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Is Paid Press Release Marketing Taking The Place Of Article Marketing?

by pheonix44
24 replies
I have been studying press releases for a while and I have seen they can be very powerful. If they are done right you can get alot of high PR backlinks to your site and some good traffic. I believe this module can take the place of traditional article marketing and I want to make sure I am prepared.

However, I do not know what a good price would be to charge for a press release. I do not want to overcharge, but I also do not want to overcharge. Press releases offer measurable results, real value. Warriors please tell me HONESTLY how much would you pay for a quality press release.
#article #charge #marketing #paid #place #press #price #release #respectable #taking
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Press releases are COMPLETELY different to articles.

    The places you can put is different.

    The places that republish them are different.

    The way to write them is different.

    What makes them effective is different.

    The perception and expectation of them by the readers is different.

    I charge $500 to write press releases, sometimes more.

    I have paid up to around $350 to have it done also. The only reason for this is that sometimes in particular niches there are journalists who have relevant contacts to send it to that you wouldn't reach otherwise without paying a lot for distribution.

    So yes they can be effective - but they're not articles and should be supplemental to article marketing strategies.
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    • Profile picture of the author TroelsJepsen
      Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

      Press releases are COMPLETELY different to articles.

      The places you can put is different.

      The places that republish them are different.

      The way to write them is different.

      What makes them effective is different.

      The perception and expectation of them by the readers is different.

      I charge $500 to write press releases, sometimes more.

      I have paid up to around $350 to have it done also. The only reason for this is that sometimes in particular niches there are journalists who have relevant contacts to send it to that you wouldn't reach otherwise without paying a lot for distribution.

      So yes they can be effective - but they're not articles and should be supplemental to article marketing strategies.
      Guess it also depends on the purpose of the press release I've mainly used them to get good backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author TroelsJepsen
    I would say it depends on the turnaround time. I've had a quality press release done for $5 on Fiverr, but it had a turnaround time of 7 or 8 days. If you were able to deliver the same quality but in maybe only 2-3 days, I'd probably be willing to pay $10-15
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by pheonix44 View Post

    I believe this module can take the place of traditional article marketing
    Please excuse a slightly dissenting tone, Robin, but I'll be absolutely astonished if this is so.

    I can see it being far more valuable than article directory marketing (that's not saying a lot, though, is it?!), but I don't think it has anything like the potential of traditional article marketing for generating targeted traffic. I can't begin to imagine how that would be possible. :confused:

    It's perhaps true that you can get some high PR backlinks with press releases, but most of the high-PR ones seem to be very temporary ones, and the long-term backlinks achieved tend only to be those on PR-0 pages of sites which happen (not very relevantly) to have a high PR home page - exactly the situation of article directory backlinks, in other words.

    Press releases which are published on their own new pages (I'm not suggesting they all are), are by definition on PR-0 pages, regardless of the page rank of the site's home page. You see my point, I'm sure? Sites don't "have page rank": only pages have page ranks. But page rank is clearly not what press releases are about, at all.

    I do think that marketers routinely using press release writing/syndication services typically pay far higher prices for them - from services that really deliver - than they do for articles (but again, this may not be saying very much). I've been offered prices in the region of $250/$300 to write press releases, several times (I've never done them, though: it's never been my area of expertise at all). It's certainly a whole world apart from "writing articles for directories", though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Originally Posted by pheonix44 View Post

    I have been studying press releases for a while and I have seen they can be very powerful. If they are done right you can get alot of high PR backlinks to your site and some good traffic. I believe this module can take the place of traditional article marketing and I want to make sure I am prepared.

    However, I do not know what a good price would be to charge for a press release. I do not want to overcharge, but I also do not want to overcharge. Press releases offer measurable results, real value. Warriors please tell me HONESTLY how much would you pay for a quality press release.
    Is this only writing press releases? Or also offering some kind of distribution service as well?

    RoD
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Real press releases are few and far between on the Internet. Outside of actual mainstream media and news sites you'll mainly find spammy junk being called a press release. That goes for most paid releases too. Now, is spammy junk posting replacing article marketing? No.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      Now, is spammy junk posting replacing article marketing? No.
      Indeed.

