[New Post] 5 Rules for Publishing High Quality Press Releases

 

Blogs

5 Rules for Publishing High Quality Press Releases Glenn Frates Producing high quality content – and delivering it to a specific audience – is difficult.  Whether your target audience is a customer, investor or journalist, you are competing against so much noise out there – from long headline queues at 8 a.m. Eastern to instant public reactions on Twitter. A few seconds is all you have to get your audience to take the next step with your press release. People will move on if your message isn't high quality right from the start. All too often, I see content that had good intentions fall flat because it was tossed out into the news cycle without much thought to execution. Don't fall victim to headlines with 200+ characters, blocks of text that are difficult to scan because they lack formatting and visuals, jargon-filled writing that causes confusion, or stale messaging that doesn't deliver relevant meaning to your audience. Follow these five rules and produce high quality press releases that don't get lost. 1. Make it insightful & relevant. This is probably the hardest rule to follow, and requires a lot of patience and preparation. Your content needs a purpose beyond filling your web site's News section or company's Twitter feed. Get started by creating an editorial calendar at least three months in advance. Coordinate with your product, sales, and other teams to produce content your target audience will care about. Do you have a new study to report on?  A new infographic with up-to-date data?  A white paper you're proud of?  An upcoming trade show you're excited about participating in? Readers and search engines will quickly know whether or not your message is relaying insightful and relevant information. Don't make the mistake in thinking you can fool them. 2. Be the authority. In SEO and website terms, achieving authority can be a nebulous challenge, a reflection of search engine algorithms’ unending evolution. But authority also means owning your content with confidence and expertise. Spot-on data, clean writing, and well-attributed quotes will never go out of style. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun.  As we approach April 1st, PR Newswire is always a fan of the the entertaining content that April Fools’ Day inspires. Transparency is the key to success. Don't try and be overly clever or too subtle with your message; you run the risk of undermining your authority.  Make sure the audience knows your intentions early on. 3. Avoid short, unsubstantial messages. Search engines may not be looking for a minimum word count, but they are looking for high quality content. That means producing a message that isn't just a quick 50-word post with a few links to outdated product pages. You need to craft content that builds trust with your readers so that they – and search engines, in turn – don't think of you as a spammer. Don't fill your editorial calendar with short, low quality content.  Instead, ensure you are delivering substantial (insightful, relevant and authoritative) messages. 4. Engage your reader from the start. Don't lead with a dry quote from an executive as to why your product is the best or why a deal will be great for your company's future. Don't bury a link you really want the reader to click in the bottom half of your message. Engage your reader as soon as possible by focusing on why your story matters, including a call to action early on, and incorporating relevant and eye-catching photos and videos. It is proven that readers engage with visual content more than text-only. 5. Make your story easy to digest everywhere. When Google confirmed last year that more searches take place on smartphones than on tablets and desktop computers, it sent a clear message to communicators: Your content must be formatted with mobile in mind. The challenge lies in balancing style with substance. Fortunately, with the right formatting, you can have your content cake and eat it too. Shorter headlines, bullets, and bolding are all tried and true practices for making your story easy to discover and digest on any device. Follow the above five rules and your content will be off to a good start. Get more tips that will ensure your message is well-received by downloading our Quick & Easy Guide to Sharing Your Press Release with the World. Author Glenn Frates is Regional Vice President, Customer Content Services at PR Newswire.  You can follow him on Twitter @glennfrates.

