Kate BystrovaKB
Kate Bystrova
May 3, 2024
4 minutes read

4 reasons to choose Prezly vs a wire service

Wire services promise you one thing: Pay us $$$ and we’ll get your story covered everywhere you want. Sound too good to be true? Well… it is.

Wire services rarely deliver what they promise.

Journalists are busy, active people. The ones that make it don’t sit around watching the wire and waiting for a good story to drop into their laps. They’re actively using social media and search engines to draw together stories their audience will love.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to think twice before spending hundreds on a service that can’t deliver.

Reason #1: Every press release published on the wire makes it less effective

We often try to ignore this tough truth, but it makes sense. There’s only a limited number of journalists available, each with limited space in their publication. Every time you pay money to distribute via the wire, you aren’t buying their attention – you’re diluting it between the hundreds of other unknowns vying for coverage.

The odds of you getting your news seen plummets. 

Prezly gives you all the PR tools to make your story stand out. By using a smaller number of media contacts that are a great fit for your news and working on building those relationships, your odds of earning coverage instantly go up. And with segmentation and personalization built-in, we make it easy for you to reach your audience.

Want to see how you can use Prezly to nurture those relationships? We have a guide for that.

Website preview
PR Newswire pricing 2024: How much does it cost to send a press release? | PR Academy
Looking for information on PR Newswire pricing? Read more to learn all about how much it costs to send a press release in 2023.
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Reason #2: The wire is a gamble. Instead, have confidence in your skills

It’s pretty dangerous to rely so completely on another company to deliver the results you need, particularly when they have zero interest in promoting your story. Even more so if you don’t fully understand how they can make good on the promised results. 

Prezly gives you the tools to start building out your relationships with the people that can give you access to your audience. These are the people you need to be targeting – not some faceless journalist who might pick up your story once and then never actually speak to you. That’s not a sustainable comms strategy.

By focusing on fewer contacts that are actually relevant to your niche and working to develop those connections, your PR efforts will compound and deliver results again and again. These are the reciprocal relationships that you’ll carry with you not just now, but throughout your entire career. That’s infinitely more valuable than a flash in the pan.

Prezly – software for modern PR teams

  • Write & publish brand stories in an online newsroom

  • Send email campaigns, pitches & newsletters

  • Manage all your contact lists in a single CRM, with easy import & export

  • Measure performance to see who's engaging with your stories

Reason #3: Personalization, not amplification, is what gets you attention

On a wire service, everyone gets exactly the same press release, in the same format, with the same assets. So how can you cut through the clutter of a journalist’s inbox if you can’t tailor your story for her audience? Why should her readers care? What can a YouTuber do with a text-only press release?

Will that journalist recognize your name?

Or will they just see yet another wire release crammed into their already heaving inbox?

Targeting is absolutely vital to any PR communications. You need to research the people you’re contacting, segment them by their readership (after all, their audience is your audience), tag them with the type of content they like. Only then can you effectively send out stories that will matter to them.

Website preview
Business Wire vs PR Newswire: Which one is better? [2024] | PR Academy
We compare the features and pricing for two of the world's most popular newswires. - After writing a press release, the next (and arguably most important) step is to distribute it. Typically, there are two ways to approach distribution: doing it yourself by reaching out to media contacts asking for coverage, or paying for a press release distribution service, aka “wire service”, to do it for you.
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Reason 4: Coverage is not the end-goal

If you’ve ever submitted a story to the wire, you will have seen certain syndicating sites take your press release and republish it in its entirety. It’s easy to see this as a win, another item you can log in your report to c-suite. But those are just empty calories.

Ask yourself, does your audience read those sites? Will this post really influence their behaviour and thinking?

Coverage is not the end-goal, it doesn’t provide the ROI. Only when people start changing their behaviour, start coming to your website, start acting will it make a difference.

Buying coverage doesn’t move the needle. You need to earn it.

Pitch journalists right now with a 14-day free trial

  • Identify your most engaged contacts with our PR CRM
  • Send personalized email pitches and campaigns
  • Publish your press releases in a professional newsroom

 

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