Cision PRWeb vs. PR.com

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?

Incentivized

I often recommend PR.com to clients on a budget. There are some organizations, like non-profits, or very small businesses I work with who just don't have the money to spend on a pricier press release distribution service like Businesswire. For those clients, PR.com is a good alternative. You can use the free version - or elect to spend a little money to include hyperlinks, increase distribution, and so on. But there are options - and that is a good thing.

Incentivized

• It provides a newswire option at a very reasonable price.
• The pricing is in a sweet spot for many startups who would want to use it.
• It hits up all of the key media outlets that you would expect a wire service to be connected to.

Incentivized

• Bad customer service [in my experience].
• One-sided PR.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Suggest offering administrators more control over when releases are distributed
• Lower premium pricing for high frequency administrators

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

It is a very simple program to use. They walk you step by step on what is necessary to complete a PR.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Implementation of PRWeb required very little of Strouse. It was a quick process and we were almost immediately ready to use the platform.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

I think PR.com offers a viable alternative to smaller businesses or nonprofit clients on a budget. When I tell some of those clients it will be hundreds - or even thousands - of dollars to distribute a press release on a service like Business Wire, I can feel them cringe. PR.com offers a free option - and also offers very low-cost options to boost the distribution, include live hyperlinks and so on - if clients do have a little $ to spend on that, they can. But they can choose. The bigger services are really cost-prohibitive for the smaller businesses.

Incentivized

• It was definitely a cost decision for us, but the ability to have access to their media database was by far the most useful and needed tool for us.
• For tracking media hits, it saved us time tracking the majority of hits. Where it didn't save us time was with smaller, more niche media.

Incentivized

• Negative impact [in my experience].
• Wasted our time.