General PR Tip #5: Not everyone reads the "wires"

There are several "wire" services that do nothing more than send out press releases to the media.

PRNewswire and BusinessWire are the two heavyweights. You hand them a press release (well, e-mail them one), tell them what time to send it out, and they e-mail it out to thousands upon thousands of reporters, editors, and other folk who have subscribed to their services. (Then they send you an invoice for sending it out; it's not FREE).

What happens to me (and I suspect to a lot of other reporters swamped for time) is that the daily press release summary of anywhere from 30-60 releases shows up in my mail box along with 50-60 other pieces of mail and I'll get to it if I have time. If I don't, it sits there and gets deleted a couple of days later when I clean out my mailbox.

A lot of companies, seeking to distribute their news as far and wide as possible, will send out their releases to as many reporters as possible. So, the e-mail news summary, if read, ends up having a lot of releases that have nothing to do with my area of focus (say, VoIP and telecommunications) or barely brush up against my area of focus, so I don't really have a lot of incentive to read that daily e-mail.

Most companies are smart and both send out releases on "the wire" and also directly via e-mail to a select list of reporters that they KNOW are interesting in receiving the latest news about the company.  You should be building an e-mail distribution list from day #1 to send out the latest news. If you're lucky, a reporter will find both your press release in their mailbox as well as in the wire summary. Repetition is good. Say it. Repetition is good.

Summary

Not all reporters read the wire services - there's just too much info flying around

Build an e-mail distribution list for your press releases and use it to send releases directly to reporters.