“Should this news release go on the wire?”
Clients ask this often. The answer is not a simple yes or no. Major corporations routinely put their news releases on a couple of leading news wire services like PR Newswire or BusinessWire that are allegedly picked up by media everywhere, or those specified in the order. Smaller companies with limited expense budgets usually do it when they truly have “national” news to announce.
Wire services offer several different payment/distribution packages and charge by a word count formula: So much for the first 400 words and so much for the next 100 words and so much for the next 100 words — and if you used too many comma’s another 25-cents (kidding there…). It does get spendy real quick. And if you want to maximize online presence and enhance search engine optimization features you can add another couple Franklins to your order and get into all the searchable data bases.
But with the deep recession of the past two years, even big companies have been less predisposed to spend on wire services — unless they are publically held. Then they usually utilize the dedicated investor wire offered by the aforementioned companies, which target all the leading financial media so their client’s stock will hopefully get an uptick with the alleged good news to report.
In the past few years, more people have turned to PRWEB, an online distribution channel with different price tiers but much lower $ generally. And just in the last year, I’ve been personally solicited to try new services such as MyMediaInfo, some specialty distribution service to doctors, dentists and the music industry. Honestly, I haven’t tried them all. I have used PRWeb for my smaller clients and a couple larger ones. But frankly, while the release shows up on Yahoo and on TV and other web sites all over the place, I have never in six years gotten one call from a journalist wanting to chase down the stories — and they were all good stories…. 😉
Not one.
What I like about PRWeb is that your news release is perpetually orbiting in cyberspace and search engines like Google will find it if people or journalists and producers — who are also people — are looking for information on a specific topic. A good publicist, however, will have developed a strong local, regional, national and trade list for you that targets editors and reporters who specifically cover what you do. That’s your primo list to play to first. Or should be.
If you want to reach out of that realm and try to capture more eyeballs, put your news on the wire. See what you get. Experiment. There’s no clear answer about whether to use the wire or not to use it. Like most things in the business world and your personal life these days, weigh the cost and see what you can afford. Or wire me the money and I’ll take care of it for you.