Are press releases dead?

If I’m being honest, the whole claiming something is dead in marketing when we now (more than ever) have a clearer understanding of America’s role in the many genocides happening around the world is one of many things wrong with the industry. Also why is this the question that keeps coming up? Who is actually wanting releases dead??

I know we can do better.

As long as there are audiences reading them, organizations and personalities will continue using them. While releases will not die in either of our lifetimes, they are slightly changing — lets call it modernizing, I think its way overdue and am embracing the transparency.

For certain audiences, for example, such as traditional print and online media, press releases are still an incredibly useful tool to communicate all the necessary information to determine where (if anywhere) the news fits. For an organizations stakeholders like investors, sales and product teams, press releases are also very helpful to guide awareness and consistency. For political and analytical markets as well as other financial professionals, press releases are necessary to ensure an accurate stream of source-led information is available.

Hell, even for many marketing teams, until they read a release for the first time, they often do not understand how what or why they are announcing something and in what ways it will benefit audiences. Press releases remain a valuable function for centralizing important details and as a general communications forcing function inviting greater cross team collaboration.

I can recall hundreds of times working as a PR Director for startups when until I started a press release draft with information, product or leadership didn’t approve, both teams sometimes wouldn’t know what they wanted. This is one of the many things I love about press releases although this same type of forcing function could also come from an internal email, blog post, newsletter, etc.

This is one of the many reasons why I opened a new digital Shop, to make sure your team has access to the tools professional communicators use to facilitate, effective momentum and a positive flow of information that reinforces an aligned brand that compounds buying habits. Press releases aren’t dead, but the old way of doing them is shifting and the Press Release Intake is not just a high-value tool, it ensures a best practice process is in place to verify accuracy and transparency before the drafting process versus during it or in some cases, after to ensure the path to releasing on the wire is aligned and concise.

This intake tool has been used across clients for the last decade and the benefits are immediate. Benefits include:

• Reduced bottlenecks of internal meetings and review cycles determining release content needs;

• Engaged in a healthy, intake of shared, accurate information that facilitates asynchronous collaboration;

• Optimized for AI discovery that keeps release copy sharp enough to be indexed by AI

• Ensured consistency across internal and external communication teams with the press release owner and drafter never being a third party; and,

• Eliminate wasted time between release idea through the review process to issuing it over the wire.

Paired with this tool, a more important question, I like to explore on client teams especially when I’m hired to work in a fractional communications capacity is, how is communications flowing within your organization?

What tools, processes, procedures are involved?

Where does the source of truth come from?

Understanding how something is currently working or not working, when coupled with regular milestones and goals, helps determine what gaps need to be filled across communications funnels.

For one client project, building an effective communications funnel took us three years and it remains fragile today. For another client, we had an integrated, effective flow of communications moving within the first month. The challenge varying, is unfortunately fairly typical especially in start-up environments where communications is often not involved early enough or seen as only a reactive function of marketing instead of what it is — a powerful, anticipatory force, proactively amplifying the smallest wins to the greatest milestones across teams that can elevate a brands vision or mission to reach visibility goals.

On the flip side, large organizations with complex communications chains are often over producing and under delivering negatively impacting its reputation, often times without even knowing it. This can be revived with the help of a strategic communicator refreshing team’s internal communications processes and procedures if they are wanting to compete in today’s market of always-on attention that builds brand recognition and loyalty by the minute.

Join me on Substack to explore this more in-depth, join me.

If you are interested in sharing your feedback or have questions, reach out.