Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Press Release failure: what could be done differently?

My company recently finished a significant contract with my main client and we sent out a press release. This press release was not approved by the client until after the contract was finished (1 year duration) and then there were lots of detail removed at their request, but they did approve the release.

I had intended for this piece to raise brand recognition and to help generate leads. It was sent out to local and national press by an experienced PR person. I believe all the “boxes” were ticked (approved, logo, letter head, quotes, & pictures).

The problem is that no one has published the press release. So it feels like a wasted effort.

Questions

Answer 11676

In our heads, we all still imagine a thing called “the media” where there are editors and journalists eager to find stories to develop and run. That world has shrunk.

Then we know about “churnalism,” where the few people left standing fill their (physical or virtual) pages by running press releases as news. That world exists, but it’s a lottery.

As I see it, the world of media has become just like most other fields: it’s a relationship management game.

So if you hire a PR person, the least value they add is distributing the press release. The only thing that matters is the relationships they build for you. In the case you describe, you and they had months knowing a story was coming, and between you, you squandered the opportunity to use that time to smooth the path to the story getting circulated.

It’s also true that no business story can guarantee finding an outlet, so you need to develop a plan that generates some volume of stories.

Arrange a meeting with your PR person. Discuss appropriate activity measures that will generate relationships that will carry stories. If they assure you that’s not how PR works, fire them and find someone who’s more focused on the value they create for you than the money they extract from you.

Answer 11683

Expanding on Jeremy’s otherwise excellent answer: releasing a press release seldom got anyone any attention.

PR 101:

  1. Give journalists useful insights/advice/what have you, over and over again.
  2. Rinse and repeat for 6-12 months until you’re a regular in their inbox and they begin to value the information you’re giving them. Huge bonus points for actually delivering on insightfulness or uniqueness or informativeness or out of the box thinking or scoops or whatever. (Strong negative points for “me too” types of thoughts and anecdotes.)
  3. Continue to rinse and repeat until you become one of their “trusted sources.” (You know they’re ripe when they start asking for your opinion.)
  4. Congratulations, you can now email the journalists who trust you about those somethings that you feel are newsworthy and that they should know about. Don’t forget to give them a few weeks notice prior to doing so. (And don’t forget to thank them when they follow up.)

It really takes 6-12 months per journalist. And it’s really on a per journalist basis. You need to build relationships to get attention. A PR firm’s value, as correctly point out by Jeremy, is that it comes with the relationships pre-built.

Answer 11672

I’ll focus my answer on your second question as that is the one described in detail.

There are a few ways you could have secured a published article:

All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.