Photo credit: Phil Wolff
In the new Web-based environment, many media outlets value click rates as the indicator of interest in specific articles and topics. Fifty-nine percent of journalists surveyed by Business Wire say article clicks are their top success metric.
As a result, savvy PR professionals are altering their media relations strategies. The Business Wire Media Survey highlights some of the newest news release tactics:
Include multimedia. The survey of almost 400 members of the media found that many respondents (36%) would be more likely to use a news release if it included multimedia elements, such as photos, logos, audio and video files. Previous studies show that visuals stimulate increased click-through rates
Consider video. Reporters are becoming more technically savvy in utilizing video production and web services, which are now a standard element in most online publications. The survey indicated that nearly 50% of global media outlets see livestreaming apps such as Periscope, Meerkat and Facebook Live becoming more popular as a news reporting tool.
Create a company online newsroom (if you haven’t already). Most journalists turn to a corporate website (88.8%) and online newsroom (76.7%) to research an organization. The online newsroom acts as a communications center, housing press releases and multimedia, and other company-related news and articles.
Email pitches. Most journalists surveyed still prefer to receive press releases via email alerts (66.5%) with a link to the full press release. Only 3.7% prefer to be contacted through social media, while text messages and telephone calls (total 2.8%) are the least favored contact methods.
Pitch breaking news. Most survey respondents want press releases with breaking news (75.3%) followed by interesting story angles (72.1%) and supporting facts (68.8%). Journalists also look at trending industry topics (56.7%), quotable sources (50.7%) and company background information (51.2%).
Research publications. More than anything else, media respondents would like communications professionals to spend more time researching their publication and beat before contacting them. The next most common request was articles on social platforms.
Consider a news wire service. Most media respondents (84.7%) use commercial newswire services to find and augment their news coverage, and 53.5% refer to newswires daily or several times a day.
The Business Wire data seems to indicate that well-developed press releases still attract journalist attention and refutes the notion in some PR circles that issuing press releases has little value.
Other Media Relations Tactics
Distributing press releases through newswires is still productive in many instances including reporting of financial results and new product announcements. However, PR pros also have other methods and tactics in their media relations arsenal, says Gini Dietrich, author of Spin Sucks, who asserts that press releases have lost much of their former power. Too many businesses want to email their press releases to huge numbers of media outlets without researching the publications to find if they might have even a remote interest in their news, says Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich. Confirming the survey results, she agrees that researching publications is a first step in proper media relations.
A successful strategy involves treating media relations like dating, she says. Some of the tactics she recommends include:
Scrutinize publications to find if your story is a good match for them. If it doesn’t fit, move on.
Personalize pitches by researching publications and reporters’ beats and sending a quick, attention-grabbing message.
Comment on blog posts and articles. Intelligent comments can help build a relationship with reporters that can open the door news coverage.
Use social media. Find journalists in your niche on Twitter, add them to a Twitter list and find a reason to connect with them.
Be available. Be available to talk about industry trends. Even if you don’t have news to send, reporters may contact you for a quote for a story.
Bottom Line: New survey results from Business Wire offer valuable insights for media relations professionals on the evolving state of digital media and journalists’ press release preferences. In today’s media environment with its growing number of digital outlets including blogs, distributing news releases through a newswire service and building personal relationships with reporters at important publications are both effective PR strategies.
Today’s optimal media relations strategy seems to be the use of personal contacts to gain featured placements in target top-tier publications combined with press release distribution through a newswire service to obtain placements in news sources where you have been unable to develop any personal relationships – and, then, to continue to pursue new relationships with selected journalists.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
