Good press releases are the backbone of strong public relations. While some press releases are just self serving, there are many good reasons to have current press releases sent to the media, posted on your website and published out on the internet.
Good press releases:
- Keeps your company top of mind
- Helps prospective customers learn more about your company
- Alerts potential employees that your business is growing/progressive
- Recognizes employees or volunteers which contributes to keeping your company morale high
- Serves as a documented history when you look back on where your business has come from
- Helps internet search engines to find your website {USE WITH CAUTION!}
- Helps to orients new employees to programs
- Provides a "30 second commercial" in the ABOUT section of the press release
If you've never heard about a company before, you have no idea if they are honest, progress, short sighted, greedy, community minded, innovative, old fashioned, collaborative or interesting.
Some companies never make the news. That is okay except they are invisible. This makes it harder to persuade. Harder to sell to a new customer. Harder to attract a new employee.
Some companies only make the news when someone else writes about them. They are at the mercy of the writer to get it correct. To understand a sometimes complicated project, issue or program. Without any press release posted on your website, will the writer know who to call? If you don't make it easy, many times a reporter who is short on time will only try a few ways and places to connect, before writing something like "the company did not return calls" or "there was no comment by press time."
The reason I say "USE WITH CAUTION" about getting search engine optimization (SEO) from the press release is that many companies with unethical (or ill advised) public relations advice, flooded the internet with their press releases - in essence spamming the search engines with their promotional writing.
There is a big difference in getting your press release published on a trade journals' website or a local news organization's portal than there is just plastering it across the internet. Duplicate content can be a red flag for black hat SEO attempts.
You may want to consider having a backgrounder page on your website for the press and media to learn more about who to contact. By including factual information about your company and links to old press releases, someone can quickly get up to speed about your company's organization, products, services, and outlook to your industry.
