No matter how much great content you’ve created for your website, if you’ve omitted or skimped on one crucial area, you’re not getting full value for your investment.
That essential bit of Web space is a Press Room. Consider the plight of a journalist who visits your site—often on deadline—intending to give you much desired publicity. Recently, for example, I needed information on a major technology company, so I visited its site and clicked “About Us”—the rock under which Press Rooms are often hidden. But no luck—I saw “Who We Are,” “Take a Closer Look,” and other cheery but vague links. After floundering a while I clicked “Making Headlines” and the door finally creaked open to the comprehensive Press Room I’d expected.
They had crafted lots of material. Why, I wondered, did they hide it?
Many companies do even worse. Rob Pegoraro, the Washington Post’s personal technology columnist, notes that while it’s rare for companies to completely omit information for the press, it’s much more common for them to “post an archive of press releases that is out of date, missing crucial data like pricing or system requirements, and devoid of contact info.”
When all else fails, journalists will ask their friend Google what it knows about your company. Googling “company [x] press release” often turns up random hits, perhaps documents at your PR firm, someone that partners with your company, or a news site. But will it create the best possible first impression? Was it created this century? Wouldn’t you rather guide reporters to your carefully crafted messages?
A virtual Press Room caters to the press by organizing what they’re likely to need and allowing them to quickly reach staff who can answer questions and provide more information. Content will vary somewhat across sites but can include basics such as:
- A brief fact sheet about your company or organization
- Product/services descriptions and prices
- Current (that means recently posted!) and archived press releases
- Executive/management biographies
- Whatever financial information you disclose
- Customer/client success stories
- Links to published material about your company/organization
- Relevant white papers and other studies featuring your business
- Useful photographs and graphics/logos/illustrations
- Contact information for your media relations staff
A reminder: the Internet never forgets. Needing to reach the author of an article, I consulted his organization magazine’s masthead—no luck. When I couldn’t penetrate his robotic phone system, I Googled him, found his telephone number, and left a message. He called back, gave me the information I needed, and asked how I’d gotten his cell phone number.
When I told him via Google, he was astonished—then he remembered: needing to be reachable during an event several years earlier, he’d issued a press release listing that number. But he’d hardly intended to make it permanently available.
