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Getting Reporters to Notice Your Press Release by Optimizing Distribution Time

December 21st, 2009

Many of the lower-end press release distribution services are now offering you to specify a release time. The large wire service providers have always allowed you to specify the release time and time zone.  Your PR or marketing agency should be able to advise you on the best time for a release; but if you don’t have one here is some guidance is often asked “what time of day should my company issue a release”}?

In the absence of urgent news that must be released immediately, you should aim for a release time of 7:30am-8am in your “target timezone”.It is early enough in the morning to meet most journalist’s deadlines and late enough to catch them after their java. Releasing first thing in the start of the workday will allow you to get to the top of of the Inbox if you are sending releases via email. It also gives the public relations agency the entire day to line up interviews with company executives, if requested.

Your “target timezone” can be different than where your business is actually located. For instance, if your business is in San Francisco, but you mostly sell products or services on the East Coats, a 7:30am release time would be best. Early AM release submissions have given us the best media pickup. Remember though, you always have to option of sending reporters releases “under embargo” which means you can send them ahead of time and, by ethics, the receiver agreees not to publish until your specified date and time.  {However, we find sending releases “under embargo” is not as effective as a timed morning distribution}. Some editors and reporters also frown upon embargoed releases or they just simply forget about a release when it was sent to them days before.

For a press release distribution service consider Marketwire.com.Marketwire’s state-only distribution channels are excellent bargains if you only sell locally.And their SEO-enhanced options at $200 is highly-recommended as anchor-text links remain intact even in online news sites such as Google News and Yahoo! News. If you can’t afford Marketwire for a national release, then use PRWeb at $80 if you’re really budget-limited, or the $200 PRWeb SEO-enhanced package with anchor text links. But be aware that at the PRWeb package, you will not be able to specify the {time of distribution- the $80 option releases only at midnight}.

 

 

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