Is Press Releases Worth Your Time and Money?

I meet a lot of entrepreneurs who tell me that they don’t see a value in having public relations. They want something they can track. For example, the number of sales came from a particular action. Public relations, like advertising, is indirect. So they wonder if it is worth their time and money to send a press release. This article will answer that question. 

Many entrepreneurs and business owners track the results of their actions to determine whether they should keep doing something. For example, if they spend money on a new machine that saves them production costs, they are likely to make that purchase.  Digital marketing, such as Google Adwords, can be tracked through Google Analytics. However, public relations and print marketing are not easily tracked. Therefore, entrepreneurs don’t know whether it is worth sending press releases and doing print marketing or advertising.
The short answer is yes. They should do public relations and print marketing. They should send press releases. And, they can pay the owners. However, business owners should not be expecting immediate returns on their investment. They should consider public relations as a tool to build brand awareness as they do for advertising.

1 – How Can Press Releases Pay?

Let’s say you are opening a store to sell your innovative product. You decide to hold a grand opening. To alert your target audience to the grand opening, you would need print, television, and radio coverage. If you send a press release, you are more likely to get people to attend your grand opening. If you choose to talk about the grand opening through online avenues, many people will not know about it or remember about it, so they won’t attend. Hearing it on the radio helps people remember the grand opening and makes them want to go. Therefore, you would get all those potential customers. This would work even if your grand opening is online. You send a press release saying your online store is open for business to trade publications and online newspapers. When people are searching, they will find you because your name is mentioned somewhere other than your website.

2 – How Can Sending Releases Save Money?

Google Adwords is not as effective as you might think. The process is designed to make money for Google. Therefore, you pay every time someone clicks on the ad. However, those might not be the right people. You might be targeting people in their 50s and 60s who are not willing to click on an ad while those in their 20s and 30s would. Therefore, you would be spending money on clicks and not getting sales. On the other hand, if you send a press release, it would be a one-time fee to thousands of publications. The right publications would do a story on you and the right people would pick up the phone to call you. You would get those sales. It might take longer and you might have to send more than one press release, but you wouldn’t be wasting your money.

3 – How Can Sending Press Releases Be Efficient?

Like advertising, you want to target your press releases so you are spending your money wisely. You would want to pick the right publications. If you had a product or service that appeals to young people, you should advertise on cell phones. By the same token, you would want to send your press releases to publications that appeal to that audience. That would be the most efficient and save you the most money. Faselis Growth is a platform that is designed to help entrepreneurs and business owners select the right publications. It also can help you write the press release to match those publications to maximize your efficiency. If you want to make money or save in advertising, it is worth it to send press releases. Faselis Growth will help you use your marketing budget wisely.

by Louise Harris