How to Promote a Press Release: Tactics and Strategies
Over the past few decades, the landscape of press release promotion has transformed dramatically. Gone are the days when press releases were solely distributed through traditional media outlets. Today, digital channels and new technology offer more options than ever, and press releases can be distributed broadly or targeted to a specific audience.
While traditional media outreach remains crucial to public relations (PR), you also need to leverage online platforms, social media and email marketing to reach a wider audience. To amplify your message and ensure your news gets noticed, it may be time to rethink how to promote a press release.
Effective Ways to Promote a Press Release
A modern PR release strategy has to adapt to new algorithms, platforms and channels. Here’s how to make sure you get all the best benefits of press releases in the digital age.
Amplify Your Message with Social Media
Social media platforms are one of the most important ways to amplify the reach of your press release. Social media press release promotion can include both paid media and shared media tactics, including:
- Building relationships: Engage with journalists, influencers and relevant organisations to build a network of people who can help share your message. Comment thoughtfully and interact positively to nurture these relationships.
- Writing compelling copy: Tailor your press release snippets to each social media platform. Use concise but compelling language that invites clicks and shares, and include multimedia content that attracts attention.
- Making it easy to share: Use appropriate hashtags and engaging visuals, and include direct links to the press release in your organisation’s online newsroom or on your website. Use tools like PR Newswire’s SocialBoost to provide easy-to-share copy.
- Using paid advertising: Promote press releases with paid ads on social media, targeting specific audiences through boosted posts or sponsored campaigns. For example, use tools like Guaranteed Paid Placement to reach your customers on the sites they’re already visiting.
Choose the Right Press Release Distribution Service
Choosing the right distribution service is crucial for the success of your press release strategy, helping to get your news to the journalists, bloggers and industry professionals that are most likely to be interested. Leading platforms like PR Newswire can vastly improve your reach, ensure quick distribution and provide analytics to measure impact. Here’s what to look for in a press release distribution platform:
- Visibility and reach: The ability to send a press release across town or around the world means you can customise your strategy to reach any audience. International and multicultural promotion is essential.
- Features: Look for platforms offering customisable targeting by region, city, industry, vertical, beat, demographics and more. You’ll also want proofreading services, search engine optimization (SEO) and paid placement options.
- Expertise: In a world of fake news and unverified claims, you need to protect your company’s reputation by ensuring all public-facing material is flawless. A distribution partner with deep expertise and a trusted reputation is your best ally. PR Newswire’s editorial team has decades of experience and a 99.82% accuracy rate on all distributed press releases, to ensure you put your best story forward.
- Security: Protecting your data and privacy is just as essential as protecting your reputation. PR Newswire is fully compliant with SOC 2 Type II, the industry’s most comprehensive security standard. And every PR Newswire account is vetted and equipped with multi-factor authentication.
Understand the Role of Networking in Press Release Promotion
There’s one thing that hasn’t changed about press release promotion: Like all public relations tactics, it’s ultimately about making a human connection. Building and maintaining relationships with journalists, bloggers and influencers remains key to how to promote a press release effectively. Here are our top tips:
- Be genuine: Foster relationships by engaging with journalists’ work, commenting thoughtfully and offering help without expecting immediate returns.
- Offer value: Tailor each pitch to the journalist’s beat and audience, showing that you've done your research. Provide exclusive insights, interviews or data to enrich their story that they can’t get anywhere else.
- Be respectful of time: Make press kits, images and supplementary info easily accessible. If a journalist reaches out, respond promptly to maintain credibility and reliability.
- Host press events: Arrange events that bring together industry stakeholders, allowing journalists and bloggers to interact directly with your brand and explore your message in a more engaging way.
How to Promote a Press Release: A Step-by-Step Guide
A well-thought-out press release strategy ensures your news gains attention, expands your reach, improves brand awareness and achieves your goals. Here's a step-by-step guide to press release promotion you can use for any organisation and any channel.
1. Define Your Objectives
Start by clearly outlining the goals you want to achieve. Whether it's driving website traffic, increasing brand visibility, gaining media coverage or promoting a specific product or event, your objectives will guide your messaging and distribution channels.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
For each press release, you’ll need to determine who will find it most interesting or useful. Is it industry professionals, potential customers or investors? A good media database will allow you to identify specific media outlets, bloggers and influencers that cover your industry or the type of news you're sharing, and make sure you have accurate and up-to-date contact information.
