Deja Vu with the news when I hear a local story a few days later on the main news, very weird but just proves that you have to start small and work your way up - a golden rule with any company.
I've been working with the media for 12 years, and still laugh when I hear clients ask "what reporters are in your rolodex?" If a story isn't newsworthy, it doesn't matter who you know. Media relations is all about packaging a hot story to appeal to that outlet's audience. We just blogged about the six things that make a great story: https://www.xstaticpr.com/new-carpet-is-not-newsworthy.
Of course, the rules are changing quickly with bloggers and citizen journalism. With no professional code of ethics or journalism training, the potential for "payola" will rise. Just another ethical issue that our industry will need to watch out for.
Very nice post and I recognize it a lot. If you see the crap I'm getting at Searchcowboys sometimes :). You'll be amazed how 'stupid' some PR agencies are when trying to get your attention. Though it must be said that there are actually some who DO get it.
I actually did a presentation on this at A4U Expo Europe this year. And I feel this should be a subject on conferences and blogs more often.
I think your second point, "At least pretend you're objective" is a very good one. Too much you see that the senders of the press releases start to blow things up. "This is the best product in the industry" or something like that. Very annoying.
Anyway: good post!
Thanks for the great post! The people have spoken, and the post has been moved to the main blog. :)
Thank you!
Mike,
Is there anyway to encourage particular anchor text if they do that at all? If in the first sentence we had a phrase in bold or quotes, do you think that could improve the odds?
I'm having trouble thinking of a tactful way to approach getting the anchor text you want. Outlets that do use anchor text are going to pick the words that most make sense for their readers, unless they're crooked and bow to search marketers' demands. The best bet would be to use the words in your release that you want to target and hope they decide to use them as anchors. I don't see how bolding or putting words in quotes qould encourage it.
Thanks for the great content! Its good to hear content about PR from an outside source.
Quick question......
When it comes to contacting media outlets by email or phone, do you have any advice on some best practices when it comes to finding who to contact and how to approach them about your release?
Thanks!
Yeah, a lot of places have contact lists posted on their web sites. Some of them even list out reporters by beat, but most don't. If they are listed, you can just send them an email with the release and a quick note. (A warning, though: They tend to be out of date). If not, you can just call the place and ask the newsroom clerk who would be the best person to contact is. Then it's up to you whether you want to talk to them right then (if they're available) or later. If you don't hear anything back and don't see your story anywhere, it doesn't hurt to send a follow-up email or give a phone call.
Hey Thanks for the reply. :-D
So when contacting a media outlet or reporter, is it more a matter of telling them about your PR, or more a matter of asking them to promote your PR?
What’s the best way in terms of "wording" to contact such a party, for the receiving the best results and to not come across as "spammy" or self serving?
I ask this question in a similar comparison to how a JV partners request should be approached and or a link exchange request, in terms of positioning your inquiry for the best result.
For example would it be optimal to approach such a party like....
Hello, I have a news event I think would interest you.....
or
Hello, would you like to write an article on this my PR....
I hope that my question is clear. Any related info is much appreciate. Thanks you for your time.
It's more a matter of telling them about the news, why they and their readers should be interested, and leaving it up to them to decide whether they want to cover it. So, the first example you gave would be the better approach.
Hey thanks a bunch!
Your small insites have helped me alot!
Hey Mike,
This is a great post! Press releases are so easy to get wrong, it's god to see someone handing out some practical advice on how to get it right. As you and Sly pointed out above sometimes it's the seemingly boring subject with the unexpected angle that will get you a link or two - I've always found the this aspect of writing PR the most interesting.
Now if I could just get myself some of those wool stockings...
Lets say i represent a client who is a carpet cleaning machine manufacture. I am contracted to do SEO for this company. You suggest that not only do i submit though the major online channels, but i should pick up the phone and contact people in the industry as well.
With your experience as a journalist, did you get a lot of these types of phone calls? Where the annoying or did you welcome them?
Thanks
Good post
G-
I'll be honest with you. I never did any stories about carpet cleaning manufacturers, but if someone had called pitching one I wouldn't have been annoyed. And if I had gotten a call like that when I was 22 and covering a bunch of desolate towns in Vermont, I probably would've done it seeing how I had a two-story-a-day quota. There's gotta be something interesting about the business: jobs it's creating for the community, innovations it's making in the technology, etc.
I did get a lot of phone calls as a journalist, and, yeah, some of them were annoying, but that was part of my job. A bigger part of my job was calling people and annoying them, sometimes late at night when they were sleeping or had already made it clear they didn't want to talk to the press. So, I wouldn't worry about being an annoyance.
Short, to the point, and actionable. Great post! Thumbs up.
Really nice post Mike. I'm printing it out as it's earned a place in "the Binder"
And I agree with rishil and sly-grr. Should go to the main blog.
You guys are too cool. Thank you!
Printing? I like File > Save As.
Build relationships with people in the newsrooms in your local area. Most definitely stories climb up the media ladder. a local post could climb all the way to CNN's front page.
I'd also add that reaching out via Twitter is very powerful. Most news sites are using Twitter . . . here are a few to get you started. (Note: any tribune newspaper site has a /twitter page for a list of their journalists on twitter).
https://www.chicagotribune.com/about/chi-chicago-tribune-twitter-users,0,6082714.htmlstory
https://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-twitter-page,0,2527290.htmlstory
https://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-baltimore-sun-twitter-users,0,7559088.htmlstory
Great post!
