Why use a press release distribution service?

There is a tendency in small business to try and do everything ourselves.

Successful businesses though are those who work out what can cost effectively be outsourced to someone else, who will probably do it better anyway.

This is where using a press distribution service comes in. It’s perfectly reasonable for a business to opt to do its PR itself, rather than using a PR agency. This may be seen as too much of an expense and there are several online platforms which they can use very effectively and without it taking too much time or budget.

Press release distribution services provide a database of journalists

The piece many businesses find challenging is knowing which journalists to send their news release to. Usually they will compile a short list of local writers, create their email list and use this as their distribution tool. Unfortunately this will often miss many of the journalists who have an interest. But to get access to an external directory of the right journalists can be expensive, and the list is constantly changing.

This is why it is sensible to use a press release distribution tool, but it is equally important to choose the right one. Free online news wires will rarely target your release, but instead just spray it around the full world of journalism, and invariably send it to spam boxes. So a few minutes checking whether the service is targeted or not will pay dividends.

If a full service online platform like JournoLink is being used, part of this being the targeted distribution service, then make sure that the business profile on the platform is completed fully so that the journalists the platform chooses to send the news release to are properly aligned to the right business sector and news.

So four rules to follow:

Use time wisely. It invariably makes sense to use a recognised distribution service.
Make sure the service is targeted……free ones will probably not be.
It will probably be just as economic to use an online PR platform incorporating a distribution service, as opposed just to using a distribution service in isolation.
Ensure all fields are completed for the business profile on any online tool, so that the targeting is as accurate as possible.

Written by: Peter Ibbetson, Company Director

As one of the co-founders of JournoLink PR, Peter is passionate about giving small businesses a voice in the press by providing them with the support and advice to do just that.

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