Press releases are a great way for any organisation to get their message out and the dawn of digital means that the distribution process is easier than ever. But with so much choice, how do you decide the best way of spreading your missive?

• The Write Way To Start

Before you consider distribution, you’ll first have to put your press release together. There are two main avenues for this – either writing it in-house or outsourcing the writing to an agency.

Writing a good press release that will get picked up by journalists is a deceptively hard task and while keeping its creation within your company will dramatically cut costs, there’s a danger it might fall short of what you’d hoped for.

While it’s more expensive to hire an agency for the task, they will usually bring a lot of experience and expertise to bear on the project. The former option is typically best for small or medium-sized companies, while the latter tends to be ideal for businesses at the larger end of the scale.

• Spreading the Message

Once your press release is complete, you’ll have to decide whether you can handle the distribution yourself. If you’re a smaller company, or simply don’t have the budget to outsource this task, it may be best to tackle this job yourself.

In the past, the difficulty of spreading a release prevented many organisations from engaging in the practice. However, the growth of online repositories has changed all that.

There’s now a wealth of sites where businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes can display their messages for free or at a marginal cost.

• Please Release Me

Once you’ve selected your method, you’ll need to consider when to post your release. Timing is important if you’re looking to maximize coverage and there’s a few golden rules to abide by.

If you’re responding or commenting upon breaking news, then your release will be highly time-sensitive. If possible, try and strike while the iron’s hot, as interest in a breaking story will wane relatively quickly. However, if your press release is not connected to a hot topic, it’s probably a good idea to wait for a slow news day.

• Follow-Up

It’s vital that you include contact details to make it easy for any journalists to follow up on the release. Make sure you appoint someone with plenty of time and resources to respond to any inquiries quickly to handle this stage.

Similarly, make sure you have someone available to talk about the issues raised in the release. Alternatively, if it’s an event you’re promoting – make sure you have staff on-hand to facilitate any media representatives that want to attend.

Press releases are an effective way of generating widespread coverage on just about any topic and with more and more niche and industry-specific online repositories, there’s no reason why you can’t get involved today.

This article was brought to you by PR Fire, a leading online public relations and marketing service that aims to help companies connect with both consumers and the media.