CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
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Prezly
Score 9.6 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Prezly is presented as all-in-one public relations management tool that helps PR teams organise their workflow, collaborate and save time. Accessible through any browser, Prezly's key features are divided between three main areas: Contact management Full PR CRM for managing contacts Automated contact enrichment and flagging for out-of-date contact details At-a-glance comms timeline per contact showing emails sent/received, added…
$50
per month per user
Pricing
Cision Communications Cloud
Prezly
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter Plan
$50
per month per user
Core Plan
$90
per month per user
Premium Plan
$140
per month per user
Enterprise Plan
custom
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cision Communications Cloud
Prezly
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
—
Prezly also offers a yearly payment option with a 20% discount. Additional seats are available for each plan, and additional newsrooms are available for Core Plan and above. For larger/global clients, Prezly offers an Enterprise Plan that accommodates 10+ seats and more customizable functionality; Enterprise Plans are priced based on an organization's requirements.
It's been a while since I evaluated Prezly against Cision. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison because Cision has a lot of additional features, but Prezly has a robust CRM platform and digital newsroom that outflanks the Cision newsroom in look, feel and ease of use, not to …
Prezly is much more user-friendly than Cision but isn't as robust. The pricing is similar and I believe Prezly beats it out a bit. Overall, the UI is much better in Prezly giving it the edge.
For a small start-up, the cost-benefit to add lift to press releases [and] particular milestone accomplishments is definitely there with the Cision [Communications] Cloud. Much of what we do, by necessity, is done internally without the benefit of outsourced press folks, so the Cision [Communications] Cloud ease of use and reporting is very important.
Since this platform is so easy to use when creating or managing communication workflows, it is recommended to work mostly with scenarios that generally require several processes to complete each group management, for example, to cover from the follow-up of employees within the communications team to the management of the team's communication processes.
Their upgraded press release templates and ability [to] pull in an entire, completed release makes the [process] faster and easier, and allows for more graphics, such as company mastheads, [are done well].
The media tracking offers the ability to find relevant placements across the entire country.
The journalist database streamlines the process of finding relevant reporters to directly connect [to] on news releases that are relevant to their beats.
The process of setting up, creating, and distributing a release is seamless, easy to use, and not labor-intensive.
In the media influencer database, the classic Cision allowed us to do a zip code radius search to really drill down to the neighborhood level. That's because we do localized media advisories and press releases for events at neighborhood schools. One part of a big city like Chicago really doesn't care what's happening in another part of Chicago that's too far away. The zip code radius search was a feature in the classic Cision but not with the current Cision Communications Cloud. We've asked for this to be restored several times, but nothing's happened. In fact, we were told to use DMA — which actually goes wider in a search (bigger than a city), not more narrow as needed. This reflects a basic misunderstanding of what we need.
Another missing feature involves a merge field when sending out an email press release through Cision. This is the "select insert field" button in the upper right that's used to personalize a release with the media contact's name and other information. This is key for localization of the release. Many media outlets won't run a release unless it's local. While "county" is a feature in the influencer database when putting together a media list in Cision, "county" is not available to insert into a press release as a merge field. Counties are important because this is how many newspapers and health departments are organized and identify themselves. I've asked for this to be implemented, to no avail. As a workaround, we've had to use "contact city" or "outlet city."
After refining a media list in Cision using filters, I've had to download the list and take it offline to see the big picture, screen for duplicates, etc. While there is a button on the bottom left intended to help with this, it doesn't do the trick. That's because there may be multiple contacts with the same email address. In addition, one media contact may represent numerous media outlets, so this same contact could show up several times. It would be nice to have a better way to see the whole list online and eliminate both duplicates as well as those who previously opted out.
The contact management system is a little wonky but it has improved over the last two years and I expect that trend to continue.
The grouping system (segments) and tagging is not intuitive. I've had many missteps in trying to get content to particular segments while deselecting individuals.
You cannot add another group of people to a distribution without going back and recreating the same distribution. you can add individuals but not groups.
While I am happy with the product performance overall, TrendKite's recent merger with Cision is cause for concern. When we first signed on with TrendKite, I spoke with several users and the best response I received was that the company was a startup and we could expect there to be hiccups along the way as the company grew and the platform got more robust. That has certainly been the case. However, now that they have merged with Cision — a company that has grown too fast, has not focused on improving its product and has poor customer service — I have concerns that TrendKite will lose some of the qualities that have made it a great company and great product to work with.
The flexibility and customization of Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is among its most important features. Changing the dashboards, using keywords in the saved searches to pull out the best stories and the integration with marketing automation tools gives me confidence that I will able to continue using this tool well into the future. The future implementation and integration of the media contact database will complete the suite, making list management and email marketing programs much smoother. *This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
Generally, Cision performs well day to day, but it's got some annoying bugs that slow down usage/require user workarounds which is inefficient. More seriously, a few months ago, as a result of a major system upgrade, certain critical functionality was not working and I was unable to use the service for more than a day when I had time-sensitive work to execute
For Cision TrendKite in particilar, support always responded, but it was sometimes slow. For some of our booleans and search queries, we would need help refining and excluding terms/phrases that weren't relevant to our client or campaign. This sometimes took 1-2 days just to get a response back, which sometimes was too late when a last-minute report was due. This was only with the support staff, not necessarily our customer success manager or sales rep.
The online training sessions available for the Cision Communications Cloud are helpful and informative. There's more than one option - initially, I signed up for the live webinar classes on basic functions and that is what I recommend other new users do as well. If I have specific questions or something I want to learn more about, I can search the online database and find article or online training videos to get the information I need.
It's a similar product. I think Meltwater sells itself as being a bit more niche, but I have not found many significant differences between Meltwater and Cision. Meltwater's sales process is a very high pressure and their prices are inflated.
Prezly is much more user-friendly than Cision but isn't as robust. The pricing is similar and I believe Prezly beats it out a bit. Overall, the UI is much better in Prezly giving it the edge.
We have taken into account our net profit rates during the time of using Prezly, and therefore we decided that the platform is useful when generating work formations that result in higher profits. Prezly has proven to be an excellent investment, which has satisfied our team.
