If you’re just starting your business or you only have a small budget to spend for your PR efforts, you need to make sure that you’re only spending on what’s really going to work. Your primary PR goal is to save on your press release distribution service — while still getting a lot of ROI bang for your buck.
Here are some tips for choosing an authoritative, effective press release distribution service on a limited budget:
Determine your goal:
First and foremost, you must know your goal. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, it’s impossible for you to create newsworthy and relevant content.
Without set goals, it is hard for you to measure your campaign. It’s like shooting your gun without aiming at your target.
When you have set goals, you’ll have a guide on how you’ll craft a release that resonates to your audience. You’ll develop strategies in order to meet your goal.
Your goal will be your basis when choosing a press release distribution platform and distribution plan. Everything will be based on your goal.
For instance, if you want to increase your social media engagement, you need to get a platform that includes it as part of its features and plan. Your press release must have a social sharing button in order for the audience to share it easily on social media sites.
By determining your goal before doing a further step, you can ensure that you are not wasting your budget. Every little thing counts.
Know your audience:
Not all content is suited to the audience. You must ensure that you know your target. Create your buyer’s personas.
You must define your target demographics like age, lifestyle, buying behavior, location, gender, etc. When you know these details, you’ll craft your release effectively.
With these in mind, choose a platform that will distribute your release. Make sure that it has a network of media outlets and journalists that can reach your target audience.
Choose a plan that fits your budget and includes the right distribution. Always keep your audience in mind when picking a platform and plan.
Research:
Now that you know your goal and target audience, you should research the best paid press release services in the market. List the options available to you, and also get their contact information.
Gather all the details that matter to your plan. In order to maximize your investment, you need to ensure that you’re getting a cost-effective plan with a reputable press release site.
Check Google. Find popular wire services like PRWeb, PR Newswire, Newswire, BusinessWire, and eReleases.
List important features for each:
You need to get information, such as the name of the press release distribution service, best features, pricing, plans, add-on, writing services, submission, and customer service. What best features they offer?
Go back to your goals and your target audience. What features will help you attain your goals and reach your audience?
Do you need writing services, a wider distribution, the need to reach local or national reporters? All these must be considered.
List the plans that fits you:
When you listed the distribution services that you may consider later, you need to list the plans that suit your needs. Go to each service and check which plan suits your business.
Again, review your goals and target audience. Which plans cover your needs? If you need to target the local market, which service and plan offer that?
When you know the options available to you, you’ll commit fewer mistakes. Remember, with little budget, you can’t afford to make errors.
As a startup, you need to ensure that you are using your budget at the right service and distribution package. If you’re not careful, you’ll make mistakes and lose your investment.
Compare:
Make comparison after listing all the information you need. How do you compare?
For instance, list all the platforms that are important to your campaign. Consider the features, pricing, customer service, customer feedback or review among other factors.
You need to compare the important features in order to arrive at the right decision. It’s very important that you consider all the avenues before choosing a press release service.
By comparing features, you’ll know which service can provide you a wider distribution, help you optimize your content, and improve brand awareness. When comparing, compare features first then pricing.
If you make the pricing as the basis for choosing a press release service, you’ll likely end up with a platform that doesn’t meet your goal. Moreover, you’re likely to miss the mark.
However, when you consider the features first, you’ll know which service can really help your business. Your goal is to have a better ROI, so even if you’ll spend a big amount of budget for distribution, you know that you have a large profit.
Choose the platform:
This is the most important part when deciding which wire service really matters to your business. You need to work with a platform that can help you reach your goals and target audience.
Service with a good reputation and experience can help you achieve this. Select a distribution service that offers plans suitable to your needs and of course budget.
With a low investment, you need to ensure that you are getting the right package that allows wide distribution and high ROI. It’s smart to use a paid press release distribution service and not a free service even you want to save some bucks. That’s because in the long run, if you just focused on saving for the distribution, you may end up not getting the most appropriate plan and results.
If you want to try them out first, the majority of services offer a one-time or single distribution. Again, consider the plan that covers features that you need.
If you need long-term distribution, you can opt for a monthly or annual plan. Choosing this kind of distribution is right when you want to establish your brand as an expert.
Monitor:
After your release goes live, you need to receive a monitoring or tracking report that shows the performance of your campaign. You need to know what’s happening with your release.
The wire platform must give you a report that includes metrics like who picked up your story, engagement rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, reads, social media mentions, potential rate, and so on. This is the part of the distribution process that you shouldn’t ignore.
Some marketers neglect it without realizing its importance. With their focus only on distribution, they forget that monitoring is also one of the most important parts of the process.
A campaign without monitoring is like taking a test without knowing your score or grade. If you don’t know your performance, you wouldn’t know how much effort you must improve.
Knowing the results of your campaign is critical to the success of your business. You need to know the impact of each campaign, determine what works for your brand, avoid what doesn’t, and know what you need to improve.
Before picking a service, ask them how they monitor campaigns. Ask how you are going to receive the analytics report, or if they give one.
Usually, paid distribution services to provide it as part of the package. If they don’t, find a service that includes it.
As a business with a small budget, you need to know if you meet your goals. Is distributing releases through the service helped you or not? Did you improve your traffic, sales, leads, and brand awareness?
Stay visible and credible:
Press release distribution works for small businesses. For startups and small businesses, you need to ensure that you are visible on the internet. When you’re visible, it’s only the time that you’ll build awareness, credibility and attract more traffic to your site. Your sales also improve with credibility because you earn the trust of the customers.
When journalists receive your story via the distribution platform, you’ll be on top of their mind if you wrote a newsworthy, relevant, and interesting story. Eventually, they may use your story or information to learn about trends or when writing feature stories.
When they find you an authority in your niche, they will regard you as a good source of information. They will come back to you and may earn you media coverage later on.
Studies have shown that third-party endorsement or media coverage helps a company to gain mileage in the industry. Media coverage can position you as an expert for the buyers.
Gaining this position in the industry is very important for a small business. It automatically separates you from the rest. It elevates you from your competitors.
