If you’re in the business of the new economy and you still use press releases as the mainstay of your public relations, don’t laugh — I’m talking about you.

Tech and telecom companies of all sizes and stripes are the driving forces behind the innovation that’s changing how we do just about everything. Apps, gadgets, constant connectivity — you guys embody the promise of a faster, more tailored, more communicative tomorrow. So why would you promote your work with an antiquated bullhorn?

There was a time when heavy reliance on press releases made sense; an era in which information was less mobile, and harder to obtain. Reporters in that age were actually helped by the sending of news items that would be covered and read in the relatively discrete jurisdictions of each local newspaper or trade rag. But, wow, was that a long time ago.

In today’s much more accessible market for information, a mass blast of the same story to dozens or hundreds of reporters — all of whom are trying to distinguish themselves in an enormous field by writing something different — is so backwards as to be positively bone-headed. Especially for the very industries that have created the expectation of micro-targeting.

But, please, don’t take my word for it.  Consider recent comments from reporters who receive releases:

• Press releases turn an opportunity for coverage into “near certain failure.” Why You Should Consider Eliminating Press Releases. [NOTE: this source site is hiccuping as of 1pm today; hopefully it will be back up soon.]
• News releases “are a worthless bother.” Why the News Release is Worthless in Today’s Social Media Age.
• “Unless your client has won a Nobel Prize or an Oscar, I’m not going to write about awards.” #HAROcall Twitter Chat

Do you want to send your story out into that atmosphere? Of course not — so ditch the rote, “it’s kind of news” releases, and get into real creative PR, which is about sending the right information to the right person to score the kinds of hits that turn into buzz. Much more targeted and more selective press releases may be a part of that effort, but they are as different from a wire blast as a megaphone is from a smartphone. Which one actually suits who you are?

Imagine being a journalist in this predicament. How do you do your job when you can’t find the news? How do you follow up for more information or an interview when, as often happens, you can’t even locate the press contacts?

Recently I was interested in looking up a pair of fiber optics companies — a hot field given the rapid rise of data centers needing high bandwidth connectivity. Once on their home pages, however, I found that trying to locate their news rooms was like a treasure hunt. When I finally discovered where they hid the press releases I was astounded to see that somebody had omitted or stripped out the press contacts. Of course they had no separate page identifying media contacts, either.

Out of curiosity, I called the general number for one of these companies to find out why they deliberately bury their news. After being routed around, I eventually ended up speaking with a marketing person who shed light on her company’s “PR practices.” In sum, they don’t much care what journalists think, and for that matter seldom talk to press. As long as the company puts an announcement on the wire and gets the usual number of syndicated press release postings, it thinks it’s doing PR and is satisfied with the results. Having their story lost among thousands of other syndicated release posts is just fine with them.

Hanging up, I returned to the company’s web site for another look, this time at media coverage. The last story written about them was two years old. I marveled at the feats of ingenuity and perseverance the reporter must have exercised to get that piece written. Because the company has undertaken numerous significant activities since that time — major product launches, new markets opened, huge customer wins, vital rounds of new financing won — I also wondered at the obvious lost opportunities in PR. What a waste: all that time and money spent writing announcements that nobody sees.

Learn from this. For your company’s sake, always:

1. Highlight “News” on the Home Page. Make your RSS news feed one of the first things visitors see. Or at the very least, provide easy navigation to a news room.
2. Segment News from Other Items. Put announcements in one place and keep it clean of non-news items such as webinars and trade shows.  If you have media coverage, put that in a separate category to avoid cluttering your announcements section.
3. Keep the Media Contacts on the Release. Don’t make reporters work hard to find you.  Include the contact’s name, email address, wireline and wireless numbers.
4. Create a Media Contacts Page. Larger companies often have multiple contacts responsible for specific segments of the business. Creating a separate contacts page highlighting all media contact info is a huge boon to press. If you use a PR agency, include their contact info here, too — if a reporter needs info after hours, he or she may call the agency first, knowing it’s their job to be available 24 X 7.

Alternately, you can follow the example of companies that make it next to impossible for journalists to follow and cover them. Just remember: When you’re hard to find, it’s you that’s lost.

