Press releases aren’t what they used to be, and that’s a good thing if you want your brand to achieve maximum visibility. The truth is, press releases have evolved far beyond the simplistic forms they used to take – and they’re still incredibly valuable if you know how to use them correctly.
The Promise of the Press Release
Press releases have been invaluable for PR campaigns for more than 100 years – and they remain incredibly powerful in their modern form. At every stage of their evolution, press releases have been designed to spread newsworthy, pertinent information about a company across a variety of different press outlets. The idea is to maximize brand visibility for a brand, make major announcements, and ultimately reach more people.
When fully harnessed, press releases can be unparalleled in terms of PR power. They can be informative, persuasive, and valuable for establishing a brand. They can help establish your online presence and boost the visibility, traffic, and search rankings of your website. And they can reach thousands of people without costing much time or money.
That said, modern press release strategies are different from what they used to be.
The Digital Era
The biggest change came with the onset of the digital era. Instead of being syndicated across newspapers, press releases could spread much more rapidly and more broadly online. With a single click, you could get your word syndicated across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of online publications, disseminating information about your brand to upwards of millions of people.
This era of PR and press releases was lucrative for those who took advantage of it, but there were a few problems that forced press release strategies to change.
- Oversaturation. The ease and convenience of syndicating a press release, combined with the inherent advantages of press releases, sparked a mass of people to publish press releases at every available opportunity. This level of oversaturation made each press release inherently less valuable, and forced both publishers and readers to be more discerning about their consumption.
- Quality decline. Similarly, there was a marked decline in the quality of the average press release. Instead of waiting for something truly newsworthy, people would write awful press releases about whatever crossed their mind. After all, each press release was a valuable link building and traffic generation opportunity – so why leave that potential on the table just because nothing’s going on with your business?
- Perception issues. The end result of these effects was distortion in perception. People began to value press releases less. Publishers began to get pickier about which press releases they accepted. And even major tech players like Google began to refactor how they considered these pieces of content in context.
The Modern Press Release
So, what does that mean for the modern press release?
Press releases are still incredibly valuable for PR strategies, but you need to be much more careful and invest in quality when producing and distributing them.
- Newsworthiness. Your press release content needs to be inherently newsworthy. Obviously, the term “newsworthy” is a bit subjective, but you need to have a reasonable sense of what counts as worthy of news. Your coworker Michael getting a sandwich for lunch is not newsworthy. Your company launching a new website is.
- Clarity and conciseness. Your press release demands your attention. You can’t slap it together in a few minutes and expect it to perform well; instead, you must make it clear and concise. This isn’t the chance to go on diatribes about why your company is awesome, nor does a higher word count help you in any capacity.
- Expertise. Use press releases as an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise. If the press release writer doesn’t have expertise, get quotes from people who do. Bland, generic press releases aren’t going to have the same impact as ones that have expert advice, opinions, and perspectives.
- Originality. In line with this, you need to be original. Remember that one of the big problems with digital press releases is oversaturation. If you write a press release that reads like thousands of others, no one will pay attention to it.
- Mobile friendliness. Mobile friendliness is more than just a Google ranking factor (though it is that, too). When writing and formatting your press release, make sure it’s easy to browse on a mobile device.
- Targeted distribution. Older press release strategies focused on blasting the document out to as many people as possible. These days, it’s usually more effective to focus on targeted, selective distribution.
Modern press releases aren’t a totally different animal than their newspaper-relegated ancestors, but they are different enough that you need to update your strategy to take full advantage of them. If you can write better, less frequent, truly standout press releases, you can reap the full PR benefits.