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An Industry Leader and a Great Tool for a Small PR Team
July 12, 2018

An Industry Leader and a Great Tool for a Small PR Team

Richard Angeloni | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with PR Newswire

My company uses PR Newswire to release press releases either regionally within our industry, or on a wider basis to a national audience, within or outside of our industry. We are a small team, and using a tool like PR Newswire allows us to achieve our communications and public relations goals in a quick and easy fashion.
  • It is very easy to set up an account on PR Newswire and get started. The dashboard is very intuitive.
  • Once you are ready to upload a press release, doing so it easy and the pricing structure for the different distributions are clearly laid out.
  • You can choose a distribution list or e-mail (or fax) your own distribution list, making it easy to target your release to different reporters.
  • Once a press release is sent up, PR Newswire follows up with visibility reports so you know how well your release did and if you need to do another or target specific reporters.
  • The pricing structure is comprehensive, depending on how far you want your release to go.
  • Adding multi-media, such as photos, increases visibility quite a bit but PR Newswire charges extra for photos.
  • PR Newswire also charges an annual fee for storing your logo, which I think should be free for organizations that already have an account (and pay a membership fee).
  • ROI is difficult to calculate in my company's specific industry, but we do know our visibility has increased when we send out a release via PR Newswire.
  • We send out a relatively small number of press releases a year, so we know when we send out a report if our target audience is receiving it.
  • With Google and other search engines being the primary way people research information about company's today, we know that when we do a press release via PR Newswire that release will "live" indefinitely on the web, so we know our press release will go much further than the initial distribution.
We did do some research before selecting PR Newswire a number of years ago, and we saw that PR Newswire was certainly an industry leader and that the pricing was for the most part competitive with other companies. Ultimately, we choose PR Newswire because the dashboard is very intuitive and user friendly, and they have a helpful support service. Additionally, as a PR Newswire member, we have a dedicated customer service representative who is available to help us to more (and get the most out of the product). They also are available 24/7, which is helpful as our company is located on the West Coast.
PR Newswire is a great tool to have if you have a small PR team. Maintaining distribution lists are time-consuming, and subscribing to a media monitoring service can be expensive. Even if your company subscribes to a media monitoring service, it does take some time and effort to maintain distribution lists. So using a service like PR Newswire helps take some of the grunt work out of public relations work and makes it easy, and quick, to distribute your press release to a wide audience.

Using PR Newswire

PR Newswire is an industry leader and gives the user the ability to send out a press release, to a wide audience, very quickly and easily. The pricing is on par with other companies (perhaps they are a bit higher) but they do send useful "visibility" reports after a release is distributed, which is helpful when trying to explain ROI to C suite leaders. You also can email or fax your own distribution list, which is helpful and reduces the need for a media monitoring service.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Dashboard makes it very easy to use.
  • Uploading documents is easy.
  • Customer Service is always available to help if you are having problems.
  • Pricing can get a bit cumbersome.
  • The product provides a number of way to target your message, which can be confusing.
  • Adding multi-media to a release is an extra charge.