To backtrack. . .Earlier this week Virgin’s posting on its flat rate plan went live on Facebook a day or so ahead of the planned press release. Gleeful reporters were immediately all over the story, many noting the social media post that gave the news away. The company’s explanation for the apparent gaffe might be paraphrased, “hey, we goofed.” Well, maybe that’s so. On the other hand, as one of the savviest social media operators on the planet, Virgin may have known exactly what it was doing when that Facebook post popped ahead of schedule.

Calculated leaks and advances are time-honored ways of generating press coverage. Who among us in the PR profession hasn’t dabbled with both somewhere along the line?  With Facebook and Twitter to spread the word, the impact can be immediate and massive.  Net net, by the time Virgin’s release came out, it was virtually an afterthought — the story had already been widely covered in national and trade press. Makes me wonder: Is this a sign of things to come?

The possibility that we’re witnessing the imminent demise of the press release will impact several groups: (1) companies that still look to official announcements as the primary vehicle for news dissemination; (2) wire service companies that make a good living zipping announcements over the Internet; and (3) tracking services that monitor and report on press release postings and coverage.

As more companies like Virgin experiment with new ways to “get the story out,” consider what may follow:

1. Companies may begin to question their commitment to a news vehicle that, for the most part, ends up in the media dumping zone — those daily feeds of verbatim press release postings that scroll by on a news site home page and are quickly forgotten.
2. Wire service distribution services that charge to push announcements to search engines may face increasing pressure from social media outlets that deliver the same or better impact for free.
3. Lastly, given that the vast majority of what they track is just verbatim press release postings — and most of these are available at no cost via Google news — newsclip services could suffer declining popularity.

If any of the above comes to pass, maybe the traditional infrastructure for news distribution will become as quaint as reading hard copy newspapers and magazines. Time will tell, and I have a feeling it’s closing in fast.

Fact is, not every “story” a client considers hot stuff is really worth a press release. Make sure it has genuine news value before pushing the button on editorial costs to create it, staff, management and customer time/resources to review & approve it, and wire service costs to distribute it.

What’s newsworthy? New products. Client wins. Major partnerships. Key new hires and promotions. Some awards, i.e., those sponsored by a key industry organization or media that can add luster to your reputation with customers — but first make sure that the entity bestowing the award will participate by providing a press release quote; if they have a special “award logo” you can post on your home page, even better. Just one caveat: Recognize that other media rarely run coverage on a competitor’s awards program. However, you’ll get the usual postings on Yahoo Finance, etc., and the award logo looks spiffy on your home page.

As long as we’re in penny-pinching mode, here’s an updated version of one of our most popular blogs, “10 Ways to Save on PR.”

1. Hire Agencies that Hire Journalists. Reporters are trained to ferret out a news angle quickly, make it compelling and produce results on deadline. Emphasis on speed and performance translates to lower billable hours.
2. Always Ask What it’s Worth. Product development teams tend to think that everything they invent is priceless. Counter by asking how much revenue it will generate. Allocate PR resources accordingly.
3. Focus on 3 or 4 Big Stories. Ask management to list the top stories they want highlighted in the coming 6 – 12 months. Focusing on “what’s big” ensures a consistent story line and strong image. Diffuse PR programs undercut the brand and waste hours.
4. Brief the Account Team. Many an hour is lost because the client pulled its agency into a project at the last minute with no prep. Time spent up-front leads to high-impact, cost-effective results.
5. Use “Straw Man” PR Plans. A bulleted one-pager on goals, news, message, spokespersons and media targets is easy/cheap to create, and gets the attention of the execs you design it for. Sir Winston Churchill refused to read any memo longer than half a page.  Your execs think the same way.
6. Shop Around for Wire Services.  This is the Internet Age.  There is no excuse for vendors that charge $hundreds/$thousands for electronic press release transmissions that cost them pennies. Look for better deals from new online distribution services — after you first check that they offer the same breadth of distribution and immediate turnaround as the Big Boys.
7. Distribute Locally – Never Nationally.  The only reason to use any wire service is to push your announcement to search engines.  The same SEs receive your release whether you distribute it with a local dateline (low price) or nationwide (high price).  Always go local.
8. Keep Press Releases Short.  A  press release should be a door-opener with reporters, not a warehouse of technical or marketing gibberish.  Keep releases short and simple — like a wire service story — to generate interviews and coverage and cut content creation and wire service costs.
9. Re-Purpose Content.  Writing is expensive. Editing is cheap. If a subject is hot enough for a white paper, it may also be good for a blog, podcast or bylined article. Maximize your mileage on content by adapting it to multiple vehicles. (As an example, this year Crawford has created 15 home page blogs for one client and placed nearly every one of them, with only minor changes, as a “guest blog” or byline with the customer’s targeted media.  Blog creation and external placement were included in the monthly retainer — the client didn’t pay one nickel extra.)
10. Keep Meeting and Reporting Time to a Minimum.  Take a close look at your line-item agency invoice. You may be amazed at how much time is devoted to weekly meetings and reports.  It shouldn’t take that long for the agency to say what they’ve done and plan to do. Streamline the report, too.  Fancy, colorful spreadsheets overflowing with tabs on last year’s results, this year’s editorial calenders, next year’s trade shows and other filler are a waste of time. The weekly report should focus on one thing: Key action items. Period.

