The three largest press release distribution services released approximately 1,759 press releases a day in 2013. With each of those releases, the newswire service provided a list of coverage and page views associated with the press release.
So, what was the value of each press release?
I recently read a how-to article from a popular PR software company discussing how to determine the ROI of a press release. The blog post broke down, step by step, how to read that dashboard given after every distributed release, which showed figures about how many people read your release, how many interactions it received, and more.
The post was factually correct. Distribution services do provide dashboards with this information, and sometimes, that can be valuable. That's not what bothered me about the article.
I was concerned that the post would foster a false understanding of the real value of a press release. The post made it seem like all a company needs to do is put a press release on the newswire and review the metrics in the report. Presto—instant ROI! Your job is done.
I'm sorry... but no.
That viewpoint is a dangerous and unfair misconception to be promoting. Press release reprints are not the same as coverage in earned media. They don't have the credibility of a news article written by an independent journalist. Those press releases are included in a separate area of the publication's website separate from the news, and they are often hosted on the newswire's website (which is made to look like the publication).
Here's a fun challenge: Try to find a press release on the news website that shows up in the press release wire's report without following the link in the report or using a search engine.
Those press releases do have some SEO value in that they can appear in searches for applicable keywords, but that value cannot be measured in these reports.
Dashboard Numbers Are Not Reliable
One of my clients recently distributed a release that had about 1,000 fewer views than the previous four releases. When we asked for an explanation for the huge difference, we were told that possible factors included the day of the week we distributed (for the record, it was a Thursday, which is a perfectly good day for distributing a release in today's digital world where weekly magazines are not sent to print on Thursdays), and the time of year (which fell about two weeks after quarterly earnings were distributed by many large companies).
The frustrating part of that answer was that the client really didn't know why the number was lower. Moreover, the client couldn't offer advice about preventing that drop from happening again.
That example circles us back nicely to my argument that, while the dashboard numbers are nice, they really are not a reliable form of measurement.
Measuring the Value of Press Releases
So, what should companies look for to measure a release?