It used to be that putting out a press release was a big deal. It required special accreditation and membership in a wire service and could generally only be accomplished by large companies or by using an accredited public relations or ad agency.
As with many other things, the Web has disintermediated and democratized the process of publishing a press release—so much so that some large organizations don’t even bother with them anymore, figuring that their releases will be lost in the flood of information unleashed on the world by the “little guys.”
These days, publishing a press release that will be picked up by wire services is technically free. In reality, getting the distribution you want for the release will cost you about $30 per release. Although my general stance is not to pay for listings, this is usually well worth doing, provided you have the skills to write a good press release and you have an interesting story to tell. Not only will it produce inbound links, but some traditional media may pick up on your site and story.
There are several online services that exist to distribute press releases, including 24-7PressRelease.com, FreePressRelease.com, and PRWeb. These sites all work in essentially the same way: an online form is provided for your press release submission, and the service submits your release to wire services, web search engines, and anyone who subscribes to the service’s feeds. Free submission is available from all of the press release services, but to get the distribution your press release deserves, you need to buy premium membership in the service (or upgrades for specific press releases). In some cases, this is phrased as making a “contribution” or a “donation.”
PRWeb is probably the best known of these services. To get started with PRWeb, you need to create a free account. Once you’ve established an account, you have access to a management console, shown in Figure 3-20, which lets you create, edit, and submit press releases and also check how many times each of your releases was viewed.
Note
The viewing statistics for PRWeb are impressive, typically in the tens of thousands of views for most press releases. PRWeb also tells you how many times your release was picked up by a media outlet, how many times it was forwarded using PRWeb’s forwarding service, and how many times it was printed using the printer-friendly version of your release. However, it’s not entirely clear what these statistics actually mean, and you should not necessarily expect a corresponding increase in your volume of site traffic.
To create a new release for submission, click the Create Release button on the console. In the form that opens, you can copy and paste the elements of your press release if you created it as a word processing document (see the upcoming sidebar ).
You can edit the press release later, but you do need to supply the following elements initially:
Headline (one sentence)
Summary (two to four sentences)
Body of the press release
Keywords (it’s not a good idea to add a special keyword section in the body of the release; instead, make sure that all the keywords appear as part of the text of the release)
Industry
Site URL and contact information
Note
To some degree, your industry selection determines to whom your press release is distributed. You need to pick a primary industry when you create the release, but (depending on your contribution level) you can add industry groups after the release has been saved but before it is submitted. You should take advantage of this to get your release as widely distributed as possible.
When you’ve completed your press release and assigned a release date, click Save Press Release. You’ll next be asked to pay for your submission (select a contribution level).
Press releases are subject to a vetting process conducted both by software and human editors. Some kinds of content are forbidden. For example, you cannot submit a press release having to do with adult content and related industries on PRWeb.
You can find out more about PRWeb’s review policies using the knowledge base on the PRWeb site. Generally, besides adult content, PRWeb will reject any outright and apparent advertisements, so take care to word your press releases to avoid this stigmatization. If your press release is rejected, PRWeb will refund any contributions as a matter of course. Note that PRWeb does not vet spelling or grammar and does not check facts—it’s up to you to get these things right.
Provided your press release has been accepted, you’ll receive email confirmation and a link to your press release online on the wire service site.