Almost daily I see juxtaposing stories about the life/and or death of the news release. So which is it? My response is going to seem a bit Switzerland-ish.
In my opinion, it depends on what you are trying to achieve, and what the subject is. I can best demonstrate through some recent examples in my own business:
My Friend with the Book
One of my friends recently published a book through a small publishing company. He called on several of his friends to help with a website, social media and myself for media relations. Because of the topic of his book, it is Christian nature, I recommended paying for an AP wire news release. We included links to the site, book images and author images. We sent it nationally – and added a specialty list distribution that fit his subject matter. He didn’t really need a lot of local exposure – all of the local media knows him. However, I did follow up with local media to book him on some shows where his subject matter was a good fit. The result, he did garner the attention of a couple of national journalists. And, due to the auto-posting of the release with AP subscribers – the link back to the website gave it a nice boost in traffic.
Local Engineering Firm
Once of my clients is a woman owned electrical engineering firm. It is more a business-to-business type outreach for me. Getting media coverage is not going to garner them a lot of business, however its still important. In this case, a news release is not going to work. But, targeted emails to specific publications with story ideas has worked. In my two years working with them, we’ve garnered coverage in Business Alabama monthly, The Birmingham News (before it went to just three days a week), the Birmingham Business Journal, Alabama Construction news and some niche magazine publications. Each story on a different topic and distinct in its own way.
My bottom line is this: it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. It depends on what you are announcing and what results you want to achieve as to whether or not you need to do a news release. If you are wondering whether or not your company news is actually newsworthy shoot me an email and let’s talk.
Helen Todd, APR, is the owner of Helen2o: Fluid Communications. Her opinions expressed here are her own and based on 20 years of professional communication experience. If you like it and want to use it let her know – otherwise you are stealing copyrighted information. See more at Helen2o.com.