NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Electronic Clipping Services Bypass Newspapers
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Electronic Clipping Services Bypass Newspapers
richard_at_tenagra.com
Fri, 13 Mar 1998 17:05:16 -0500
Mark Pruner <markatty_at_ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>What I am wondering is has anyone made a study of the most cost effective way
>to get picked up by most of the electronic clipping services such as Newspage
>Direct, My Yahoo, AOL News etc.?
I wrote about this subject for a ClickZ article in December:
Exploiting Internet Naivete for Fun and Profit
http://www.clickz.com/archives/121597.html
It is standard operating procedure at Business Wire to distribute your
release to about 300 online databases, regardless of the distribution
circuit you pick. Several dozen of these databases are accessible via the
Web. AOL picks up this feed, as does Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, and just
about any other major directory/search engine with news.
Things like Newspage Direct and My Yahoo are personalized news services,
meaning the user determines what comes through. They usually do this based
on keywords, but the content is pulled in part from the Business Wire and
PR Newswire.
As I wrote earlier, Business Wire will send your release to all these
online databases regardless of which distribution you pick. I haven't done
a release on PR Newswire in a while, but I am sure the policy is the same.
That said, the most economical way to get distributed into the online
databases is to pick the cheapest circuit you can. Instead of distributing
to the whole nation as you are doing with the US1 circuit for $525, you
could pick a single city to distribute to for about 60 bucks. Whither you
go the $525 route or the $60 route you still get into the online databases.
We usually pick the city based on the location of the client or project in
the release. Since the release also goes to the local media outlets, the
likelihood of it getting picked up is greater if the company or project is
local.
See, the whole key to this strategy is to simply get the release containing
your URL into as many online databases as possible. It is these databases
the public searches for information.
Frankly, this is the only reason I use a major wire service. You may get a
reporter's attention from a release on the wire, but often the reality is
that you won't reach the major media. They get too many of releases from
services like Business Wire and PR Newswire each day to pay serious
attention to them. These days the public, rather than the media, is more
likely to run across your release when you send it out on a major wire.
I think this emphasizes that such services are no substitute for building a
relationship with the reporters who write for the publications in which you
are trying to get placed.
Here are some other tips for online press releases that are commonly
overlooked by traditional PR people:
1.) Be sure to include the full URL of your site. I often see releases that
simply start: "www." Most email packages and online database software look
for "http://" so they know it is a hyperlink that needs to be made hot.
2.) Put your email address in the contact info. People running across your
release online are more likely to send you email than pick up the phone.
3.) Put the URL in the lead paragraph. Usually if a release gets cut off,
the cutting starts from the bottom and works its way up.
4.) If you enclose the URL in parentheses, leave a space between the open
parenthesis and the start of the URL, and the end of the URL and the close
parenthesis; like this:
( http://www.tenagra.com/ ). Do this for the same reason outlined in tip #1.
Hope this is helpful,
richard
--------------------------------------------------------
richard hoy
moderator, online advertising discussion list
vice president, marketing and client promotions
the tenagra corporation http://www.tenagra.com/
beloved speaker on email marketing at Web Marketing '98
http://www.thunderlizard.com/tlp/webmarketing.html
--------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's Online Advertising Discussion List sponsors:
ICONOCAST, Texas Monthly, and Wired Digital
"ICONOCAST is the best source of aggregated data and insight into Net
stuff that I receive." -- Rita Belle, Marcom Director, Zip2 Corp.
E-mail majordomo_at_iconocast.com with "subscribe iconocast" in body
---
Looking for Texans? We've got 'em at the Texas Monthly Ranch,
http://www.texasmonthly.com. Plus travel, food, events, culture and
more. Contact Jena at 512.320.6928 or jenab_at_texasmonthly.com.
---
Brand Impact Studies from Wired Digital deliver mission-critical data
on the branding value of Web ads - for less than $5,000 per campaign.
More info? Contact Rick Boyce at rick_at_wired.com or call 415.276.8440.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Online Advertising Discussion List To Unsubscribe send UNSUBSCRIBE
http://www.o-a.com/ to online-ads-request_at_o-a.com
