Are press releases dead?

If I’m being honest, the whole claiming something is dead 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 perspectives wrong with the marketing industry.

I know we can do better.

Press releases will not die in either of our lifetimes, the debate is a useless one, especially in the age of overconsumption with content creation. As long as there are audiences reading them, organizations and personalities will continue using them.

For certain audiences, 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 in the current cycle. For an organizations stakeholders like investors, sales and product teams, press releases are 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. Hell, even for many marketing teams, until they read a release for the first time, they do not understand how what they are doing will benefit other audiences.

Press releases remain a valuable function for centralizing important details and as a general 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 to put out publicly. 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 means asking if press releases are dead is in itself a dead question.

This is exactly 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 communications. Check out the first tool for sale, a press release intake template for all your upcoming release needs.

This intake has been used across clients for the last decade and the benefits are immediate. Such as:

• Reduce bottleneck of internal meetings and review cycles determining release content needs

• Engage in a healthy, intake of shared information that facilitates asynchronous collaboration

• Ensure consistency across internal and external communication structures

• Quicken time from release idea to final launch

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 greatest milestones across teams to 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 for attention that builds brand recognition and loyalty.

If you are a communicator, I’m curious, do you use a press release intake within your teams?

Why or why not?

Lets explore this more in-depth together on Substack, join me.

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