Cheryl Lawson (@Partyaficionado) knows how to craft news releases that sizzle – and today she’s won $1,000 and 12 free releases after competing in a PRWeb’s contest for a good cause.

On April Fool’s Day, we asked the PRWeb community to send us their best tip for creating news releases that attract eyeballs. We received about 30 tips and while we said we select five contestants to compete in the contest, we ended up choosing six.

The six participants were asked to publish a release on April 27^th and about a week later we’d review the numbers:  the release with the most page reads would win.  Today, Cheryl’s release scored 4,283 (and counting) and won by a wide margin.  Congratulations Cheryl!

It should be noted that Cheryl, an event specialist with the firm The Perfect Date, is a veteran PRWeb customer. A short while ago, she shared a case study with us on how she used online news releases and social media to win over Facebook fans for a charity event she was managing.

Here is Cheryl’s winning release:

Kukuwa Dance Workout (KDW®) Launches Online Instructor Certification

Other contestants and their releases — all honorable mentions — include:

@SmallBizPRXpert: 17-Year Old Nonprofit Founder Approaches One Million Fundraising Mark, and After Five Years Finally Heads to Africa with World Vision

@iSpinnerRadio: Unsigned Artist Community And Web Radio iSpinner Launches Record Deal / iPad Contest

@ruizmcpherson: West Virginia Professionals, Teeth Intact, Join Forces to Fight Negative Stereotypes and Foster Entrepreneurialism and Innovation across the Mountain State

@absolutwit: Competitive Web 2.0 Climate Race Begins for Students Worldwide

@MaxTrescott: The Garmin 430 — Which Button Do I Push? Tweet About New iPhone Guides and Win $50

In a subsequent post, we’ll share some of the other tips participants offered, but for now, here are five tips that Cheryl provided when we initiated the contest:

Cheryl's News Release Tips

Filed under: Success Stories
View Comments

Last Summer, we began having conversations with customers as well as a handful of influentials in the communications space, regarding how to effectively revise the PRWeb news release template.  Concurrently, we also launched internal research efforts that focused on tracking a variety of key performance indicators for PRWeb news releases and attempting to correlate positive outcomes with structured elements of the release.

After many discussions, conclusions and product iterations we are getting close to a place (in the not-so-distant future) where we will be unveiling a new template for the PRWeb release.  As you can see in this rendition (not the final design), the various structural elements will remain largely unchanged, however the composition of those elements has been changed.

Our redesign of the template has been driven by the following considerations:

1. Improving the search friendliness of the template – The code behind the template has been written from scratch using more search-friendly methods.  For example, we have transitioned from using tables to CSS, which allows for cleaner code, less HTML and a host of other benefits.  This batch of fixes probably won’t make as profound an impact on human readers but the lighter code should be more easily crawled and parsed by search crawlers.

2. Creating more space for multimedia – As mentioned above, we have been taking a closer look at how multimedia impacts the consumption and usage of news releases.  In general, our research has indicated that multimedia can create greater levels of engagement with news readers.  Specifically, we have seen very positive relations between usage of relevant multimedia and increases in key performance indicators like time-on-page, general self-reported experience of the news and likelihood of using multimedia in ensuing stories.  Accordingly, the new template will provide more page real estate to the multimedia elements that we know readers are looking for and using.

3. Increased interaction – In addition to broadening engagement, we have been looking at how to improve the news release’s facilitation of various forms of interaction (shares, forwards, click-through).  Accordingly, we have optimized the location of interaction elements to ensure that they are readily available in places and at times when news readers are most likely to use them.

Moving forward, there are several key enhancements to the news release template that will improve their search-friendliness, social media potential, level of engagement and action-orientation.  However, this first release will be focused on reorganization and optimization.  As always we would love to hear your thoughts!

Filed under: News Release Features
View Comments

Today we announced a new partnership with one of the leading image and photo sites on the Web, Photobucket.  Initially, we will be sending Photobucket a stream of news images from our media visibility releases that will be automatically syndicated on their site.  We are currently running the task once per day so all new releases and images that are published throughout the day may not make it over to Photobucket until the following day.

Additionally, we will be passing the image over in addition to the title of the image (if it is available) as well as a link back to a version of the image hosted on our own domain.    Over time we will be looking to optimize the contextual information we pass over to Photobucket to make sure they have the highest likelihood of showing up for relevant queries in the Photobucket search engine.

