(CMA FOCUS SERIES: PUBLICITY: PART 2 of 2)
Per the prior post, the popularity and use of free publicity historically increases when the economy tanks. In the midst of this seemingly extended downturn, PR is certainly gaining priority in the construction marketing mix. At the same time, PR is changing significantly. So how can you refine your PR to realize greater results?
PART 1 of our series will examined how PR has changed, and how your PR program can change to leverage new PR opportunities. PART 2 of this series focuses on the specifics of PR distribution options.
As always, please share your comments and personal experience to bring some broader perspectives to our discussion!
PR Distribution Tips
As you might expect, there is no “silver bullet” or single solution that address all needs. Most marketing practitioners use a combination of approaches for getting news and PR releases in front of editors and influencers.
The Construction Marketing Association, and PR programs for Construction Marketing Advisors clients use a several options for news distribution. Heather Hawes, Program Manager shares her process. “First we post news on our websites and blogs. This allows for Retweeting and bookmarking. Next we distribute to our own editor (email) databases. The news announcements are also formatted to included links to these respective internet domains. Depending on how “big” the news item is, we will then distribute using both free and paid services. We still realize the majority of placements thru our own, custom editor lists.”
“Distribution services increase news reach and placements, particularly across the internet, and with blogs that would be hard to identify“, adds Neil M. Brown, Chairman of the Construction Marketing Association.
So which service should construction marketers use for distributing news announcements and press releases to your targets? No question, there are more options than ever. The following table list some of the top news distribution services that range from free to substantial fees for more value-added services. The table includes CMA’s ranking based on quality, costs, network scope and Google PageRank. Note that the service name hotlinks to the respective websites.
| # | Name | Cost | Distribution Network | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PRWeb | $80 | 250k RSS, 30k journalists |  |
| 2 | BusinessWire | $395-$675 | Nat’l/Regional Selects/200 Industry Selects | |
| 3 | PRNewswire | $415-$715 | 85,000 registered journalists | |
| 4 | Marketwire | $285-$485 | 300k RSS, 8k news & broadcasts | |
| 5 | 24-7 Press Release | $0-$49 | 60,000 editors/journalists/bloggers |  |
| 6 | PR.com | $0-$199 | Vertical Industry Selects | |
| 7 | Cision | $250-$350 | 300k outlets/Monitoring | |
| 8 | Vocus | $380 | 250k RSS, 30k journalists/bloggers | |
| 9 | Free-Press-Release.com | $0-$30 | Country and Industry Selects |  |
| 10 | 1888PressRelease.com | $0-$29 | Websites, RSS Feeds,Blogs | |
Per above, depending on the importance of the news, you may opt for free distribution for minor releases, to the highest level of services for news that requires the broadest distribution, or specific features like financial disclosure compliance which BusinessWire and PR Newswire both support.
Our staff often uses a combination of free and paid, thus ensuring that multiple news sources will pick-up the news.
CMA ranks PRWeb highest by virtue of the combination of reasonable fees, broad distribution and high Google PageRank. Upon review, Businesswire and PR Newswire are the top-end services, and very similar. Although Businesswire pricing is more reasonable for smaller clients.
We have experienced excellent search results using 24-7pressrelease.com and Free-press-release.com. After this exercise, we are inclined to further evaluate PR.com.
Following are some additional services we found but did not analyze. In the meantime, what services do you prefer and why? Please comment, Retweet and bookmark!
| # | Name | PageRank |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Newswire Today | |
| 2 | Press Release Network | |
| 3 | Thomas Net News | |
| 4 | PR Log | |
| 5 | PR-Inside | |
| 6 | ClickPress | |
| 7 | PR Leap | |
| 8 | PR Zoom | |
| 9 | Pressbox.co.uk | |
| 10 | Free Press Release Center |  |
| 11 | EcommWire | |
| 12 | PR Free | |
One of the most important things to consider when deciding on a distribution service is what one is going to give you the best SEO results. We’ve found that for releases that don’t warrant a paid distribution effort that we get great results using pitchengine.com. It also creates a great landing page for the social networking efforts.
Our organization also used PRWeb for some of our clients press releases. PRWeb has done a nice job for us on consumer and business outlets. When it comes to reaching contractors – I believe you are better off going through the trade channels. We use Vocus to build our databases. It’s a little more expensive than many of the contact management services out there but is much more user friendly.