Getting Reporters to Notice Your Press Release by Optimizing Distribution Time

Many of the lower-end press release distribution services are now allowing 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 advice?

Unless you are trying to stem a crisis or doing a timed product release that’s linked to an event, we have found 7:30am-8:00am in your “target timezone” to be the most effective.It is early enough in the morning to meet most journalist’s deadlines and late enough to catch them after their coffee. 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.

Note your “target timezone” may be different than the location of your business. If your company headquarters is in New York, but you primarily sell on the West Coast, a 7:30am PST release time would be best. Early AM release submissions have given us the best media pickup.Remember you always have the option to send releases to reporters “under embaro” which means you specify the date and time of the release in the future.  However, we find sending releases “under embargo” is not as effective as a timed morning distribution. Many editors and journalists now frown upon embargoes releases or the release slips their minds because it was sent days before actual distribution.

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|nationwide] release, then use PRWeb at $80 if you’re really budget-limited, or the $200 PRWeb SEO-enhanced package with anchor text links. However with the $80 PRWeb package, you cannot choose your distribution time - the default is midnight.