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What Kind of Public Relations Works Best?

Many people in the business world think of press releases and public relations as a great way to generate "free publicity."

There are plenty of PR firms out there that can write a press release and put it on a newswire service, but the real question is -- will the press release actually generate any news stories?

At Front Page PR, we tend to focus on writing press releases with a purpose, since most of our customers want to see a positive return on their marketing dollars. And, over the past 15 years, we have found that the quickest way to generate a good return on marketing budgets is to focus on press releases, and other marketing communications, that sell products and services.

In addition, we like to put a lot of work into product releases because that's what 90% of business readers are searching for when they read trade publications, business journals and local newspapers. Thus, if we can show reporters and editors that your product and/or service solves a real business problem and we provide them with plenty of good material to work with, the chances of getting some great editorial coverage written, and maybe even a front page story, will always be good.

A recent study conducted by Business Marketing magazine that surveyed business-to-business marketing communications managers backs up our position. When asked what type of press releases had the best marketing results, marketing managers agreed that promoting products and services was, by far, the most effective way to spend PR dollars. In fact, over 77 percent of those surveyed said new product press releases were the most effective announcements their company put out during the past year. When asked which ones were the least effective they reported that personnel (promotions, new hires, etc.) releases provided the lowest return on investment for dollars spent.

Please see the chart below for other types of press releases that do well.

Figure 1. Top List of Press Releases By ROI