Understanding the "Vanity Press Release"

Setting expectations about routine press releases

By J.D. Solomon

What do editors at the nation’s newspapers, wire services, news magazines and television networks look for as they sift through the thousands of press releases that cross their desks every day? Simple: news — something new or unusual that would interest readers.

Unfortunately, run-of-the-mill press releases from your company just don’t qualify as news. Why? Because other than your employees and maybe your parents, not many people care enough about your business to read routine articles about it. That’s why I call the typical company press release a “vanity” press release. It may make you look good to a small group of people, but it won’t attract the interest of news editors.

What, exactly, are vanity press releases? Most commonly, they announce product releases, industry awards, new hires, third-party partnerships, research results and other business milestones.

“But wait,” clients sometimes say, “what we are announcing is really interesting and groundbreaking. Surely The New York Times will run our release if you do a good job of pitching it.”

Sorry, but it’s just not going to happen. If you’re a small, privately-held company that’s never been in the news before, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than being profiled by the likes of the Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or Newsweek. Don’t waste a minute of your time or a nickel of your money trying to get their attention.

So does that mean you shouldn’t bother with vanity press releases? Absolutely not! Vanity press releases serve several very valuable PR purposes. You should use them to:

Impress your VIPs. It’s important to show your investors, employees, key customers, competitors, vendors and Website visitors that your business is moving and shaking. The vanity press release is an excellent way to do that, especially when you use it as a reason to send a personalized note to your key contacts to show you’re thinking of them.

Break into the local press. The national news media may ignore your press releases, but chances are your local newspaper won’t, especially if your company is based in a small or mid-size media market. (If you’re in a major media market, send your releases to the regional business publications instead of the large dailies.)

Get covered in the trade press. The role of trade journals is to cover businesses like yours, so they are more likely than the regular press to pick up your release. Will they? It’s easy to tell because in journalism, historical practice is a very good predictor of future activity. Pick up a recent edition or two of a trade publication and look for articles that appear to be based on a news release like yours. If you find any, you have a good shot of seeing your news release in print; if not, you don’t.

Here are some tips for maximizing the value of your vanity press releases:

1. Set a goal of distributing a press release every 6 to 12 weeks. Schedule a regular news meeting with your key managers to discuss press release topics. Hire a PR consultant or agency to help write and distribute your releases. Hint: Don’t send vanity press releases more frequently than monthly; even your parents wouldn’t want to read about your business that often.

2. Use a press release distribution service. The two largest are PR Newswire and Business Wire. With both services, you pay a small annual membership fee plus a fee for each release. These services send your releases to newspapers, trade publications and Internet news portals, where they appear in news searches and alerts. Hint: Save money by keeping your releases under 400 words and distributing them only within your state instead of nationwide.

3. Maintain a VIP e-mail list and send your press releases to these contacts. You can send releases as a Word attachment to an e-mail, or you can send a note with a hyperlink to your release as it was published by an Internet news portal from PR Newswire or Business Wire. (See example.) Hint: A personalized cover note, even if generated through mail-merge, goes a long way to cementing business relationships.

4. Post the headline of your latest press release in a “What’s New” box on your Website’s home page, with a link to the full story. This makes your Website more current and improves your site’s search engine visibility. Hint: Include the release date in the posting, but remove the headline after eight weeks, even if you don’t have a replacement, rather than making your home page look stale.

In the end, the value of your press releases will depend on your expectations. Keep those expectations realistic and the value of your PR campaigns will rise.

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