Okay, so you want to be a PR hero? I doesn’t matter if you’re just a PR rookie or an experienced communicator. Here’s a set of tools & hints that will let you be both effective and impressive. I’m pretty sure you’ll find some apps you’ve never heard of that are definitely worth trying out!
First, always think about reaching new audiences. Get in touch with editors that never heard from you, but cover topics related to your business. At this moment, some of them are running stories that you should appear in, but they don’t know you or your brand yet. Tools like HARO, JournoRequests or WooPitch are a perfect solution here. I’d recommend trying all three out as each works slightly different. At the end the idea is simple – to connect you with the editors interested in covering your story.
Seasoned PR pros use to say that if a 10-year-old wouldn’t understand your press release, never send it out to the media. Make sure your sentences are short and clear of buzzwords or common errors. Hemingway Editor is your new best friend – this free web app that’ll analyze every piece of writing and suggest necessary edits. As your story will most probably appear online (published either by you or a media worker from your media list), you should also care about its SEO and social sharing potential – for that purpose run a headline analyzer (CoSchedule offers one for free) that’ll check if the headline is attractive and well-balanced.
Now is the right time to send your story out. You can do it the old-school way and send a mass mailing to your distribution list from your email client directly (remember to BCC all the contacts!), or you can look for more advanced PR software. Prowly will let you send personalized mass mailings and provide with full knowledge about the results, including information about who received, opened and clicked your emails. You can also check Prezly or Pitch Engine.
If you want to help the media get in touch, it’s a good idea to establish a place where editors could find your latest announcements, contact details or press kits & high-res products photos. You can create an online newsroom using your company’s website CMS or try out services like Prowly or MyNewsdesk. These will let you set up your newsroom in 15 minutes and provide useful data about your releases’ performance. Additionally, thanks to its recent update Prowly allows 3rd party integrations, making it even easier to redirect newsroom traffic to other websites, products or social networks.
The last thing you should care about is to present your previous coverage to your team. Try finding tools that will allow you to embed online sources and present campaigns as charts or infographics – start with CoverageBook or Releasd, these two are easy to master. Your clients will love it!
Rafal from Prowly
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