I’ve written a lot on doing your own press/PR on this blog and more recently on the Mulley Comms blog on building relationships with journalists. If you are confident with your press release then as important is a good press list. I’ve built one up over the years and have shared it with a few people but it always needs updating and fixing. There’s always bounces and when the Irish Times recently changed email address it became a right pain to sort (not really as simple as find and replace when the old addy worked for some still). They also build new lists based on requests from customers.
Media Contact (Disclaimer: They hire me to give talks) are famous for their red book that has the contact details for every media publication in the country, a book I’ve been using for years, well before I started working with Jack in there. They also have a digital version of said book with the MediaContact.ie website. It’s also a full blown press release building and management system, allowing you access to thousands of press contacts in Ireland. The gold of the system is that the details are constantly maintained so you can be sure they’re correct but also the lists they have are segmented. You can send a release to just business journalists, to certain feature writers, to sports only, to TV sports only etc. etc. If you send a good few press releases out per year either on behalf of your company/yourself or for clients then this is worth investing in.
However for smaller companies or those that might just send one press release now and then, they’ve created a “Lite” version of the MediaContact.ie service called Media Express. It’s €150 to send out a press release to 1-5 of their lists (costs more for more lists) though if you use the discount code Twitter you’ll get 50% at the moment. The pricing is good value in my view as consider the time it would take you to compile a proper press list? In these days when companies should be upping their sales, marketing and PR to get more custom, a service like this should be one tool in their Pat Mustard toolbox.
A bit disappointing this…you work for a company and then see fit to flog their products…
I’m a journalist, but also currently involved with a community campaign, where we’re currently drawing up a list of media contacts. It’s surprisingly time-consuming, even for someone in the business. But once it’s done it will be done and can be tweaked for particular uses. In contrast, spending €150 on someone else doing an email shot(s) for you seems like bad value, particularly for a group likw ours with a shoe-string budget.
Same way I’m sure you recommend people buy the paper you write for Paul or point out a good article in it. I like what Media Contact do and have done so for far longer than I have done work for them (one day’s work so far in August) compared to years of pointing out their red book.
If the hours spent putting lists together are cheaper for your community campaign than the 150 quid spent on Media Express then fair enough. From running a lobby group for years, our time and brain power were oftentimes best spent elsewhere.
So it’s okay to spam or otherwise send unsolicited promotional material to someone if that someone is a journalist and your message has ‘press release’ in the header?
The emails are provided by the news orgs and/or the journos.
I’ve used some of the international news distributions services in the past and they all work along similar lines and the costs aren’t that different. Building and maintaining a list is not easy and would only be worth doing if you were sending a lot of press releases regularly. Using a service like this makes sense if you’re only sending a couple a year and want them to reach the right people