Image search is a rapidly growing sector of search and images are becoming an increasingly important part of our customer news releases.  Increasingly, we are shifting into a paradigm where customers are telling stories in multimedia instead of just plain text.  Our own research highlights many of the benefits to using multimedia as part of a news release campaign.   It is our goal that this partnership will help us push the impact of our customer news releases one step further, by tapping into the millions of people searching for images on a daily basis.

Filed under: Multimedia
View Comments

Building a brand from scratch is hard work, that’s for sure. One of the key elements to getting there is the development of a key message – when you disseminate the same message in different ways, you create a consistent prospect and customer perception of what you’re all about. That makes it easy for them to recognize you and keeps you perpetually top of mind.

You know what’s really interesting, and incredibly surprising? Smaller companies and sometimes, even really huge companies lack a consistent and concise key message. They don’t have what “those in the biz” call an “elevator pitch”—which is, basically, if you had 30 seconds in an elevator to tell someone what your company did, what you would tell them. Instead, companies tend to keep their message fluid and constantly changing without one consistent message stemming from the top exec or business owner saying, “Hey folks – this is what we do, why it’s important and how we are different from our competitors.”

So, how do you define your key message and the supporting arguments to competitively differentiate yourself in today’s crowded and loud marketplace?

Here are some ideas:

-          Create a corporate messaging document that defines your mission.

-          Standardize product and service descriptions with the associated benefits.

-          Select the words you use to describe the value you bring to your customers.

-          Define how you treat your customers and why service is important.

-          Circulate this messaging to all employees – with a special focus on sales, your “feet on the street,” so to speak.

-          Use it as a guide to draft all marketing collateral, Web copy and customer communications.

Just like anything, you hear something multiple times, and it “sticks.” You want who you are, what you’re about, the products, and, most importantly, the value you bring to your customers to “stick” in the market. This will help increase awareness of your company, drive more people to your site, and help you get your message across.

A consistent brand builds loyalty, so you can keep your customer retention numbers up and spur online customer advocates that spread the digital “word-of-mouth” through social media. And, that results in more site traffic, more leads and, in the end: revenue growth.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to develop messaging and a branding strategy that fuels growth, you should think about attending Thrive 2010: The Ins and Outs of Online Marketing. It’s an all-day online seminar focused on helping businesses boost growth by harnessing the power of the web. Speakers will be covering things like how to communicate with customers to strengthen loyalty, what communication channels work, how online press releases with the right messages drive traffic to your site and a whole bunch of other essential marketing tactics for differentiating yourself in the new age.

Consistent communication is essential to success – knowing the basics of how to do it- especially today- can be a bit complicated, but, I promise, there is a way!

Filed under: Content
View Comments

Over the past several months we have been taking a closer look at how multimedia impacts news consumption by studying the habits of our own PRWeb news consumers.  The research combined quantitative analysis of usage patterns drawn from Web statistics with a survey that was sent out to a segment of our e-mail opt-in subscribers.

Here are some top-line takeaways from that research, which will be also discussed in my upcoming presentation at Newcomm Forum this Friday.

1.  People spend more time on releases that contain multimedia – Images really do have an impact on how much time people spend consuming news releases.  In the sample of news releases we studied, releases with no images had an average time-on-page of 2:18.  However, releases that contained images had an average time-on-page of 2:47.

2.  Bloggers and journalists actually use multimedia – Not only does multimedia positively enhance the experience of news releases, evidenced by indicators such as increased time-on-page, but news producers (journalists and bloggers) actually use multimedia they find on news releases to help construct their ensuing stories.  Almost half (48%) of journalists and bloggers who subscribe to receive PRWeb news releases report having used an image or video in a news story or blog post they have written.

3. Bloggers and journalists favor some forms of media over others – When it comes to various types of multimedia, content producers clearly favor images.  88% of producers agree or strongly agree that images enhance their experience of a news release while about half (52) agree or strongly agree that video enhances their experience of a news release.  Only 28% agreed that audio enhances a news release.

Filed under: Multimedia
View Comments

If you took an informal survey today about where people get their commercial information, it’s highly likely most folks would avidly reply: “The Web, of course!” Or, when asked, “where did you hear that?” Their reply? “I ‘Googled’ it!” Easy—and immediate–enough.

But what does this mean behind the scenes? How does “stuff” get “Google-able, “Tweet”-able, or just made ready for a Facebook user to share with their friends?

The answers can seem confusing, and even at times overwhelming, as the “digg-erati” talk about the intricacies of Search Engine Optimization, hash-tags, Web 2.0, mash-ups and more.

