The Pew Center on Global Climate Change
The Solution
 For each major press release, The Pew Center on Global Climate Change uses multiple distribution channels:
- a live teleconference call, or a press conference at the National Press Club with hand-delivery of the press release to on-site journalists
- a traditional newswire, typically PR Newswire for topics with mass appeal, BusinessWire for industry-specific topics, and Market Wire for state-specific or region-specific topics
- a web-specialist newswire, PRWeb, using a modified version of the press release that has been optimized by an external consultant to be search-engine friendly
- direct email, via Vocus, to a list of the 500 journalists that regularly report on climate change, with follow-up telephone calls to the 25 most influential
- additional direct email, via Vocus, to another 400 – 1,000 journalists that media-monitoring searches identify as having recently published articles related to the topic of the press release
Katie Mandes says, "Our research attains an added degree of credibility when a congressman reads about it in the major newspaper that serves their community." Outreach to The Pew Center's ultimate target audience doesn't happen by accident. Mandes explains: "Even if targeted congressmen don't happen to read the newspaper on the day when our story appears, we try to get the article in front of them by proactively passing it along to one of their staffers. As a back-up, we post a link to the article on our website."
To attract the widest possible internet audience, the online version of The Pew Center's press releases are enhanced with popular search terms (e.g., "global warming" rather than "climate change") and social media features, such as Technorati tags, social bookmarks, social news voting buttons (e.g., Digg and StumbleUpon), newsfeed subscription buttons, and a trackback link (for bloggers).
Further, The Pew Center has built an online pressroom that is an appreciated resource by web surfers and journalists, complete with:
- easy access to contact information
- an archive of every press release ever issued, dating back to 1998, organized chronologically
- PDFs or links to major media coverage that features the Pew Center, it's experts, or its research findings
- opinion editorials
- an archive of speech transcripts
- an archive of the Pew Climate E-Alert e-newsletter
- print ads
- glossary terms
- a search utility, by keyword, author, or company
- "email this" and "print this page" features
"About Us" information is also readily available, including coverage of Pew Center's mission, history, staff, key issues, and call-to-action.
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