      But technically, it has no need to: a significant proportion of what people imagine is article marketing is "spammy junk posting", too.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      Real press releases are few and far between on the Internet. Outside of actual mainstream media and news sites you'll mainly find spammy junk being called a press release. That goes for most paid releases too. Now, is spammy junk posting replacing article marketing? No.
      I don't get that so if you have the time I'd like to hear how this really sticks.

      I've seen this claim before but to me this is taking the spam diatribe a little too far. If a business - any business - does a press release and it gets carried by a press release site then how in the world is that spam? Regardless of the niche the world of business news and press releases is much bigger than "mainstream media" and news sites. Companies do press releases for everything and they get carried both on their own site and in many less well known outlets.

      If anything doing press releases is less spammy than article marketing. You are not pretending to be offering expertise and are straight up about dealing with whatever business you are a part of. Article marketing often junks up the search results with people pretending to be experts or pretending to be putting out well researched news pieces.

      Alexa is right that the press release sites will put you on a page with no PR but that's not what you should be after. Your press release should be about something that at least someone would want to write about and if they do then they link back to your site plus press release sites are EXCELLENT at getting indexed quickly. The good press release sites get crawled much more than the average article site.

      The main reason press releases rarely work for IMers is because no one wants to write about their CPA or affiliate offer but if you are bringing some website, worthy product or anything helpful or new to market then they work fine and dandy. So it has more to do with whether you are running a real business with a real idea as opposed to being a middle man for another company. That's my take and I use press releases for almost every site I do SEO for. Regardless of niche it is completely white hat as far as I see it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Last year I started the first (that I know of) Press Release site in Portugal, and so much to do with it... and so few time to expand it. I have all the steps aligned... but, you know the drill.

    Ontopic, I truly believe press release coverage is one one of the best steps one can take to REALLY promote one idea/brand/product.

    When done properly, as Andy stated, it's simply amazing and can take your product/brand to another level.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesGw
    Press releases are awesome for brand building and getting traffic to your site. Their backlink quality is generally pretty low, although you can get featured on a lot of websites which = high quantity of backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    I think some people seem to be making assumptions about how others use press releases.

    They're like knives - you can use them badly or you can use them effectively.

    Some people do not consider their online business as a proper business and are just playing around and hoping to make some money - therefore when you talk to them about press releases they think "they don't apply to me - I don't have anything to say" or "can I post them with my affiliate links in?".

    They're not thinking about who their audience are or what might be interesting/newsworthy etc. they're just looking for how to blast something out for links.

    Now.... I don't actually think that 'most' press releases are like this. I think that because most people who don't understand their value don't actually bother to use them that the majority of press releases are by people looking for them to be effective and therefore based on at least some consideration of why they're doing them and who might care.

    I've done a lot of press releases for clients and they take them VERY seriously. Often they're just for branding and they want people in their industry to know that they just hired someone great from a big competitor/customer and it's only my input that turns them also into search engine food and useful links at the same time as being a piece of news.

    If you think press releases are just a way to get links then you're missing 'most' of the value they have.

    Andy
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

      If you think press releases are just a way to get links then you're missing 'most' of the value they have.

      Andy
      Excellent points Andy. I would just modify the quote above slightly and say if you are looking for instant links in a press release you are missing their power. The SEO value of promoting your brand is that when you increase your visibility people do link to you organically. Press releases in link building is NOT about you placing your link its about getting others to ultimately link to you themselves.

      In IM SEO the term link building has become synonymous with YOU placing YOUR link on another site outside of IM in mainstream professional SEO it also involves the webmaster placing the link for you and the skill it takes to get them to want to do so resulting in FAR FAR superior links.
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      • Profile picture of the author High Horsepower
        I have been doing PR for several years and will take them over article marketing any day. My offline clients get great results and satisfaction using PRs.

        All of my PRs are page one Google and my clients get better SEO and exposure. I have one client who has a PR that is #1 for their keyword with 10 Million competing pages.         It beats all the videos, articles, and seo links on that page.

        PRs are different from articles, they are written 3rd party like a news reporter would research a company. A well written PR is worth it's weight in gold.

        BTW, for offline they are very impressive to show your clients. I get Page One for Google News within minutes and Page one organic very fast. If you're looking to impress clients PR's are the way to go.

        Often I will give an existing client a Free PR, they love it. I usually write the copy and use 2 different syndicators to get distributed.

