Comments on: Press Releases Are Useless

By: Joe Beaulaurier

Joe Beaulaurier — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:20:15 +0000

@joan – When using PRWeb Standard Visibility package, you can select up to 5 categories. In addition to “Lifestyles – Travel & Tourism” or “Lifestyles: Food / Beverage”, you could also include “Business: Travel,” “Industry: Food,” and “Industry: Leisure / Hospitality.”

When doing a release for less that the Standard Visibility package, you can only select one industry category.

Your release entitled, “June’s Florida Food Festivals Feature Fabulous Fresh Fruits” is a great example of how to use keywords in a headline and in the copy. You’re going to reach people interested in food festivals and even more so those with Florida interests. By listing out the various locales by name, you’ve better enabled people to find your information when searching using the keyword, “Florida” but also when being more specific and using, “Clearwater” or “Boynton Beach.”

If this is any indication, you certainly do understand how to “optimize” your release with keywords just as Penny explained in her post.

ps… transparency disclaimer: I am the marketing ‘guy’ at PRWeb.

By: Joe Beaulaurier

Joe Beaulaurier — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:05:34 +0000

Hi Penny.

Sorry to be wandering into this a month late. That is a great post and well thought out. I am the marketing ‘guy’ at PRWeb and I greatly appreciate your feedback and analysis.

Some footnotes:
PRWeb does distribute to the media but only to those who have expressed an interest (read opted-in) and we send them only releases assigned to the categories or geographic locations they have asked for. So based upon your choice of industry categories and/or geographic regions for us to emphasize during distribution, your release will reach differing numbers of media types. Certainly, choosing “Business” will reach more media types than, say, “Sports – Equestrian.”

Even as we do reach the media, one of our battle cries is, “Direct to Consumer Distribution.” This means we don’t wait for the media to act on your release and repurpose it to their audiences. People are using the Internet as their primary information resource (consumers and business-to-business), so PRWeb places your release into the search engines and applies massive amounts of SEO magic (based on your keyword usage as you adeptly explained) in the process. So your message will reach a large audience for a much longer period of time than if the media ran with it.

Also, as of October 2006, PRWeb no longer accepts free press releases. Which means your release’s audience is getting “more signal and less noise.”

I hope this information helps.

By: ellen weber

ellen weber — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:38:59 +0000

Great post and thanks Penny. The Is the core of your message that access has once again opened to people who’d previously not been able to lower the barriers to entry.

Interesting!

Could you elaborate a bit on best key words? Any examples?

By: Joan Steinbacher

Joan Steinbacher — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:33:24 +0000

Hmm, the press release I had delivered direct to various media (around 1,500) resulted in more tangible media exposure (2 radio interviews, 2 mentions in magazines) and ultimately more book sales for me than the next press release I posted on PRWeb (which yielded 19,372 headline impressions and 402 page reads). Perhaps my PRWeb release was not “optimized” as you say. PRWeb has various “levels” of distribution – which one is recommended to get the most “bang for your buck” (keeping in mind the bucks are limited!)?

By: Adrienne Zurub

Adrienne Zurub — Wed, 09 May 2007 00:36:44 +0000

Thank you for this information. I am in the process of marketing and hiring someone to craft a press release and I shall utilize the ‘online’ release more efficiently.

Adrienne Zurub

By: Arturo B. Rodriguez

Arturo B. Rodriguez — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:41:43 +0000

You wrote about Press Release – Just wondering how much you charge if you write a Press Release for my book that’s coming out soon (in progress with the printer).