Carson and Company

Build a solid database for reporters and other media

Do you have a customized media list to distribute your press releases? Are you using a public relations agency, or do you submit your press releases through a PR distribution service?

It doesn’t matter what method you use, what matters is your publicity release or article reaches the reporters or editors that relate best to your industry. You need to target the right media. Using a general, catch-all list will not help your publicity campaign move forward. So what is the solution to reaching the right media?

I read an article called “Guide to Creating a Media List for Your PR” that has many of the answers.

If you don’t get a chance to read the article, I’ll give you a short review of what that author suggests.

1- Purchase a list.  There are companies that provide media lists for sale. You can start looking at Bulldog Reporter’s Media Base, or PR Essentials Company. Another well-known name in publicity services is BurrellesLuce.

2- Distribution Service. Several companies provide distribution of press releases. A few of them are: PRWeb, although a free service, to get full distribution, you will need to subscribe or upgrade from free to fee. eReleases and Advanced-PR are two other companies to consider. Each charges a fee. Another public relations service for distribution is 24-7 Press Release. They also have a fee.

3- Create your own custom list. This is good for pr clients or small pr firms that need to distribute locally, or in limited industries. Try NewsDirectory.com, or Yahoo! News Directory.

If you want to really get noticed, then you need to do more than just send out a press release or two. It requires an on-going effort. It requires hiring a public relations service company who can develop, write and distribute a full campaign. Did I mention that’s what we do? We are here to help you meet your publicity goals. Call George Carson today. He’ll get you noticed!

Using the tools can help a publicity campaign

Most public relations service companies use e-mail to disburse the press releases or to send a mass mailing announcing a newsworthy event.

As with all mass mailings, publicity can become a victim of too much mail that it gets trashed. Sending out a mass blast e-mail may not always be the best solution for a publicity campaign. Sometimes it is best to target the few media reporters that best fit your press release or pitch for an article. e-Mail blast can be good for some news bulletins or to announce an event you might be holding. But I recommend that you are selective in that approach and choose the few media you really want to attend and send them a separate email with a personal invitation, not a generic one.

In our fast pace world of publicity, we need to slow down and target our audience, in this case it is the reporters or publishers. Doing this does require extra time, but it will pay off better than sending a blast and having no reporters attend.

This is true with press releases and press kits for pr clients. Not every release needs to be blasted to hundreds of media. Taking this easy approach only gets bad publicity for you and your company.
Knowing how to use e-mail marketing can be a major benefit to a company. It allows you to measure the response sooner than traditional mailings. And you have a stronger of reaching your prospect, media, than placing the release in an envelope and hope that it isn’t filtered (tossed out by the secretary) before it reaches your chosen destination.

See Also

• How to create an effective e-Mail campaign
  Know the source of your press release

PR people need to watch closely this meida

It isn’t any surprise that a bunch of new words "Social Networking", "Active Worlds" and a host of others are becoming part of the Internet vocabulary. PR people and all publicity companies need to keep in touch with this explosion of how networking is gaining a lot of attention.

Several articles about how social sites, like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and YouTube are now attracting advertisers to tap into this market. If you are a pr client, or have a Public Relations Service handling all your public relations activities, then you need to stay tuned with the markets as they grow. But don’t wait for the market to get saturated before becoming active in it. If you do, you will become one of hundreds of thousands trying to get visible in a crowded market.

iMedia Connection mentions these briefly in a couple of short articles on Promoting Your Brand In new Ways. They are doing a good service to keep us informed about social networking. Another writer, Cory Treffiletti, wrote an article about advertisers looking to cash in on this new media. I don’t fully agree that all of the social networks need to be hammered by advertisers. Such as Facebook, which is mainly a college "invitation" only network. If what Cory says comes true that it will soon allow political advertisers, then it won’t be long before all advertisers will have access to this media.

Notice how much attention this network is getting. Even I am addressing the issue. That’s more publicity for that market. As I have said many times before, Publicity is everywhere, you just need to identify how you can benefit from all the hype.

See Also

• How to capitalize on Social Networking
  Using the media for publicity

In-House or Outsorucing?

Companies are always faced with keeping overhead costs low. The first area that gets cut is the marketing and publicity budget.

So how does any company justify cutting these areas and maintain a constant campaign?

One solution that most pr clients and marketing clients think saves them money is to do all the work in-house. But does this really save money, or does it cost you (the client) more in the long haul? Let’s take a look.

To go in-house, you need to hire a marketing or pr director. Typically this person, if professional, and knows what he/she is doing, will have a salary of about $80,000 per year. An assistant would cost $40,000 a year as a starting salary. These figures can be more depending on their experience.

Now you have someone to do the entire writing, planning, meeting with reporters, publishers, coordinating marketing and pr activities and sometimes designing the sales and marketing materials.

Let’s just say this person, for now, needs to do a few releases. How are you going to distribute them? Do you do send them one at-a-time to the handful of media? Or do you go through a news bureau like Bacon’s. Well, Bacon’s costs about $3,000 per year membership and then you pay per release on top of that. In addition, the select few that are to your favorite media, need postage, envelopes, and what about the follow-up?

On top of the distribution costs, we need to again look at this person you hired. They need medical coverage, you need to pay the FICA costs and provide space for them and a phone line. The phone bill will now increase as well. An article that supports my viewpoint is called "Debunking the myth that B2B marketing is cheaper in-house", by John Elliott.

In addition, the person may not have the close contact relationships with the different media as your pr firm.

Ok, did you save any money? Most likely not. The costs when added together are probably more than a moderate publicity campaign for the year would have cost. And you can be sure that the outsource company will get the job done because they won’t be interuppeted with daily problems associated with an in-house publicity person.

No matter how many times we see this happen, it just seems that clients need to learn from their mistakes. Hopefully this brief lesson will give pr clients and public relations service companies the chance to see what really is best for them.

See Also

• How to control your publicity and marketing budgets
  Using outside firms can actually be profitable