        A professional PR can easily run $500 to $1,500. I've seen as high as $3,000
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        • Profile picture of the author sjohn
          Originally Posted by High Horsepower View Post

          ...I usually write the copy and use 2 different syndicators to get distributed.
          Hi,
          Which PR sites do you use to distrubute your Press Release to get these types of fast high ranking results?
          Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author pheonix44
    I sometimes use a paid service in combination with physical products that I learned from a WSO here from a very reputable member, Matthew Olson. It costs 20.00$ to use this service, but works really well.
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  • Profile picture of the author J. Barry Mandel
    The short answer is YES.

    Many internet marketers have already switched away from using article marketing and have substituted press releases in their place

    Why?

    Because they know from their results that paying a decent amount for a press release will do more in terms of getting them backlinks and traffic then what article marketing can do.

    The trick with doing so is correctly using the proper format so they don't get removed from the press release submission sites that they are submitted to.

    If you don't know how to "follow the rules" of what a press release is, then don't expect them to be any kind of substitution for article marketing


    Is Paid Press Release Marketing Taking The Place Of Article Marketing?
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    • Profile picture of the author Mac the Knife
      Press releases work. Personally, I recommend PRWeb for submission...depending on your targeting, it can get pricey, but I have used this site effectively for offline and online clients. I charge between $25-$100 for press releases-for online marketers, usually closer to $25, but this is not because of quality, it is because once my info doc has been completed, my work is lessened, offline releases often see me speaking to someone regarding a quote or doing some additional research. My average release gets no less than 750-1000 full page reads...really compelling info can garner MUCH more than that...I sometimes steer readers to sites, sometimes to facebook pages, depending on their needs.

      Hope that helps a bit.

      Mac the Knife
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  • Profile picture of the author pheonix44
    My average release gets no less than 750-1000 full page reads...really compelling info can garner MUCH more than that...I sometimes steer readers to sites, sometimes to facebook pages, depending on their needs.
    In search engines or through offline marketing?
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    • Profile picture of the author Mac the Knife
      Hey Pheonix44-I am talking about online reads...some may get picked up via offline publications, but now, the trend has moved to direct to consumer uses for Press Releases, no longer is the audience and the MEDIA and trying to kiss their butts in hopes they will publish something...especially considering how far their readership has sunk...who cares if you get an article if your press release is showing real time in Google News and picked up by other major online news publications, shared on blogs, and found in search engines based on keyword optimization?

      Mac the Knife
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      • Profile picture of the author marciayudkin
        It's perhaps true that you can get some high PR backlinks with press releases, but most of the high-PR ones seem to be very temporary ones, and the long-term backlinks achieved tend only to be those on PR-0 pages of sites which happen (not very relevantly) to have a high PR home page - exactly the situation of article directory backlinks, in other words.
        I can't comment on the Page Rank issue because I pay no attention to Page Rank in my marketing.

        However, I can comment on the "temporary" issue. For my own business, I distribute at least 50 press releases every year and have been doing this for many years. I can tell you that there is nothing temporary about the effect of these press releases in bringing in traffic. Every day I get dozens visitors who are reading press releases that are three or four years old and clicking to my site from them - even when the event discussed in the release has long passed.

        Furthermore, visitors to my site from press releases tend to stay on my site for a half hour or longer, indicating that they are serious potential clients. They stay far, far longer than do visitors to my site from Google. I don't have tracking in place to determine to what extent the visitors tend to become buyers, but I have a strong suspicion that they do.

        Based on my experience, I say that press releases can produce great leads on a long-term basis.

        Marcia Yudkin
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        Check out Marcia Yudkin's No-Hype Marketing Academy for courses on copywriting, publicity, infomarketing, marketing plans, naming, and branding - not to mention the popular "Marketing for Introverts" course.
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  • Profile picture of the author hellofrommalawe
    do article marketing work ,, i didn';t try it
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  • Profile picture of the author pheonix44
    Keyword, on a long term basis. Long term is what we should be going for when it comes to press releases.
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  • Profile picture of the author absolutelee
    Press releases are totally different from articles. Press releases announce news about something (a business, for instance). Articles are information about something. Also, if you want to get good distribution with press releases, it's going to cost a fair amount of money. I think PRWeb is $200 for a press release where you can put a link actually in the press release. Article publishing is essentially free. I write press releases and publish them for my clients. Right now, I'm charging $600. I'm considering upping that to $800.
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