Pros & Cons
Pros
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Casual stakeholders will be impressed: For as little as $10, you can report press release views of 25,000 or more.
- Press releases offer easy inclusion into Google News, Yahoo News, and niche newsfeeds with subscribers who care about your cause. As a result, your point of view will be broadcast to a much broader audience than your current members and website visitors.
- Positive press coverage is a morale booster for staff, volunteers, and existing donors.
- Newspaper and magazine reprints can be an effective fundraising tool.
- A lucky break can lead to the "PR Snowball Effect": A press release can lead to a feature in a Tier 1 publication, which becomes a reference for other reporters and bloggers who write their own stories in their own publications, and so on.
- Previously inaccessible "Angel Donors" or highly skilled volunteers may actually come to you if inspired by Tier 1 media pick-up.
- Search engine rankings are improved, sometimes dramatically, for the webpages linked and featured in your press release.
- Using simple keyphrase optimization and social networking, your press releases can appear at the top of the news search results for very popular keyphrases — against even the largest, most established, and best-funded opponents.
- Many newswire services keep press releases on the web indefinitely, giving their audience another opportunity to find your organization.
- When a topic isn't newsworthy or "big" enough to interest journalists, internet press releases offer the only opportunity for distribution.
- Most online newswires do not require an up-charge for press releases longer than 400 words, allowing more opportunity to support your perspective with memorable examples and compelling findings.
Cons
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Press release click-thru rates are very low compared to search engine advertising click-thru rates.
- Tier 1 newswires charge approximately $645 per press release for national distribution. Even at that price, the newswires only guarantee distribution, not media pick-up or click-thrus.
- In bureaucratic nonprofit organizations, frequent press release review and approval can strain the patience of all involved.
- For the webpages linked in your press release, any initial surge in search engine ranking may be fleeting.
- You have influence, but no control, over what journalists ultimately report.
- Other than media relations professionals (who are inundated with requests for pro bono support), it requires an exceptional volunteer to deal with journalists' rejection or silence 98% of the time. Volunteer attrition rates may be high. (It takes a special person to keep "smiling and dialing" in a pleasantly persistent way.)
- Old-time PR pros may balk at the press release copywriting techniques required for high ranking in online news search engines.
- Internet press releases are important enough to supplement, but not replace, traditional media relations efforts.
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