DWPub Sporadic

Press releases are cool again

Back in the late ‘90s when I was working as a hack on business magazines, the press release was seen by the PR community as an old-fashioned tool. Instead, there was a definite trend towards ‘one-to-one’ PR. Press releases and press conferences were out and cosy meetings with company spokespeople were in.
Of course, the press release never died - the simplicity of the ‘shotgun’ approach was understandably irresistible to most PR professionals. And now, with the massive growth of digital media (check out what Chime Communications CEO Chris Satterthwaite says of the importance of the internet), the humble press release is experiencing something of a renaissance.
What’s driving the press release back into fashion is the fact that when press releases are made available online they become valuable on a number of different levels. It’s not just about reaching journalists, it’s about online visibility, reaching social media and driving traffic to client websites.
For these reasons writing and distributing press releases is back as a core PR technique for all campaigns. And crucially, all press releases should be made available on a quality online press release wire - it just doesn’t make sense not to.

Press release writing and distribution resources

We offer a number of resources to help with press release writing and distribution. Check out this list:

• Daryl’s Six Tips: Writing Press Releases - a quick introduction on my blog
• Press Release Writing and Distribution - a whitepaper aimed at SMEs but could be useful for in-house PR professionals and agency execs
• Getting Results with Press Releases - a whitepaper aimed more at agency execs but could be useful for in-house PR professionals
• Public Relations vs Search Marketing - a whitepaper which looks at the crossover between PR and search and explains embedded links in press releases
• Press Release Wire description of service - more tips on making the most of your releases

Of course, there is our Response Source/SourceWire Press Release Wire itself, which will get your release both in front of the media (check out numbers of media recipients in each category) and highly visible on the internet. We believe it’s the number one press release wire by volume in the UK.