Direct-to-Consumer Press Releases Suck

David Meermen Scott has written a new free e-book called “The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly.” The gist of the ebook is that marketers should view press releases as a way to reach buyers directly through real-time indexes like Google News and that the media has been disintermediated.

In the book, David outlines several core points...

• Don’t just send press releases when “big news” is happening; find good reasons to send them all the time.
• Instead of just targeting a handful of journalists, create press releases that appeal directly to your buyers.
• Write releases replete with keyword-rich copy.
• Create links in releases to deliver potential customers to landing pages on your Web site.
• Optimize press release delivery for searching and browsing.
• Drive people into the sales process with press releases.

Lots of people buy into this tactic. And while I am a fan of taking applying an SEO-mind to PR, I feel strongly that fluffy press releases that are not for the press are bogus. I am adamant that we should not be spamming the press releases wires. Investors and journalists feed on these for real news. Put your energy into launching blogs and engaging in direct-to-consumer conversations. (via Seth)

Technorati Tags: Press releases

Comments

[Kevin Dugan]

I believe it was called "rolling thunder" back in the dot com days.

If everything is news, nothing is news.

[dahowlett]

I had to laugh when I read this Steve. I don't always agree with you but this is bang on the money for me.

I'm still waiting for the day when PRs generally start sending out releases I actually WANT to read. Hopefully it will mean the end of those that start: "XXX Inc, the leader in...." by which stage I'm usually asleep.

[Fabian]

I totally agree with you. If you make press-releases that are not targeted to the press, they should be called customer-releases and should not be sent to journalists. You can try with blogs, customers' newsletters or whatever other thing you may invent. But do not mess up with journalists.

[Dino Baskovic]

Companies have been following this approach for decades. It's called "advertising".

I imagine most journalists would vomit, quite loudly and violently I might add, if they were to catch wind of this "free e-book". That, and savvy PR practitioners will see right through this mularkey and not waste their clients' time with such drivel.

Sorry, Mr. Scott, but as it turns out, public relations is a deadly serious profession. I'm sure you mean well, but just like Web 2.0 is baloney, so too will we never utter the phrase "PR 2.0".

"...replete with keyword-rich copy." Now that's comedy.

[Ephraim Cohen]

The biggest problem is about semantics. What people call a press release is often an direct information release (a official piece of information released directly to end audiences)

I just started writing about the differnet types of releases out there (http://b2binsight.com/blog/?p=15)...we just need to start using different terminology to clear up the confusion (investor relations information release, consumer information release, official statement release, and, yes, a release for the press sometimes called...a press release).

[Chuck Zimmerman]

I would agree with some of what has been said, especially that press releases should be just that, targeted to the press. However, if you change the label and the purpose there are an increasing number of ways to distribute what we have always thought of as press releases.

For example, in the agricultural marketing world we're offering a "news release" service (www.agnewswire.com) that distributes releases to agricultural journalists. However, we've just started posting them as content using an RSS Feed to the website homepages of farmer cooperatives nationally via an agreement with Quickfarm, the website design/creation/maintenance company. The releases are modified to omit the standard "For Immediate Release and PR contact info" but are otherwise the "unfiltered" company release. This direct to target audience mechanism seems to make sense as we see the big increases in internet use in agribusiness. I would assume a similar application would make sense in other industries.

[David Meerman Scott]

Steve,

Thank you for mentioning my e-book and for contributing to the exciting debate about direct-to-consumer press releases.

In my 10 years of writing releases for a variety of companies as well as my experience as a contributing editor at EContent Magazine (and a writer for other publications), I have learned that for the vast majority of smaller organizations, getting press pickup is extremely difficult. Well over 90% of press releases aren’t even read by journalists, let alone used in any stories. But at the same time, Google News and other news portals allow consumers to read press releases directly. RSS feeds deliver press release content directly to interested people via the words and phrases contained in the release.

Despite the arguments about press release purity and journalists who detest the practice, it is still a fact that smaller companies can get noticed by appealing directly to their buyers rather than waiting for the media to anoint them as worthy of a story.

