Does your company want 116m viewers of your sales win? This podcast tells you how to do it.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James. This is the podcast for you if you've got value locked up in your organization, you're just trying to find some ways to share that. And one of the ways is to write a press release. And a way to share that is through the press release distribution services. So I'm going to talk about a real case that we've done this week for a client in the manufacturing sector, where the problem we were trying to solve for them was they were taking part in a virtual trade show in America. They haven't got a presence there yet, and so their brand awareness is pretty low, which would mean that as they made their presentations at the virtual trade show, we were concerned that they wouldn't have enough people being interested enough to come along and watch them and obviously try and create some leads for them. So we turned to the press release distribution service, the PR Newswire from Cision. So I'm going to explain how that works and how you can benefit and the results from sending out a press release. Now, the press release that we have is a relatively short contract win, and the client shared this with me, and I was immediately of the opinion we should get this news out. It was just a week before the virtual trade show, which meant that we didn't have the time to build our own media, which is what we would normally like to do. But because it's such a great piece of news that they've won a contract out of America to manufacturer a 15-minute COVID-19 saliva test product that I really wanted to get this into the market. Now, the press release doesn't mention the client's name because there are some political and commercial sensitivities, of course, to this kind of announcement. But our client's customer was still willing to give a testimonial even if it was anonymous, and that made it strong enough to send out So we had just a 4-paragraph press release announcing the manufacture of this new 15-minute COVID-19 saliva test product, and then we had this confirmed on the Friday. And what I did was I worked with the team at Cision here in London to get that uploaded to their system so that it could be released at 0800 in New York on the Monday because the trade show was taking place on the Tuesday. So timing is everything. If we send out the press release on the Monday morning at 0800, then it will be picked up in America. And because of the clocks changing, it was just coming out at 1 o'clock here in Europe and 9 o'clock in Asia. And the target audience, of course, are the Americans. And hoping then that the American audience that would read this would be able to then check out both our client's website, which is called rusty.com, but also would then be looking to talk to our client who was speaking at the Virtual Assembly trade show that was taking place then on the Tuesday and the Wednesday. So we sent out this press release at £800, um, and it had the logo included, for which you pay a supplement. And, uh, for any releases under 400 words, they have a certain price of just about £1,000, but the price goes up according to the length of the release if you include images, but also the number of media targets that you choose. So we had some specialist verticals that we wanted to also go into, so we increased the budget and And we were able to then add on manufacturing and medical devices to the distribution list. Now what this meant was that the press release went out at 0800 on the Monday morning in New York, and we had 109 exact match pickups, which means that the newswire which goes out to their syndicated network would pick up the press release verbatim. And this is great. So what happened was that we had a potential audience of 116 million viewers. And now obviously that's quite large for a specialist vertical industry manufacturer, but the reason I chose this was because it's the safest way to get this news across all of the smaller channels as well. And bearing in mind that the audience that we're trying to reach are employees, CEOs, CFOs, procurement managers, anyone involved in manufacturing, anyone involved in procurement of medical devices that might be in America. So not only would they be reading their trade press, but of course they would be reading their national and their local press as well. So the number of 116 million is obviously a fantastic number, and we don't need for the client to have that many, uh, really. But what we wanted to do was to get a blanket cover just a day before this virtual show. So we had got through the PR Newswire websites like Yahoo Finance, which of course is massive and one of the largest sites for news and company news. We also had MarketWatch, for example, which is another very large one read by investors. We had a number of TV stations which are all affiliated to the newswire and are all part of the syndicated content feed. But what we also then got in our more niche areas, which is what we were looking for, is we have people Like the UK Biotech Database, for example. We also had the Physician Family, for example. So what Cision provide for us is a printout of all of the sites that picked up the release. But what also happened then was that the release would go to the press release, uh, feed for the journalists themselves. And we're able to see through the report that we had in fact 10 engagements, and we have, uh, 8 click-throughs through to the Robstee website itself, uh, also that it was shared on LinkedIn, Facebook, and also that we have a number of journalists who have actually taken this and are looking at that. So we were then able to go online and look at other publications that will have picked up this story. So what happens is the press release goes out automatically through Newswire, but then journalists will see that and will be able to pick up that story and run it themselves. So for example, MedTechie in America, which is a healthcare blog, had run the story as well. Now we also then can see from this report that the Healthcare Technology from Elsevier in Europe has picked up the story, as have Pharmaceuticals Marketing. So we're getting to see really in some detail who has looked at this. Now what this is good for, of course, is