what is a press release & what are the benefits?

A press release is a short informative communication to the press. It can be used to alert the media to any number of organisational developments including:

·       Product or service launches

·       New product or service development

·       Recruitment (senior level or new team development)

·       Research results

·       Award wins

·       Charitable or community initiatives

·       Milestones reached

How does it fit into the marketing mix?

Press releases can be used in isolation but are also successful used as part of a wider communications campaign. They are also an excellent tool to give further mileage to any wider business development, marketing or awareness campaign.

The benefits in a nutshell:

·       Affordability: the costs are considerably lower than with advertising or other avenues that command placement costs.

·       Relationship building: identifying and drip feeding relevant news to key media builds opportunity.

·       Builds awareness, trust and credibility: increasing the likelihood of engagement and sales or contracts.

·       Targeting:  enables you to adapt and impart key messages precisely and persuasively.

·       Wide reach: generating new business leads, contacts and conversations that simply wouldn’t have taken place otherwise. 

·       Generation and spread of content:  press releases are a fantastic way of generating additional content. For example, you can add them to your own news page, adapt into a blog piece, use key information in award submission or utilise key quotes and statistics in funding bids, case studies and new business pitches.

·       SEO profile boosting: click-throughs from a publication to your website gradually increase your visibility on search engines, driving more traffic, awareness and, ultimately, custom.

What should I expect to budget?

You can hire a marketing or PR agency to support you either on an as needs basis, to create a press release schedule and delivery programme, or on a retainer to deliver a monthly or quarterly integrated marketing programme.  

Cost is dependent on the programme required but for the production of a press release including research, drafting and edits, you should expect two to three hours input from a marketing specialist depending on the readiness of information available.

At Yorkshire Marketing Agency, we like to be upfront about our costs. We value transparency and wholeheartedly believe that this enables our clients to budget and forward plan realistically as well as nurturing a trusted relationship between client and agency. At the Yorkshire Marketing Agency, we set a price of £120 for the compilation and editing of press releases.