10 Top Metrics to Measure the Success of Your Press Release Distribution
Because a press release serves as an official announcement of events, transactions or company news, the following are 10 ways you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your press release distribution:
Often issuing the press release can serve as an excellent method of coverage in the media space and brand familiarity in your company or particular goods and services. But have you ever considered how to best determine whether your press release strategy is truly effective?
Measuring the activity of your press releases and distribution will provide the necessary KPIs to help evaluate their effectiveness. Monitor these 10 metrics to measure the success:
1. Media Pickup and Placements
The simplest measurement method is calculating how many outlets requested your press release, and how many of them actually used it. This will involve all those who through their business cover events, news, stories, etc. and include news websites, printed newspapers and magazines, radio and television shows and other such media that may cover your story.
Try to reach as many media types as possible and try to target the right publications. It is also important to track the number of placements but bear in mind the quality of the sources as well as the amount of authority those sources have. Publication of articles in an industry trade journal may be more effective than article in a small local newspaper.
2. Social Shares
It makes the story go round when your press release is picked by media outlets to cover the specific theme. General count how many time the media article was shared through out the social site such as face book, twitter, linked, pin interest and others.
That is, the reported number of friends refers to a higher level of visibility and awareness. It also reveals to authors that the readers consider the content worthy of being shared with other networks.
3. Backlinks
Using your press release, people need to get backlinks to your website, which media provides you with. This helps increase visibility from the search engine and the readers. Use a tool like Ahrefs or Moz to measure:
• 51300 Total back Link Domain Get
• It comes with authority of reapage of sites linking to you
• Anchor text used in links
4. Website Traffic
Indeed, there was a highly significant positive relationship between issuing a successful press release and generating more traffic to your site. When distributing a press release and even after doing so, it is important to monitor unusual traffic and new visitors using Google Analytics.
It also pays to look at traffic sources on the site as well. Have visitors arrived from the media sites that picked your release? Are social referrals up? Monitoring this revealed that the distribution of press release influenced website KPIs in a way.
5. Leads and Conversions
Historically, press releases intended to create interest and market for your products/services in a particular market among customers. See if release distribution corresponds to increases in:
• Email newsletter sign ups
• Whitepaper downloads or electronic books
• Contact form submissions
• Sales inquiries and leads represent key information concerning sales possibilities in customer relationship management.
• Phone call volume
• Macromicro Conversion
6. Brand Mentions
Press release distribution complements brand awareness when the media and or journalists reference your firm or company. Use a media monitoring tool to track:
- Total brand name mentions
The tone of mentions which can be positive, negative or neutral.
Top publication sources responsible for brand awareness
7. Competitor Benchmarking
It is also important to monitor press release and news coverage metrics of competitors in your niche too. This provides an essential background in which you can compare your brand’s media voice in different channels, as well as discover PR issues.
8. Release Readership
Press release tools available today allow detailed tracking of how many people opened, downloaded, clicked or viewed the press release, and much more. This shows how genuinely interested audiences interact with your real announcement content thus ignoring headlines.
Still, sign up for the viewer demographics also if only to glance at the reader job functions and industries.
9. Social Engagement
Today’s press releases also have social sharing buttons to allow readers to instantly tweet, like or share announcements of interest to them.
Monitor social metrics directly on your distributed press releases:
• Twitter shares and retweets
• Number of Facebook likes, number of reactions, number of comments
• LinkedIn stocks and comments
10. Media and Influencer Outreach
Targeting press contacts, journalists, bloggers, and influencers with the needed number of looks greatly enhances the pickup possibility of your release.
Track outreach efforts and relationships gained through the press distribution process:
Total presentations made to the television, radio, newspaper, and magazines.
• New relevant press connections created
• Promotions of your product that appeared closest in your selection view are Some of the influencers you interacted with your brand
• Reply rates/ success of contacting the writers
Conclusion
The “spray and pray” mentality has no place in today’s
press release distribution, instead, keep an eye on these ten KPIs to get more out of it. Identify which of the press releases, topics or media lists receive the best response. Then focus on such channels for your brand even more to strength those that are already performing well.