Professional communication includes distributing press releases. As a PR professional, you want your customers, media professionals and other key stakeholders to know about your new product, special event or important development among staff. To do this, you write a press release to be distributed through digital channels. What are digital press relations and the benefits of it for companies and organisations? What are the advantages of digital press relations? When is the right time to publish a press release? What else should you be considering before you even start writing a press release?
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Digital press relations involve you communicating with your customers, media professionals and major stakeholders through PR portals, your own website, social media and emails. The objective here is to promote a company or organisation’s brand, products or services. Digital press relations play a significant role in modern PR and has some important advantages.
The biggest advantage of digital press relations is that both time and costs are kept in check. Marketing campaigns and anything else steered by marketing tend to be more cost intensive.
The reach digital press relations can provide you with is much greater. Press and public relations work lets you obtain reach and visibility for your own topics, products, and values. You attract attention from media professionals and stakeholders while guaranteeing all target groups can more easily find your topics with their search engines.
Finally, one more point and the most important of all: PR professionals can build strong relationships with the media and their players with good press and public relations work, placing their own topics and values upfront. This is because readers, for example, of trade media, will perceive reports about your own company from you more credibly, making them more worthwhile than an advertisement.
Before you even start writing a press release, you should be clear what its objective is going to be. What are you looking to achieve with it? Do you want to tell the trade media about a personal matter? Are you seeking more reach and raising awareness, or are you looking to increase sales of your products and services? Or do you wish to attract jobseekers to your own company?
The next question you need to answer is about your target groups. Who might be interested in what you want to say? The more precisely you define your target groups, the more specifically you can aim your press release and the more accurately you can tailor your distribution list to whom you wish to reach.
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Is the occasion or the topic really relevant for the media?
Figures that surprise journalists are a good reason to issue a press release. Check with your company if they have any stats suitable for a press release.
Prizes and awards are another excellent story to put in a press release. These stories highlight people and companies that have done something special or incredible. This is just what people want to read about in reports.
Anniversaries are joyful occasions. It can be the silver anniversary of a company, twenty years of a sporting event or the 50th season of a popular children’s programme Take a look at your company to see what anniversaries are coming up soon.
As a rule, press releases about an executive appointment or new hire are usually exciting because they are associated with hopes of positive changes. Tip: When including personal details in the press release, don’t forget a photo.
Such press releases are about new products ready to conquer the market. However, they do not always have to be about a product just released. Even the sale of a millionth pack of a popular pasta can be worth reporting.
Your company or organisation is hosting an awards ceremony or announcing a prize. So you are organising a festive event and wish to report it in your press release.
There is no ideal time to distribute a press release. Just like there is no perfect day of the week or best time of the day. Nonetheless, most press releases tend to go out between Tuesday and Thursday. A morning dispatch is generally more suitable for many editorial offices, but radio stations will need press material in the early morning hours between 3 and 7 am, and for financial reporting an announcement before the stock exchange opens can be favourable if the news is good. But when the timing of the news is not so critical, the press release can be distributed on Sunday or even during a holiday. These are periods when an editorial team often finds it difficult to get stories and they are grateful for new material. Always think about editorial deadlines and publication dates for your most influential media.
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Email still remains one of the most popular distribution channels. Before you email your press release, however, make sure your distribution list is as up-to-date as possible. Never send your press release indiscriminately to every possible recipient. Before each mailing, review the contacts on the distribution list and make sure the particular press release is relevant for them. Choose a subject that is worthy and exciting. Remember that journalists need facts and information, preferably as quickly as possible and easy to read.
Besides sending press materials to the media, it makes sense to post them on your own website, too. You can provide different options for further processing with each press release, such as a PDF download, forwarding as an email or sharing on social media.
In addition, it is advisable to distribute your press release on your own social media channels. Social networks not only let you reach your own customers, but also many media professionals and news spreaders, too.
You can also put your press release on a portal, where media representatives and other stakeholders can subscribe and read press releases. The degree of professionalism among press portals differs, with some catering to a specific industry. They offer an additional opportunity to increase your web reach. One of them, with the widest reach in Germany, is Presseportal, a service from news aktuell with over 12 million visits a month.
When you distribute your press material to the media, they decide whether to include your story in their coverage. This is not so with “native ads”, where the publication of your press release in an editorial environment is guaranteed. The content is marked as an advertisement, but the design and style of native ads are adapted to the respective medium and optimised for search engines.
Building up a press distribution list takes a lot of time and effort, is resource intensive and requires constant maintenance and updating of press contacts. This is where outsourcing to external service providers like news aktuell can relieve you from such hard work.
If the occasion for your press release and what it covers are rather critical for the broader public, professional PR service providers such as news aktuell can offer quick help. news aktuell is a dpa subsidiary with access to a network that enjoys high reach and offers visibility for your press material. Its ots service sends your press releases directly to the editorial offices of news agencies such as dpa, the daily press radio stations and even online media - and always to the right departments.
In addition, news aktuell provides you with all your press material bundled in its press portal’s dedicated newsroom. Presseportal.de has the widest reach in all of Germany. This means more traffic for your press release, better findability in search engines and thus more visibility.
zimpel is news aktuell’s PR software with over 612,000 data records with international contacts. They are constantly updated by our in-house research team. Using zimpel, you can create customised press distribution lists.
It has an integrated mailing tool that lets you easily distribute your press material. You can also use the HTML editor to adapt your mailing layout individually to your corporate identity. Added features gives you the option of integrating CTA buttons, selecting an individual address or uploading files.
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