3. Craft Your Message
Once you know your audience, you can tailor your message to what they care about. This is where best practices for how to write a press release come into play: Develop a headline and lead paragraph that summarise your message in a compelling way. And always write press releases that answer the five Ws (who, what, when, where and why).
4. Choose Your Distribution Channels
Identifying a specific audience also helps you decide which distribution channels to use. A global distribution service will allow you to reach as broad or targeted an audience as you’d like through various channels. Personalised pitching, for example customised press release email subject lines, can make a direct connection with relevant journalists, and social media amplification can also complement traditional distribution. Additionally, consider services like Guaranteed Paid Placement, which uses native advertising to get your content in front of the right audience.
5. Optimise for SEO
No matter what channels you choose, SEO is a must. Craft your headline and body content using relevant keywords strategically to increase your press release's online visibility. Add meta descriptions and use alt text for images to make sure your press release is easy to find through search engines.
6. Add Images and Video
Multimedia assets like images and video are one of the most effective ways to boost engagement with your press release. A single image can double the engagement of text-only releases, while multiple images drive six times more engagement. Additionally, videos drive three times more engagement than a text-only press release. PR Newswire’s Multimedia Content Distribution makes it easy to get started.
7. Include Other Supporting Content
Supplement your press release with blog posts that expand on the topic and keep the audience engaged. Consider directing readers to a landing page for further details that will keep them engaged. And always provide media kits with logos, backgrounders and executive bios for journalists needing additional information.
8. Decide on Timing
Distribute your press release strategically. Consider factors like the day of the week, season or industry events, and avoid periods when your contacts are likely to be occupied. Pay attention to noisy news cycles and take advantage of slower months, like the summertime. We also recommend sending press releases at “off” times, like 11:17am instead of 11:00am. Create an editorial calendar to schedule and track each press release.
9. Analyse and Refine
Track key metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, web traffic and media coverage to evaluate the effectiveness of your press release strategy. Compare the results with your initial objectives, analyse what worked well and identify areas for improvement. Stay proactive in building media relationships and keep testing new ways to engage your audience.
Master Press Release Promotion with PR Newswire
Successful press release promotion isn’t a one-and-done tactic. Getting the most out of your press releases is an ongoing process that requires the right tools, strategies and expertise – and the right partner on your side.
PR Newswire offers unparalleled reach for your press release, with distribution and placement in over 170 countries in more than 40 languages and the ability to refine your audience by region, industry, demographics and more. Our around-the-clock editorial team proofreads every news release for accuracy, grammar, spelling, links, tagging and SEO. Additionally, our powerful analytics allow you to track impressions, site postings and social shares to evaluate and refine your campaigns.
If you feel sufficiently armed in how to promote a press release and get real results for your organisation, sign up today to get started with PR Newswire.
FAQs About Press Release Promotion
How do you get a press release noticed?
Start by tailoring your pitch to specific media outlets and their audiences. Include an eye-catching headline and engaging multimedia like images or videos. Incorporate relevant keywords for SEO, share snippets on social media and use services like guaranteed paid placement to get in front of the right audience. Follow up with journalists to offer interviews and additional resources. Most of all, work with a trusted, leading distribution platform like PR Newswire.
Where can you promote a press release?
You can promote a press release via press release distribution services, directly to journalists through email and by sharing it on social media platforms. Use press release email templates for targeted campaigns and also post the press release on your company website. Networking events and professional associations can also amplify your reach.
How do you promote a press release on social media?
Promote a press release on social media by creating platform-specific posts. Write concise copy that teases key points, a captivating headline and engaging visuals, and link back to the full release or a landing page with more information. Use tools like PR Newswire’s SocialBoost to encourage your audience to share your story, and ask employees, partners and influencers to share or comment, amplifying your reach with consistent, authentic engagement.
To get noticed, your press release promotion needs to stand out from the crowd. The Ultimate Toolkit for Getting Your Press Release Noticed will show you how to craft a standout press release and creative ways to amplify it. Don’t miss another opportunity to promote your brand. Download the toolkit below.