I have recently ran across some articles about the cost of press releases. While the authors were throwing numbers and averages, no one took the time to also explain what you actually pay for. A press release costs X amount is a limited way of putting it. What does that price refer to in the end? Here are a few things you should consider when analyzing the price of a press release:

You pay for press release writing

The actual press release has to be written by someone. Unless you already have the text, you pay for the service of having a public relations professional writing it for you. Or editing and rewriting it if you have a rough draft of what you want to say.

The price of press release writing services vary. Who writes it and their expertise matters, how much material you provide and how many hours of research they invest in it adds to the price, how soon you want it might shift the price in one direction or the other. It’s one thing to need a press release where the person or agency you hire will need to support with basic research and have a two weeks deadline, and a completely different thing to require the PR pro to spend a full day researching your business and industry and also need to have it all done in two or three days.

You pay for press release distribution

After having the press release written, you might want more from it than see it posted on your website.You might prefer it to reach journalists, potential customers, business partners and other audiences. In this case you will need distribution added to your press release. There are free online distribution sites that you can try, or you can go for more advanced options. You could pick the top tier press release distribution service from PRWeb for about 400 US dollars or try other less expensive or more costly options.

There is also the possibility of the public relations pro or agency you hire building a custom media list for you, adding the news outlets, blogs and online magazines that would best fit your company and contacting them individually to pitch your story. This is of course one of the most expensive solutions, especially if mixed with a distribution service.

You pay for press release monitoring and reports

Someone has to see who picks your news release, where they publish it and what impact their actions have. Are people discussing your release on social networks? What are they saying? Compiling all this data takes time and interpreting it requires skill.

Here it is, a division of included services in the general cost of a press release. The quality of work, the expertise backing a certain PR pro, the speed at which they can deliver the service, these all should matter in your choice. But first and foremost you should know what to expect and moreover, what to ask for when buying a press release.

About 30 seconds. That’s how long it takes for a reader or journalist to decide if your press release is worth their time. And that’s of course an average! In other cases they get bored after 15 seconds. Unfortunately, it’s often not about the quality of the story you’re sending over email or publishing online. It is more often about the information overload we have to deal with everyday.

Hundreds and hundreds or emails, articles and newsletters are received by journalists, employees and business owners every day. For the unlucky ones, it’s thousands, including the 20-30% of it that’s spam managing to trick their filters. Getting 30 seconds of someone’s time is a privilege and you need to make the best out of it. If you succeed, they they will spend an additional minute on your news release and maybe decide to write about it or buy your product.

What can you do? Use the same visual tricks that online article writers and bloggers use to make sure their pieces are easy to scan and allow readers to get the important information fast out of 500 words. Here are a few tricks you can use:

• make sure your headline is not only catchy,but also informative
• have a clearly marked summary
• make sure your first paragraph contains all the important information
• use bold formatting to highlight important ideas in the press release
• use lists when possible – to list benefits, for example

Granted, some services for online press release distribution like PRWeb don’t allow you to format that much. But you can do it in the version you post on your website and in the emails you send to the press.

Remember, in the age of online reading, most of us don’t read every word of an article. Or if we do, we don’t do it the first time around. We first scan the article to get its juice and if it’s interesting enough, we read it all. It’s the same for potential clients, business partners or the press.

Yes, it’s true, there are hundreds and hundreds of press releases sent out every day. Yes, some of them will be picked up, some won’t. Yes, some of them are boring and some aren’t. I am all for making things differently, try something new, but that does not mean you should change what’s already working.

There’s a reason why press releases are built they way the are. You know, most important information in the first part of the release? Or the inverted pyramid model? And it’s simple. Whoever you send it to, journalists, bloggers, customers or partners, you want them to know what’s new and cool fast. No one has the time and the patience to dig the information out of paragraphs and paragraphs of metaphors and pompous word twists.

I’ve recently come across a few releases where only the very patient managed, after a few tries, to find out 1. what the release was about and 2. what was important and what was just nonsense. If you’re message is hidden and readers have to go through time-wasting quests to discover it, you have failed!

I know all about the overused phrases, but if you want to write a press release that works, try making your message simple, clear and fun! Then send it to people who are actually interested in what you have to say. I think you have a better chance like that, as opposed to hiding it between long sentences that took you hours to come up with and that need a detailed commentary to be understood.

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