Press release for e-commerce?

Our experience is that the traditional press buys us relatively little, at least from an immediate financial or traffic perspective. We've had everything from small local papers writing tiny blurbs about us to national papers featuring us in a two-page spread and none of them have driven that much traffic to our site. The exceptions have been publications with high online circulation such as the Huffington Post -- those actually do drive a bit of traffic in my experience.

That said, it doesn't mean that traditional press isn't worth going after. If the New York Times writes about you that certainly helps to establish your credibility. And it provides a nice backlink as a bonus. Plus, it's a nice ego stroke to see your name in print But I'd also say, you certainly need a unique angle when pitching your stories. Opening a new furniture-selling website just isn't gonna interest many reporters, at least not nationally. Though I suppose that you may be able to pitch that as a local interest story.

My final word of advice is to target and cultivate reporters just like you would any other list of customers or prospects. We had an intern compile a list of the names and email addresses of reporters who write stories on topics related to our site. Moreover, when we get a new press hit or get contacted for an interview, we keep track of those reporters as well. The best reporters are the ones you have a personal relationship with. I've never used PRWeb, but my sense is that because of this, you're results will be hit and miss with probably a lot more misses than hits.