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[New Post] How to Prove Your PR’s ROI with the Right Reporting

 

Blogs

How to Prove Your PR’s ROI with the Right Reporting Melissa Toso "Was it worth it?" This is the one question you must be able to answer at the end of every PR and marketing campaign. Members of the C-suite, agency clients and other stakeholders all want to know whether the money, time and energy that went into a campaign changed consumer behavior and, more importantly, generated profit. To prove your campaign's ROI, you need to report on meaningful metrics that relate directly to business goals. Follow these four steps to show the worth of your next campaign. Step 1: Define your goals across teams When planning a media campaign, it's important to first define your goals. Because PR and marketing no longer work in siloes, these goals must align across all of your teams. Traditionally, PR's goals have focused on the relationships built with journalists, influencers and online audiences, while marketers' goals revolved around creating brand awareness and filling and optimizing the sales funnel. However, for a campaign to be successful in today's media and buyer landscapes, PR and marketing must work together to meet their goals – from generating earned media coverage and increasing key message pick-up to driving content engagement and boosting revenue. Step 2: Match your metrics to your goals Once you’ve defined your goals, how exactly do you demonstrate your ROI for them? Choose the right metrics. Each team that contributes to a media campaign needs to report on metrics that measure their goals and, crucially, prove attribution. Different goals will have different metrics; it's important to make sure yours match. Consider a campaign that has the goals of educating audiences and driving engagement to a piece of content. Here are three types of reporting you could gather, along with key metrics for each. Paid Media Reporting Campaign Tactic: Social, digital or traditional ad placements promoting your content Campaign Metrics: Impressions: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed or listened to a paid media placement about your content. Clicks: The number of individuals who engaged with the paid media placement and followed through on the call to action. Press Release Reporting Campaign Tactic: Press release distributed to media networks and websites promoting your content Campaign Metrics: Distribution Reach: The number of websites your press release appeared on and the total potential audience reach. Engagement: The number of times your audience engaged with your release, including tweets, shares and clickthroughs. Earned Media Reporting Campaign Tactic: Successfully pitching journalists, bloggers, and influencers who cover your story Campaign Metrics: Potential Audience Reach: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed, or listened to a news article or broadcast. Target Audience Reach: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed or listened to a news article or broadcast from an influential media outlet. Key Message Pick-Up: The number of times the key messages in your outreach or press release were discussed in the media. Want to see which other metrics matter? Check out our list of 18 metrics that prove and inform for more tips on matching measurement and goals. Step 3: Define "success" To prove your campaign was successful, you'll need to set a baseline for each metric you report on. To set a baseline, it is best to think about the results of previous campaigns and determine your average results. If this is the first time you are measuring the results of a campaign, determine a baseline using industry standards. For example, if your first campaign garnered a potential audience reach of 50 million and your second campaign garnered 70 million, you can set your baseline at 60 million for your third campaign. If you surpass your baseline, you can dig deeper into what worked in this campaign versus previous campaigns and, ultimately, improve upon future campaigns. Our article PR's Changing Benchmarks offers 10 questions that will help you set a baseline and make the most of measurement. Step 4: Communicate your success in a comprehensive report Once your campaign is over and you have your hands on all the data, how do you cohesively demonstrate your success? Present one, comprehensive report that highlights each team's contributions and tells your campaign's story. Some best practices include: Start with an introduction that outlines the purpose of your campaign and the goals you wanted to achieve. Organize the report in sections that show how each team contributed to the campaign. For example, the PR team should take ownership of the earned media reporting, while the marketing team should explain the results of paid media placements. Conclude with lessons learned and ideas to optimize future campaigns. Keep your audience in mind. You may need to have different versions of the report prepared for each audience you are presenting to. C-Suite executives will want high-level numbers that show ROI as a dollar value. Mid-level managers in your communications department will want more insight into the quality of the campaign (e.g. was the target audience reached?) When compiling your reporting, you should also consider how the report can benefit you long after its presentation. Take the lessons learned and immediately establish a follow-up plan while the campaign’s fresh in your mind. Then, consider conducting an A/B test with your next campaign to optimize how you connect with your audience. To see how one company used reporting to optimize their press release strategy, download our case study PhRMA Increases Blog Readership & Reaches Broader Audiences with Content Syndication. The steps PhRMA took — and the results — can help you define a strategy for your own goals. Author Melissa Toso is a media analyst on PR Newswire's media analysis team (also known as 'professional services'), a group of communications and industry experts focused on monitoring and measurement.

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