The "Good" - using a tool to assess your press releases
I've got a PR team that does a super job of cranking out press releases and pitching stories. The problem is that we have a press hungry executive team and therefore we don't always have enough time to perfect a release before we have to write/pitch the next one. I'm in the same boat when it comes to having enough time to review all the content. Therefore I thought it was cool when I saw this free Press Release Grader tool by HubSpot. It's not perfect but does enable us to do quick checks of our releases for common mistakes such as too few links, too much content and "gobbledygook" words. I know we're definitely guilty of using too much generic IT jargon like "scalable" and "flexible" in all our content so it's nice to have the tool point it out. While we're on the subject, check out "The Gobbledygook Manifesto" by David Meerman Scott and his blog too. Sadly, we regularly use 8 of the top 20 gobbledygook terms. Maybe I should have labelled this as a "The Bad" post ;)
Hey there - funny, Marketing Edge also referenced the website grader at hubspot.com as well, not sure if you tried that one? They also did an interesting podcast on it.
http://www.providentpartners.net/blog/index.php/2008/01/12/better-search-rankings-and-inbound-marketing-tactics-can-drive-business/
Posted by: Scott Perry | July 12, 2008 at 05:08 PM
Thanks Todd. This would be really useful especially if you cant run it by many people before releasing one.
Posted by: Neil Sequeira | October 23, 2008 at 03:34 PM