Cheers, David Meerman Scott

[Dee Rambeau]

I agree that it's largely semantics. While you may disagree with it, you can hardly argue with its results. http://www.webinknow.com/2006/01/anatomy_of_a_vi.html

[Barry Graubart]

If the newswires were "pure", I'd agree with your complaints. But few journalists use the wires for "hard news". Those that do, often are just reprinting text from the press release.
The minute that the wires opened up their readership to the general browsing public, the purpose of press releases were altered. While David Scott's approach may not please all, it seems a reasonable (and effective) way to communicate with the general web consumer. Perhaps there's a biz oppty for a "professional" channel to reach journalists. In my experience, that's only come through personal relationships and working the phones in advance of a release, though.

[Farrell Kramer]

Mmmm. This is a tricky area.

I think the comment that set you off Steve is the same one that irritates me: "send them all the time." This is a bad idea when dealing with the press.

However, I think it's also a bad idea when dealing with consumers. Spam is spam. I'd stay away from it.

That said, there is a point to this release discussion that has some value, I believe. It is the idea that press releases are no longer just for the press. There are a number of quite legitimate examples of this:

--A public company reports quarterly earnings in a press release. That release is meant for investors and analysts as well as the media.

--A candidate issues a "statement" in the midst of a political campaign. This is clearly a multi-purpose release.

--A consumer products company announces a safety recall. Consumers should clearly be an "audience" here.

So, I think finding ways to make releases accessible to a broad range of folks is a healthy thing. SEO is simply one form of this. ...

Just don't get carried away with it!

[Farrell Kramer]

Mmmm. This is a tricky area.

I think the comment that set you off Steve is the same one that irritates me: "send them all the time." This is a bad idea when dealing with the press.

However, I think it's also a bad idea when dealing with consumers. Spam is spam. I'd stay away from it.

That said, there is a point to this release discussion that has some value, I believe. It is the idea that press releases are no longer just for the press. There are a number of quite legitimate examples of this:

--A public company reports quarterly earnings in a press release. That release is meant for investors and analysts as well as the media.

--A candidate issues a "statement" in the midst of a political campaign. This is clearly a multi-purpose release.

--A consumer products company announces a safety recall. Consumers should clearly be an "audience" here.

So, I think finding ways to make releases accessible to a broad range of folks is a healthy thing. SEO is simply one form of this. ...

Just don't get carried away with it!

[RBLevin]

Steve, you're a voice in the forest. I'm standing to your right.

PR optimization also has the effect of creating some really weird language.

I think good, well-written PR is self-optimizing -- and readable. The best PR tells a story that the media will be interested in.

Google doesn't care about stories. And most reporters that I know don't search for PR on Google. It lands in their inbox.

[Joel Freeman]

Please allow me to take a somewhat contrarian position. By casually dismissing Mr. Scott's premises, you miss the opportunity to understand how and what the people who manage technology companies think. It's not about journalism.

"Fluff" is not the problem; technical communications is. Even today, very few journalists understand technology well enough to write about it coherently, much less factually. Consequently, exceedingly few tech vendor press releases are ever picked up by mainstream media -- except when that vendor has a deep ad budget or is a known, publicly traded entity. This nullifies any separation of journalistic "church and state". No pretenses of such separation exist at the vast majority of trade publications.

Look at the "About" page at Pragmatic Marketing's website (whence Mr. Scott's e-book originates)and you'll see they target technology product management and marketing. As a non-engineer with more than 15 years marketing experience with technology developers and vendors, I can assure you that he is addressing his target audience -- not all audiences -- in a way they understand, with language they accept.

Moreover, engineers frequently generalize public relations, marketing and advertising into a single entity, viewing them as cogs driving the same machine. The non-juried publications they often read validate their interpretation (to their way of thinking, at least). To them, "press release" and "advertisement" are functionally identical, though most prefer editorial coverage.

The water is further muddied by mainstream media pickups of releases about outrageous claims and novel technologies that may never reach the marketplace. (Technology business is a separate, though often conflicting, domain.)

The real bite is that when releases drive search engine rankings and SEO drives both vendor site visitors and publication viewers, the likelihood for advertising increases exponentially. The vendor is more likely to advertise in publications who referred visitors; the publication is more likely to solicit vendors who garner hits. And when a profile of a demographic segment emerges from visitors and viewers, a publication's advertising reach expands.

So, ultimately, Mr. Scott's work is all about advertising sales, not journalistic processes. Regardless, the validity of his or any message is independent of one's liking of it or the actions and positions it advocates.

Regards,

Joel Freeman
www.concentre.us