How to distribute your press releases in order to reach your target publications

Thinking of how to distribute your press releases efficiently is as important as writing a good and newsworthy story. If you have a great story to tell but nobody ever hears about it, you will go unnoticed, and vice versa. Depending on the size of your business and on the budget you’re ready to spend on PR, different solutions exist. Here are four of them.

1. Work with a PR agency to distribute your press releases

One solution to get your press release in the right hands can be to use the services of a PR agency. Indeed, they’ve got the experience and the contacts, which make it easier to distribute your stories.

Public relations agencies are used to working with journalists and influencers. Most of the time they know the right approach to adopt when contacting them. Many of these agencies offer to write the press release for you as well, increasing your chance of coverage as they normally master the codes of journalism.

However, this type of service comes at a price. For small businesses particularly, agencies are not always affordable. This option is more apt for medium-sized or large businesses as they can afford to allocate a larger budget to PR.

Another inconvenience is that journalists actually don’t always like working with agencies, especially when it’s a small business. Based on our experience, and our conversations with journalists, more and more of them prefer dealing directly with the founder or the marketing contact from the business.

2. Press release distribution services

Another option you’ve got to distribute your press releases is to use an online PR platform which lets you send your press releases to a database of journalists, bloggers and influencers. Most of the time, this type of tool, like JournoLink, enables you to select industry sectors and a geographic area for each press release you want to send out, in order to match it with the relevant publications or people. Some of them also allow you to select journalists according to the publication they’re working for.

Using online release distribution platforms is a lot more affordable than an agency. Some of them are however more expensive than others. As the services offered are slightly different with each of these platforms, it's best to do your research to choose the one that fits your business best. 

3. Distribute your press release on social media

First, because it’s one of the easiest ways to communicate with your audiences, to build your brand profile and to share your content. But did you know that a lot of journalists and bloggers use these platforms to get in touch with businesses? Some of them even prefer this way as it is fast and easy, and they can find additional information in one click.

Research the people you need to target, follow them on Twitter and don’t hesitate to send a direct message when you’ve got a story that could be of interest for them.

To increase your chance of getting their attention, regularly like, share and comment constructively in order to build a relationship.

4. Build your own PR distribution list 

Of course, there is always the option of managing your PR from A to Z, meaning that you can build your own list of journalists and send out your press releases through your usual email provider. If you want to opt for this solution you need to have the human and time resources as it can take time to build a good list of contacts.

Nonetheless, it’s the cheapest way to manage your own PR.

Actually, if you invest the right amount of time researching the publications and the bloggers and journalists you’d like to target, your strategy could be very efficient as you would have a very targeted audience.

The main inconvenience of it is that it can be very hard to find contact details. Indeed, as they receive thousands of emails every day, journalists and bloggers tend to hide their email address. For this reason, it could be worth paying for an affordable platform that provides you with contacts.

Finding a compelling story to tell and distributing it through a press release is only the first step of the PR process. Once you’ve sent it out, you need to track it online and offline to see if you got covered. 

If you would like to hear more of our business tips or would like more information about how you can get more media coverage for your business, contact support@journolink.com