The Truth About Press Releases

Here’s the thing about press releases: almost nobody really understands what they’re for or how to use them. Once upon a time, press releases made sense; you’d leverage contacts in the publishing industry to get information out in front of the world. Because there was limited real estate, a newspaper couldn’t host every press release ever, so the ones that showed up got attention.

Because press releases were resource-intensive undertakings, they were reserved for big things: corporate mergers, rebrandings, major new initiatives – things like that. Which means that there were fewer press releases vying for gated content opportunities; their effectiveness was, consequently, much higher.

In so many ways, press releases today are simply a relic of a bygone age where marketing was driven by newspaper access. And we still think about them in the same way – a “set it and forget it” solution to a problem we haven’t fully articulated.

And the approach we bring to them reflects this; we know that they’re easy to deploy now, so most companies rush them out the door and post them up on PRWeb, where they get lost in a firehose of thousands of other daily press releases.

So it’s time to ask yourself: What am I getting out of this?

Press releases don’t improve your SEO…

I know this seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. While SEO is improved by crosslinks of the kind press releases heavily feature, no amount of keyword optimization or strong linking is going to overcome the fact that press releases are typically temporary; eventually, they may come down. Search engines know this, and so posting press releases doesn’t actually do anything to improve your performance on SERPS.

The value press releases bring is when they catch a journalist’s eye and inspire them to actually write editorial content around it. These longer-term content pieces do deliver real search ranking improvements, providing stable links and posting all that optimized text you worked so hard on for the duration, where it can do you real good.

…but SEO & PR work hand in hand

That link-building is extremely valuable, and can offer real, long-term benefits. It’s arguably the best thing press releases do: more than get your name out, they provide an opportunity for real link building. While a press release by itself isn’t going to do a lot for you, a great press release about something really remarkable spurs editors and writers to do what they do best: communicate interesting things.

And your press releases will guide these news stories; they’ll use your positioning, your ideas, and most importantly, your language, linking back to your website with precisely the same SEO-optimized terms you worked so hard to put together.

But to make that happen, you actually need to reach out to journalists instead of relying on PRWeb to do the work for you; like we said, PRWeb is a firehose of content and most journalists honestly have better things they could be doing with their time than sifting through that mountain trying to find a diamond. You need to get old-fashioned, and start building relationships with journalists.

This is a good place to start.

They help you hammer out your messaging…

Drafting a press release is a good crash course in getting your messaging down. After all, if all goes well, this will be the resource journalists turn to to get your story. That means you need to develop a clear vision of who you are, what you’re trying to accomplish, how you want to position yourself to the world, and the language you want to use to do it; these are valuable assets to nail down, and once you do, you can use them throughout your marketing efforts, driving your communication with everyone you’re trying to reach.

…but they don’t really reach your audience.

Press releases aren’t targeted; they turn up wherever they turn up, and there’s no telling who’s going to see them. That means that you may be reaching less-than-ideal clients who are much less likely to convert even after inhaling your sales team’s energies.

And what’s more, all of that is assuming your content does get picked up for a high-value press opportunity. Press releases by themselves, even when shared, simply don’t get read; they aren’t written for casual readers, and are frequently difficult to digest. They’re also unswervingly self-serving by design; they are the epitome of self-promotion, and absent a highly invested and motivated audience, no one’s going to seek out the latest press release from Stuff, LLC.

Press releases have very little ROI

Press releases can get expensive, and most of them don’t actually generate the value we’ve been discussing; they get picked up, reposted perhaps, but almost never really get utilized the way you’re hoping. You’ll spend hundreds of dollars putting one together and sending it out in the wire for almost no return. Why?

Press releases more and more feel like gambles: something left over from a bygone age that can’t reliably justify their own expense. In essence, it’s not just wasted money; it’s wasted effort that could easily be poured into far more fruitful activities – especially the process of actually building the meaningful press relationships that deliver the same benefit -- without the risk.

So. What Am I Getting Out of This?

In the end, the answer is essentially “not much.” Press releases are resource sinks that offer very little in terms of concrete, long-term benefits commensurate with the associated costs. Put your resources to better use elsewhere.

Let the past stay past.