Hey Brent, Thanks for visiting. Miss your insights guy.
Hi Everyone,
Great article. However, I wanted to know more about the press release templates. For instance, organizations like Inc. 5000 provide their own press release templates to the winners of the awards. I want to know if following the same template that is also followed by other award winners can result in Google marking it as duplicate content and therefore, hitting my SEO.
Thanks,
Sara
Excellent post. I also worked as a print reporter and I'd wade through many press releases that were just garbage. I always appreciated PR people who contacted me personally with story ideas they knew might be interesting to me. They did their homework and knew my publication's audience.
Sending out a news release manually can pay off. I've had news releases picked up by major news organizations because it worked for their audience.
Be creative and figure out who might be interested in your news release. What's newsworthy to one media outlet might be useless to another. While your article may not be appropriate for the Wall Street Journal, maybe there's a trade publication it's perfect for.
Another thing to keep in mind is that smaller newspapers with busy staff may republish your release verbatim. One paper I worked for did that often.
I'd also suggest that you get an AP Stylebook or CP Style guide (for Canada). In Canada it seems that the majority of media outlets use this style, so if you keep to this style, editors will appreciate it. It's a little thing, but if your release doesn't have to have major amounts of editing, that may increase the odds of getting your release published.
About 10 years ago I used to have a list of around 10k email addresses for journalists. And I wasn't afraid to use it. Gradually that lost effectiveness. I wonder why. :)
I've had some good success on occasion from PRweb. I used their $200 package, then searched for the release in the back pages on Yahoo News and ran a sub-campaign to plug that. Similar effect to a decent digg campaign. Anyone ever try the really expensive package there?
This post is highly relevant for two key reasons: 1) common sense and 2) truth.
I was once interviewed by a "small town" paper that I had never heard of and pretty much thought no one would really read, only to find out that the article got re-published in its national sister publication USA Today. From that day on I learned the importance of never under-estimating the value of any press publication.
Thanks for the tips and surprised to not see more re-tweets of this article! - Emily/Casauri
Sunday, July 5, 2009 NYT article about PR in the Silicon Valley
Do you have any input or suggestions regarding prbuzz.com's $299 unlimited press release submission product? It seems like a good deal, but I'm curious as to whether its too good to be true...
Yeah I am interested in this deal too as I feel there is a value in:
1. using them to increase domain diversity of inbound links
2. deep linking to multiple pages throughout my site so as to maximise diversity of inbound links to a multitude of pages (I have 640 microsites for local businesses operating around the country)
3. to get repeated brand mentions on Google News etc.
In online terms, are we saying that PR has come full circle and we are back to contacting journos in the hope the hope we get a decent link?
That very good advices
This is what our teachers tell us at school in our PR program in Ottawa.
Mike,
Good post, I agree with the slacking PR people, but I am like Rand when I wonder why some are picked out from the others. Great job.
You mention press releases are much less powereful than they used to be for SEO purposes. Is that the case if you're submitting articles to sites such as PRWeb.com and RushPRnews etc?
I think PRWeb provides some value SEO-wise, especially if you pay extra to use your own anchor text. (I've never used RushPRNews). Whether the value is worth what you pay is your call. Even more valuable is getting links from established news sites and blogs.
ok cheers...
This is a very useful post.
Great to hear from the heart of a reporter. I am going to investigate in getting some articles out into the world of journalists.
I just got done reading about online PRs today. Your post reads like a table of contents + a bonus section. Good stuff!
The objective should be to get a link in a news article on a newspaper website. Not to get your release on some distribution website.
The most important point is to get in touch with a journalist and get the release to them if they are interested in your news.
You can also contact Associated Press directly if you are chasing a wider distribution of the story.
Here is a list i prepared of mistakes made in Press Releases: https://www.goingrank.com/media/press-release-mistakes.htm if you would like to learn more.
This is an excellent write up, chalked full of press release goodness. I like the fact that you included a paragraph on being objective. I can't began to count the number of web press realeases that I have stumbled upon (does that phrase now need a copyright symbol?) that do not stick to this basic heuristic . Thank you for sharing your life experience with the rest of us.
Michael
In our experience, journalists are just as "time challenged" as the rest of us...perhaps even more so...in journalism, particularly print media, a deadline is a deadline. So it makes sense to make their job as easy as possible.
Let's remember that they aren't all looking for that elusive Pullitzer...in some cases they are simply looking for content to break up all the advertising :)...but they do want news, or at least a new angle...your prime focus should be the PR benefit...and treat the link back if included as a bonus...pretty much the same philosophy we should be using for developing quality content.
I have a question for you...
I work for a well established high tech company. With the burn out of several key high tech companies in our region, it is increasingly difficult to get any attention from the local business and technology media. How do I go about getting attention for our GOOD NEWS from the local media when all around us is bad news?
It's hard to say since I don't know about your business or the efforts you've made to reach out to the media. If you haven't already, I'd say you should work to establish relationships with members of the media who cover your industry by calling them to chat, offering your expertise for future stories and sending them tips when you know of stuff that they may not know about.
Great content! it is imperative to remember that you write first and foremost for YOUR AUDIENCE – the most important “traffic” of all. It is too easy to forget the individual consumer and begin to write for the general masses.
-JK
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