Your first press release (PR) is ready to go out to the masses. You crafted it skillfully and pointed out all of its essential aspects. But have you considered factors that will give you the maximum return on investment (ROI) from the press release distribution? If not, there’s no purpose for the distribution.
You may think press releases are all about updating your community. But it isn’t the sole purpose. You also need to realize the importance of distributing a press release for maximum ROI.
There are several ways to get a higher ROI from press release distribution, such as choosing a syndication service or developing personal relationships with journalists. I’ll cover both of these so you can get the maximum return.
Choosing Press Release Distribution Services
Press release distribution services, such as iCrowdNewswire, will allow you to spread the news across different channels, promoting the word to the masses. These service providers are industry experts. They regularly roll out press releases for various niches. Hiring such a service provider ensures brand awareness, saves time and helps generate high ROI.
Startups and other businesses highly enjoy the benefits of press release distribution services. Besides helping you reach the masses, it also reduces workload and builds strong relationships with journalists. However, too much reliance on these services may leave some negative impacts. That’s why many experts suggest less reliance on such service providers.
Choosing the Right PR Distribution Service
Choosing the best press release distribution service is often tricky. So many service providers will guarantee the maximum traffic and ROI but not deliver the same. To make the right decision, you must begin by asking a few questions from the service provider(s):
- Do they offer PR distribution services for multiple niches?
- Do they provide PR services in various regions?
- Do they provide custom-build PR distribution services?
- How long have they been in the business?
- How many publications have they made till their launch?
Don’t Delay
Don’t delay once you have the perfect match for your PR publication. Don’t overthink about the charges you may have to pay for the services. You’ll probably get a good ROI on it.
Don’t Forget to Measure the ROI
Measuring ROI is key to running your PR campaigns. Measuring ROI is a hefty process and is discussed in this post.
Building Relationships with Journalists
Although choosing a press release distribution service will reduce efforts and ease your tasks, they won’t allow you to take control of everything. To target better, you also need to build a personalized media list. This customized list enhances your outreach and helps in increasing your PR.
Building a viable PR list involves several steps, including:
Exploring Your Target Audience
To find your target audience, ask a few questions:
- Who you’re trying to reach: customers, investors, or industry leaders?
- What’s the age of your target audience?
- What demographic do they belong to?
- What’s the source of their news?
Let’s say you’re writing for a smartphone maker. You want to increase your sales. Customers, including direct buyers, retailers, and distributors, are your target audience. Here you need to build a list of smartphones, IT, and tech-based magazines and news blogs.
Starting the Research Work
Now that you have a media list, you need to research. Start your research by typing the primary keyword. In our case, “smartphone” is one of the KWs. That’s a market segment keyword. You will get a blend of results against that KW. Choose the options from the result that best define your purpose.
The next step is finding rankings or DAs of the new website using various tools such as Alexa and MOZ. Besides checking the rankings, also find their social media activity and average comments per article. Publishers with low followers, DAs, and social activities must be left unattended.
To start a strong relationship with the publishers, you may want to share their posts first. Everyone on the internet likes that.
Reaching the right publisher could be done via their Twitter handle, Facebook or LinkedIn profile, or email ID.
Time to Build a Solid Media List
Now that you’ve found valid publishers, it’s time to start building the media list.
Building a media list involves creating a spreadsheet with relative details, including the publisher’s name, web address, contact details, social media handles, PR topics, etc.
Keep updating the spreadsheet so you know the WHENs, WHEREs, and WHATs of press release distributions. It enhances performance and gives an organized view of getting better results.
Recheck Submission Guidelines
After following the above steps, you also need to recheck submission guidelines. These guidelines are usually available on websites or magazines. You may also contact the publisher to get the updated policies.
Reaching Out the Publishers
After the research, comes the real thing.
Some industry experts suggest adding the press release for distribution in the email body rather than attaching an MS Word file. It reduces the readers’ effort and allows them to make an instant decision.
Impressing publishers is an art. Start with a professional email that includes a subject, greetings, your introduction, the purpose of your email, call to action (your press release), and your signature.
Besides adding your press release content, you may also add a press kit – a page or folder briefing you and your business. A press kit may include:
- What does the company do?
- About important company figures
- Recent, important PRs
- Facts about products or services
- Case studies, surveys, stats, or testimonials
- Notable press coverage and awards
- Some high-quality images
- Marketing teams contact details
- Relative FAQs
The PR content must be explicit and follow the guidelines of the publisher’s site. For example, blogs often give you a conversational tone. Adopt it and craft your content accordingly. Also, add all of your business’s social media handles if they allow it.
Catch Up with the Publishers
It’s unlikely that every journalist will respond to your email shortly after receiving it. Many will ignore it, and sometimes it may land in the spam folder.
If you’re building new relations, contacting via emails, LinkedIn, or Twitter would be more appropriate. If you’ve good terms with the publisher, you may reach them via a phone call. Whatever source you choose to communicate, just don’t hesitate.
Make the PR Shareable
Your PR should be good to be shared between like-minded people. That may start with an attractive title and catchy first few lines.
Now that you’ve learned different ways to maximize your ROI from distributing press releases (acquiring press release distribution services and building relations with journalists), it’s time to learn to calculate your ROI.
How to Measure the ROI of Your Press Release?
Essentially, measuring the ROI of a PR is an 8 step process.
What’s Your Goal?
Goal identification is generally divided into two categories:
- Monetary Gains: This will include sales revenue.
- Brand’s Credibility and Reputation: The duo will also help you increase your sales revenue.
The two are the core goals for every RP distribution and will help you measure your ROI.
Define Your KPIs
The key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you track the progress of your campaigns and will help in measuring your ROI.
There could be different KPIs, including measuring page impressions and page views. All will give you the impact of your PR distribution and will help you calculate the ROI.
Calculate Page Views
You also need to know the page views your PR is receiving. If you aren’t getting enough views, you’re probably not getting enough traffic, which means you aren’t getting enough ROI.
No matter if you’re using a paid press release distribution service or making up your media list, knowing the page views is essential.
Create Clickable Links
A PR with no links is less likely to generate sales, and with fewer sales, you are unlikely to get an ROI.
Make sure your press release has appropriate links to your website’s pages that will uplift your sales revenues. Tracking leads through external sources is easily using various tools, such as Google Analytics.
Measure Mentions
The ultimate goal of most businesses out there is to earn big time. For that, they follow different strategies. Press release distribution service is one of those.
Among various ways of measuring ROI, tracking brand mentions is one. The higher your brand gets mentioned on the internet, the better promotion you’ll get, leading to higher leads. Make your PR content worth mentioning by others, especially influencers with high subscribers.
Monitor Your Social Media Accounts
To maximize your ROI, repost the published PR on your social media accounts. That helps share the same with your existing brand ambassadors, and they might help you boost your ROI.
Track Backlinks from PR Distributors
Backlinks are highly effective for search engine optimization (SEO). PRs are one great way to generate backlinks. But websites with high domain authorities win more traffic and trust in search engines.
With simple online tools, you can measure the incoming traffic to your website from various sources. So you can easily calculate the traffic helping to boost your ROI.
Don’t Forget to Consider Long-term ROIs
While measuring the ROI from a specific PR, make sure you consider long-term goals as well. Your long-term goals could include brand awareness and loyalty, industry credibility, and brand reputation.
For long-term ROIs, consider opting for services and channels where your PR content stays for a more extended period. Social media share and high-traffic websites are most likely your preferred source.
Conclusion
By now, you have the methods to increase and measure your ROI. It’s now time to begin your journey and start writing a money-making press release.
