Cision: PR Gold Standard, But Room for Improvement
May 08, 2018
Cision: PR Gold Standard, But Room for Improvement
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Cision PR Software
My agencies use Cision daily for information on media professionals. About 80% of our company is pitching media daily, so this tool is essential for getting information about publications, members of the press, locations, etc. It's most useful when we're investigating a new publication or contact, and often has information you can't find anywhere else, especially emails and phone numbers. I know their teams verify contact information, but it's not always up to date. There are also a lot of people in Cision who aren't traditional journalists too, so you do still have to have some expertise to do successful media relations outreach with this tool.
- Media contact sourcing
- Inside details on reporters
- Media movement and new beats
- Researching media in new geographies or industries
- The contact information isn't always accurate or up to date.
- There are many contacts in Cision who aren't traditional reporters, whether they are bloggers or sponsorship contacts.
- The search and list-building functions can be hard to use.
- Positive ROI: Help us get in touch with media, which is our key client function.
- Negative impact: Sometimes the contact info or personalization details aren't accurate or are out of date.
Cision is the gold standard of PR software. It's the original and it's usually the best. However, as they've gotten bigger and acquired more tools, it can be difficult to use. MuckRack usually has more up to date information about reporters' actual beats, and their contact info is sometimes more up to date. AirPR has a lot of other data functions for client reporting, but it doesn't always have the classic PR features you need. It's hard to run an agency or PR team without access to Cision, really.