Get to it, my fellow Scrooges. PR is always your best and most lasting form of promotion, marketing, and yes, advertising — and the cheapest, too.

Consider a few of the things we’re never supposed to do in this business:

1. Never issue a press release on a national holiday, a Friday, over the weekend or after 6pm.
2. Never conduct a media tour between Christmas and New Year’s.
3. Never criticize anybody in social media.
4. Never argue with an editor, even when they’re wrong.
5. Oh,  and never blog on Sunday, either.

What I want to know — If you never break the rules, how do you know it’s a bad idea?

One of the most successful media tours I ever conducted was during a Christmas holiday.  Why’s that?  Because journalists were still in the office, no other companies were crazy enough to issue news or visit press — and the latter desperately needed something to cover.  We gave it to them.  The stories came out right after New Year when the wires were once again flooded with announcements that press were then too busy to pay attention to.

So ask yourself: What in your line of work should you never be doing, and would it really be such a bad idea to ignore the taboo and do it anyway?

1. Fail to clearly present the news and tell why it is important, or to identify and relate to the target audience for the news;
2. Bury the story under unexplained acronyms and technical references;
3. Resort to pompous verbal clutter to make the announcement sound important.

My immediate reaction to such releases is that the author doesn’t understand the topic, is too lazy or intimidated to learn, and doesn’t care. The problem: Reporters and editors receive hundreds of press releases every day. In order for journalists to run with your story, they must understand what you’re saying within the first 10 seconds of reading it.

To write an effective press release, follow the example of wire service reporters: Say more with less. It’s a discipline. There are five steps:

1. Start with a ½ page outline of your announcement.
2. Analyze your outline.
   1. News Nugget: Is your news unique, a first of its kind or of significant value to the market? If not, you may lack a compelling reason to do an announcement. Are you announcing a major contract win? Then state the contract value – otherwise your “news” is worthless to a reporter.
   2. “Quals”:Would your news benefit from industry statistics or a customer testimonial that back it up? If you make a claim, provide proof.
3. Write in simple English.
   1. The Wall Street Journal is written so clearly and simply that the average 15 year-old can understand it. Write your release the same way.
4. Be brief and to the point.
   1. Headline: A short, compelling statement of your news nugget.
   2. Sub-head: One sentence telling who benefits and how.
   3. Lead paragraph: One sentence that builds on your news nugget.
   4. Second paragraph: Explain why the news is significant and to whom.
   5. Third paragraph: The “Quals” – supporting stats or third party quote by analyst or customer, not your own executive.
   6. Company boilerplate: 1 or 2 hype-free sentences, followed by your url.
5. Review your draft release through the eyes of a journalist.
   1. Is the news value clearly stated?
   2. Does the story target the intended audience?
   3. Is the story weighed down with verbal clutter? Typical culprits:
      1. Appositives such as “XYZ Company, a leading blah blah blah. . .” Delete them. Appositives have an opposite effect to that intended: If you have to proclaim you’re a leader, the odds are you aren’t.
      2. Unexplained acronyms. Either explain ‘em or delete ‘em
      3. i.Executive quotes. Delete. Most say nothing and sound silly. Common example: “We are very pleased by this contract win. . .” Well, it would be news if they weren’t!

Total length of your press release: 1 – 2 pages. Follow the above tips to improve the odds your story will get noticed – and picked up by the media.