Business Wire's public relations press release distribution platform includes the company's NewsTrak audience analytics and media monitoring reports.
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Cision PRWeb
Score 4.6 out of 10
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Cision PRWeb aims to impact customer behavior by providing efficient communication tools to continuously engage with target audiences across multiple online channels including search, social media and with industry-specific partner websites, bloggers and influencers.
Cision PRWeb was not good at targeting the major business community and was not fitted well into our demands. The price of Cision was high and very unjustifiable as there were not enough features in it and was not efficient in its working as well. But on the contrary, if I look …
Verified User
Vice-President
Chose Business Wire
For the services we generally seek when we engage Business Wire, it's effectively interchangeable with PR Newswire. It becomes a matter of preference. The other news distribution platforms generally don't return as much value in terms of visibility, be it through SEO or …
I've used all these services. Which one to choose depends on the situation. It's good to have knowledge of all the options. Of course, there are many other services as well, and even free services that a very small business or nonprofit can use that do similar things.
We are highly satisfied with this tool and according to me, it is favorable in all aspects for the people that want to strengthen their links with the Publics either internal or external. It has the capability to manage relations and disseminates information to the business community. But it is not suitable when it comes to reports and its customer service.
PRWeb served it's purpose for Strouse by sending news out to new audiences although this never generated an overwhelming amount of traffic to our website. If you are only interested in issuing PR and getting your name out there, then I think PRWeb is a fine solution. I find PRWeb less appropriate if you really want to drive traffic to your site through a press release in hopes of creating sales. During the selection process I would be interested in knowing what sources my PR would be submitted to. Is it being submitted to relevant websites? Will links be provided on all of these websites? Ask yourself, will these websites benefit my companies SEO?
Proofing - Business Wire proofs every single release with great precision, and calls you to let you know if they think anything looks like it might be a typo. They are extremely thorough and also check with you about the way you want images or video laid out with the release so that the final presentation is perfect.
Customer Service - Business Wire has some of the best customer service I've ever experienced. They are available 24 hours a day, and always have someone manning the phones to answer your questions, proof releases, and make sure your release gets across the wire at the right time.
Interface - The Business Wire site is very easy to use, and saves previously used information and images like logos. This is standard for most wire services, but Business Wire does a good job as well.
Reach - BW reaches a very wide range of outlets, and its relationships with VentureBeat, Yahoo! and MarketWatch are great. Clients really appreciate seeing their releases in those publications.
There have been a few times when a minor grammatical error has slipped by myself as well as the copy editors but it's very rare for this to happen.
The cost can get a bit high if your press release is long (as price is partially dictated by length) or if you want to add a logo, image, infographic, etc.
One issue we ran into with media tracking was that when it came to smaller or more niche media, it had a hard time tracking hits from those outlets for our clients.
Building larger media lists was time consuming and cumbersome.
We are unlikely to renew PRWeb because I feel that the costs outweigh the benefits of the service. For a company like ours (small business with about 60 employees) we don't have enough press that warrants monthly coverage. We may look at using PRWeb on an as needed basis, 3-4 times a year for single submissions, but that would be the extent of it. I could see PRWeb being much more beneficial for large companies that are constantly needing to issue press.
I gave it this rating because the Business Wire website is very user-friendly. Being able to navigate the platform on my own without technical assistance made it possible for me to quickly and easily submit news release distributions, which can be critical at times, such as during hurricane season when we need to get information out to the news media and our customers quickly.
The team members are very quick to respond and do their absolute best to help resolve issues quickly. I also like that I can have one of them proofread my press releases before they are distributed. It always helps to have another set of eyes on the content. There have been a few times that they've caught an error that nobody else did so it's worth the extra couple minutes that it takes!
I have only required support from PRWeb on two separate occasions and they handled my issues without any problems. I was a bit confused at first not sure if they had received my requests but shortly after I received responses and was able to move forward with my press release.
Business Wire is very easy to implement. This isn't a requirement, but it's recommended that you begin to set up saved distributions for different clients so that you don't have to start over from scratch. Rather than doing all this work on the front end, you can just do it as you send out your first piece of news for each client.
I like both services very much, but I prefer the topics, trends, and companies that Business Wire prioritizes. I also like the resources that Business Wire offers such as the tools under the "education" tab. PR Newswire doesn't quite offer the same resources. Overall, I prefer Business Wire over PR Newswire. I have not tried other similar services.
I've used all these services. Which one to choose depends on the situation. It's good to have knowledge of all the options. Of course, there are many other services as well, and even free services that a very small business or nonprofit can use that do similar things. I find PRWeb is a good fit for many of my clients because of the pricing. Photos are increasingly important in getting news picked up and PRWeb doesn't charge you an arm and a leg like some services do to include a photo
