The "Good" – using a tool to assess your press releases
I've got a PR team that does a super job of cranking out press releases and pitching stories. The problem is that we have a press hungry executive team and therefore we don't always have enough time to perfect a release before we have to write/pitch the next one. I'm in the same boat when it comes to having enough time to review all the content. Therefore I thought it was cool when I saw this free Press Release Grader tool by HubSpot. It's not perfect but does enable us to do quick checks of our releases for common mistakes such as too few links, too much content and "gobbledygook" words. I know we're definitely guilty of using too much generic IT jargon like "scalable" and "flexible" in all our content so it's nice to have the tool point it out. While we're on the subject, check out "The Gobbledygook Manifesto" by David Meerman Scott and his blog too. Sadly, we regularly use 8 of the top 20 gobbledygook terms. Maybe I should have labelled this as a "The Bad" post 😉
The "Good" – building a simple PR dashboard that measures your effectiveness without costing a lot
We’ve been challenged by our CEO to ramp up the effectiveness of our PR efforts. Given that many execs view PR effectiveness subjectively, and with a recency bias as to whether we/they got good coverage, the team decided to create an objective-based dashboard. We’ve used outsourced PR metrics in the past, but given our given our limited resources we wanted to spend our budget on coverage producing tactics instead of tools.
That said, you can’t manage what you don’t measure so the PR team came up with a simple homemade dashboard (see graphic) that tracks interviews, bylined articles secured, coverage, press releases, speaking engagements, and pitches across the business, government and trade press. The first tab provides a summary of all activity and each subsequent tab contains the underlying details. For example, the feature coverage tab contains the details of all coverage including publication, headline, reporter, spokesperson quoted and URL of the article.
We’re just getting started with this tool but I find it to be a great way to set goals for each tactical area of PR and then track the effectiveness of our efforts…all without costing us much except for some staff time. Now we can measure our effectiveness on a week to week basis and make course corrections more rapidly.
I’m interested in what metrics you use so please shoot me an email with any suggestions.
The "Bad" – thinking that B2B press releases get read, or in the remote chance they do, that it’s by a
customer
As a B2B marketer whose worked in numerous technology companies I’ve worked with people who think that a marketing launch consists of a press release and a brochure. I’ll bet most of you have had the same experience. As if that isn’t funny enough, these same people think that customers actually read press releases. Maybe a few financial analysts who track the stock scan the releases for relevant info (usually finding nothing of any real consequence) but customers, come on, who are we kidding? How many times do you read the releases of your suppliers? Hardly ever I bet, and sadder still, when you do read them you find loads of vague claims, industry jargon, and silly superlatives.
Kuddos to my buddy David DeRosa, a true PR professional, who sent me this article by Scott Baradell in MarketingProfs … 8 Telltale Signs Your Press Release is Bullshit. A must read for any B2B marketer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slamming PR. It is an essential tool for marketers. Rather, I’m pointing out the folly of focusing so heavily on releases. I’d rather get one good bylined article placed than crank out a dozen press releases that few, if any, customers read. This seems like pretty simple logic to me so I’m continuously amazed by the fact that senior execs spend incredible amounts of time word smithing releases over and over (and over) again.