Insights

Developing productive relationships with the media is one of the main areas of a PR manager’s work. It is essential for the formation of a positive brand image, as well as for developing a business reputation.

Professionals are trying to make their lives easier by using modern technological tools. Manual distribution of press releases to a large number of journalist contacts is time- and energy-consuming. In this case, PR services come to the rescue – they help simplify interaction with the media and accelerate the process of posting a company’s news.

Here’s a must-try list of platforms for PR specialists:

Email Marketing Services

Compared to other marketing tools, email service is one of the most frequently used. It allows you to create an expanded database of journalists’ contacts and prepare templates for letters. The main advantage of such services is saving time – approximately 20 minutes on creating a newsletter:

• Take a ready-made template and insert your text with images/videos/links

• Choose a contact base

• Set a mailing time

• Wait for results

Email Constructor Interface

After launch, you can also track the efficiency of the mailing – the services show analytics on the number of email openings and link clicks.

Among the disadvantages, we can note that a journalist can unsubscribe from your newsletters or simply ignore them, so the percentage of publications based on the results of the mailing is not high.

Here is a list of popular email services. They usually have a free trial and paid plans. Prices range from $13 to $350.

• Omnisend

• GetResponse

• Mailchimp 

• Mailerlite

• Sendinblu

Press Release Distribution Services

Old but gold. Press release distribution services were among the first to come to the aid of PR professionals. Why do we like them? Most of them are absolutely free – you only need to sign up.

The mechanics of these websites are quite simple – you submit a press release with the appropriate tags. Journalists look through the updates and, in case of interest, they publish your news in their media outlets. Sounds attractive!

The greatest challenge is that such services receive a large number of press releases. It is difficult to stand out from this abundance, so the chances of being published are extremely low.

If you still want to try them, here are examples:

• PRLog

• PR4Us

• Open PR

• GlobeNewswire

• PR

You can find more here

PR-wave

If you have breaking news that you want to distribute in a short time, use personal automated services for direct interaction between a PR manager and journalists. The distribution of news within a day is the main advantage of such websites.

The personal media cabinet Phoenix provides the possibility of both targeted placement in one specific publication and the launch of a PR-wave – mass placement among the media.

The algorithm for working with Phoenix is plain:

• Publish the source for the news distribution

• Give examples of headlines, keywords, period of placement (from 2 to 12 hours)

• Select topics and a media level

• Choose media outlets from the list

• Make an order (automatic payment after placements);

• Wait for your publications

The scheme of working with Phoenix is convenient both for the client – prompt publication of news for the target audience, and for the media – ready-made materials for releasing.

This service has only two drawbacks: It’s paid, and any media may refuse to publish your news without providing a reason.

This list of PR tools is far from complete. It is critical to build fruitful relationships with journalists. However, it’s more important to generate compelling newsbreaks so you don’t need to resort to cunning tricks. To improve the PR strategy of your company and increase key performance indicators, you can contact experts from consulting PR agencies.

SMM | Sales & Marketing Management

Sales & Marketing Management is the leading authority of news, strategies and training for professionals in the sales and marketing field.