When it comes to deciphering new media, remembering that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is extremely important. You attract customers in much the same way you always have: by having great products and services. Their satisfaction and positive (and negative) impression makes people share stories about you with their friends. You might also snag some coverage in the news media in one form another – local, global or trade.

Through it all, “word-of-mouth advertising” is still in fashion. What has changed is the speed at which the good news (or –“oh no!” bad news) about your business spreads. Thanks to the Internet, the good, bad and the ugly spreads like wildfire.  And, that places new requirements on you to understand how you can facilitate, manage, measure and track that process, so you can attract more customers, stay ahead of the competition and keep your business growing.

We see the success that the new digital world is creating; exciting stories of business growth, and great new relationships formed. We also see some puzzlement – and confusion. People are just not sure where to start first.

Together with some PRWeb partners, we’re putting on an online event to help businesses learn the basics of interactive and online marketing. Its called “Thrive 2010: The ins and Outs of Online Marketing.”  It focuses on the fundamental tools and strategies for achieving success in the new digital world – but, in simple language.

Many of us who live in this new-fangled social media world took a leap to get here. We had to figure out how it all worked–the best practices for helping our own businesses and our customers tap the power of social media and Web 2.0 technologies to take marketing and its revenue impact to new heights. And, now, tweeting, sharing, blogging and all the other “stuff” that goes along with social media is actually pretty fun. What life and work should be all about, right?

What are your thoughts, or emotions, about leaping into the new digital world?

Filed under: Content, Social Media, Updates, Web site
View Comments

For the past several years we have offered podcast production and syndication services through PRWeb. In the past two years or so, a number of factors have resulted in declining usage of our podcast services.

Most notably, our launch of video integration has resulted in increasing numbers of customers focusing on video as opposed to audio when creating multimedia news releases. This trend in customer usage can be correlated with our research into journalist and blogger news consumption habits that shows relatively lukewarm interest in audio content compared to other forms of media.

These factors have lead us to decide and phase out our podcast production services so we can place increased focus on the other multimedia elements of the release including focusing on how images and video can be further emphasized on the release.

So effective May 1, we will no longer be offering podcast production services to our customers although customers who have their own audio will still be able to add them as attachments to their news release.

For your convenience, we recommend the following resources for those interested in learning more about how to create their own podcast:

1. eHow explanation of How to Syndicate a Podcast
2. wikiHow page on How to Start your Own Podcast
3. Tinkernut  video on How to Create a Podcast

Filed under: Multimedia, News Release Features
View Comments

For several years now, we have allowed customers to select a Web page that is displayed in a frame at the bottom of the news release.  Out initial goal was to provide those reading the news release with an easy way to interact with a customer’s Web site by placing it directly within the release.  Over the years, customers have used the feature in a variety of ways: to highlight specific landing pages, as a holding page for multimedia content that may not have fit neatly into the release, etc.  In fact, it has been a feature that a number of other services have adopted.

There are some shortcomings with the feature that have become increasingly evident as of late.  First, the limitations on the frame size imposed by it’s placement within the news release template creates a less than perfect user experience that involves excessive scrolling.  Second, the presence of the frame is somewhat of a security risk as we have had numerous customers (unwittingly) place sites infected with malware into the frame, which has a negative impact on our site as whole.  Lastly, the presence of the frame may be lowering the number of users who click-through to visit the customer site itself.

One idea we have been thinking through would involve replacing the frame with a screenshot of the customer Web site that would launch the site in a new browser window when clicked upon.

So we’d like to hear from you, the PRWeb customer, on how you feel about being able to place a Web page in a frame within the release and whether or not our alternative would be an acceptable solution.

Filed under: News Release Features
View Comments

This past friday, we posted a note on our account funding page that we would no longer be accepting prepayment on PRWeb.  For years, prepayment served as a solution for high volume customers who wanted to avoid entering a credit card each time they sent out a news release.  Over the past year, we have been gradually transitioning high volume customers over to our subscription-based platform. 

 We are now at a point with the platform where we felt confident that there was no longer a need for prepayment on PRWeb and have permanently closed the function.  For those of you interested in purchasing a PRWeb subscription, please call 1-877-779-3201.  Otherwise, you can continue buying individual news releases as always through PRWeb.

Filed under: Uncategorized
View Comments

It has come to our attention that a Web site, mktgBuzz, has been offering a promotional discount on PRWeb releases. This is a quick note to let our customers know that we are not affiliated in any way with mktgBUZZ.com. The only way we can ensure our terms of service is if you purchase your release through PRWeb.com.

Filed under: Partners
View Comments