that I can then go and look for those publications, and I can then find out the journalists that had picked up the story, and then I can reach out to them, say, I've seen you've picked up the story, and would you be interested in talking further? Now, if I look at the, at the views, I've got them from the US, I've got them from France, I've got from UK, I've got India, Canada, Turkey, Poland, China, Ukraine, Russia, Singapore, Norway, French Guiana, Indonesia, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and we're getting down there into Israel, Denmark, Australia, South Africa, even Bosnia and Herzegovina. So we've got, um, views, some 1,859 views specifically of the release worldwide. In terms of media views, I've got 57 journalists have viewed this in America, 29 in the UK, 13 in India, for example. So what we're able to get through this report is a wonderfully detailed report, and this is just within 48 hours. Of the release going out. And actually, I'm going to get a report from Cision every day for the next 30 days to see what content and what coverage we've got. So what we're starting to do is get a buildup, which is great, to see the kind of long tail as well. And for example, when it was first sent out on the 26th, we had Uh, views of 111 from PR Newswire websites that were partner websites. The next day, 11. But on the 28th, we had 23, uh, views or readers of this press release on the partner websites, and then 4 on the 29th. Now, the, the 28th, 27th, 28th are my trade show days, so I'm pretty happy that actually we've got some uplift during the trade show days for this press release. And these are coming from, as I've mentioned, all over the world, but predominantly America. And I've got some great outlets like Diagnostic Imaging, for example, that I can see that on the last day have taken a look at the release. So we've got here the one-time distribution at speed in terms of being able to get it out from on a Friday to have the release approved to have it in the market on a Monday using the Cision PR press release database. Now if I'd wanted to upgrade and if we'd frankly had a longer story, um, and more depth to it, we could have upgraded to the Cision sort of outreach and management tool where we would then go and spend some time actually seeing which media had picked up and be able to reach out to them. So I know that, for example, I've got BioWorld MedTech, which is a trade periodical from the US, who had read this article, and that's great. So the press release distribution is really giving me and the client a a first blanket approach into the market where we need to build their profile. There are some in there that are not so relevant in terms of for the client specifically that's looking for manufacturing outsourcing, but what all this content does on these other websites is to help with their SEO ranking. And so if you want to have content online, sending it through a news via service like this is fantastic because lots and lots of websites now, over, over 109, have picked up this story. And if someone does a Google search for COVID test, Rusty will come up very high indeed. Now this is something we have to keep doing. In fact, Google and all the search engines are constantly being fed with content So sending out the press release one time is fantastic, but it's not enough. We have to keep the content coming. But in terms of a strategy to raise awareness just in advance of an event, a press release being sent out through newswire can be a very quick and relatively cost-effective way to get some awareness. It doesn't replace the outreach with those media one-to-one. But funnily enough, what we had just been doing in the weeks leading up to that was sending some long-form articles to some media in America to introduce Rosti and their manufacturing capabilities. So I was able to send the press release to these journalists as well, which just validated who Rosti are. Now, it's not something then that, uh, every company can do. But if you can get this, if you like, 1-2 sequence of content going rapid fire, then as far as the journalist is concerned, you're obviously a company of some stature. So this is what we've been looking to do. So we complement the speaking event with a press release and with some long-form articles as part of a plan to build the brand for Rosti in America. So if you're looking to build your brand and you've got even the smallest piece of information about a win that you can share, even without the client name, then it can be worth investing in sending out through a press release. I've used PR Newswire because I know that they can get to all of the channels in America, but there are a number of other news services of different prices. And the more expensive they are, the bigger the list and the more tier 1 publications that they have. But if you have a smaller business with a smaller footprint, then you can pay a lot less. Some press release distribution services are more like $80, $90 to send out a press release, and you can choose by country and by industry. So it's really worth thinking about press release distribution. It's a core part of any public relations activity. And if you use it as part of an overall plan for your PR activities and what we call authority marketing, where you're helping the spokesperson to be seen as an authority in a market or a sector, then this practice of a short press release sent out quickly on the eve of an event can be a very useful strategy indeed. So I hope this is a useful little case study of what can be done for your business as well. And if you like this, then do please rate it, share it with anybody that you know might find it useful. You're welcome to have us at East West PR manage this for you at eastwestpr.com. But if you'd like to learn how to do it, you might be interested in our training at speakpr.co, where we've got a number of courses and masterclasses available for people to learn how to manage the public relations without an agency, but using the tools that we use. My name is Jim James. Thank you so much for listening. And until we meet again, I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that you keep on sharing information on time and online, quite probably using a press release distribution service.