My Experience with a PRWeb Press Release

By this point, my press release for blinks of awe boils down to:

• 30,011 impressions – how many times my press release appeared somewhere PRWeb can track
  (10,000 is average)
• 4,965 media deliveries – media outlets that received my press release
• 2,790 Google results for my headline:
  “New Life Given to Old Art Form With Blinks of Awe for iPad”
• 506 reads – on PRWeb.com
  (a few hundred is average)
• 30 interactions – downloads, link clicks, etc. on PRWeb.com
• 4 online pickups – sites that syndicated my press release
  (4-10 is average)

I had a lengthy call with a person from PRWeb that walked me through the results. That’s how I got most of the information about averages and a clearer explanation of what each number meant. They also called to offer help with writing my first release but I had already submitted it by that point. I was happy about their high-touch approach for a beginner like me.

Frankly, I don’t feel great about the results. According to PRWeb, my high number of impressions and big names appearing in the media deliveries list¹ mean I had something newsworthy and reasonably well-written. Apparently not every press release gets forwarded to places like the New York Times. But the bottom line is the press release got limited pick up (the biggest being Yahoo! News) and those 30,000 impressions ultimately had very little effect on book sales. I’m happy to hear your feedback and entertain ideas for why that may be in the comments.

Naturally, PRWeb tried to upsell me to a plan that will let me continue pushing out press releases but I’m not sure that’s the best use of my time or resources given these initial results. I’m glad I tried the PR route but I’ll be looking for other ways to spread the word and make a bigger impression.

¹New York Times, Bloomberg, Time, The Washington Post, Yahoo!, Wired, and TechCrunch, among others.