Rethinking press releases and the rise of AI

The importance of press releases with Serena Ehrlich

In this episode, Serena Ehrlich joins On Top of PR host Jason Mudd to discuss how AI-powered search engines take data from press releases, and how they decide on what to show their users.

Tune in to learn more!

Short Guest Bio:

Our episode guest is Serena Ehrlich, Go to Market Director at Notified. Serena helps spread the ‘good word’ of up-to-date, evolving PR strategies to help PR pros navigate an ever-shifting landscape.

Listen to the episode here:

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

How AI ingests press releases and what sticks.
How the rise of AI-powered search engines mirrors the rise of traditional engines such as Google.
What kind of people actually read press releases, and why they are the most important to your business.
How fake press releases have impacted and will impact the space going forward.
How to build a good press release that will reach your intended audience.

About Serena Ehrlich

Serena Ehrlich is a veteran professional in the fields of investor relations, public relations, and marketing, currently serving as Director of Product Marketing at Business Wire. Over the span of more than 25 years, she has become a trusted authority on emerging communication technologies and strategies—helping guide organizations through evolving trends in media and consumer behavior. Her deep-rooted experience began in advertising, where she honed her understanding of large-scale branding, and continued through two decades in the newswire industry. In this role, she has driven successful local, national, and global campaigns for major brands such as Kraft, Kohl’s, Avon, Mattel, and morewcfaglobal.com.

Building on that foundation, Serena transitioned into a strategic go-to-market and social media leadership role, where she currently serves as Director of Go-to-Market at Notified. Known for her dynamic approach to modern media, she blends content creation, data insights, and format innovation to drive education, advocacy, and revenue—encapsulated in her philosophy: Data + Content + Format = Education + Evangelists + Revenues. A recognized thought leader in the industry, she was named one of the Top 25 Women in Mobile to Watch in 2013 and continues to leverage her prowess across public relations, marketing, and digital evolution.

Watch the episode here:

Quotables

— @4:20 - “When somebody says a press release doesn’t work, the very first thing I think of is, ‘Oh, you don’t know what it’s supposed to do.’” -Serena Ehrlich
— @13:33 - “Search, social, and AI.” - Serena Ehrlich
— @22:21 - “If it’s as easy as you and me releasing a press release and have that impact AI, look at the opportunity.” - Serena Ehrlich
— @25:35 - “I love you guys, but your press releases are terrible.” - Serena Ehrlich
— @ - “People read in an F pattern—If you don't have images—you’ve lost them” - Serena Ehrlich

Resources

Episode Resources:

Additional Resources from Axia Public Relations:

Disclosure: One or more of the links we shared here might be affiliate links that offer us a referral reward when you buy from them.

Our On Top of PR sponsors:

Production sponsor: Axia Public Relations, one of America’s Best PR Agencies, according to Forbes Magazine

Presenting sponsor: ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews

Coffee Sponsor: Fans like you fuel our efforts using buy me a coffee.

Enjoy the Podcast?

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through buy me a coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

Have any questions?

Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and our LinkedIn Group. For more updates, visit our On Top of PR website or join the community. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;16;14

Serena

now you can be an AI systems, but you have to do it correctly. And that is what makes me so angry is that it's not just the press release is not the problem. It's how it's thought of, how it's created, how it's formatted.

00;00;16;17 - 00;00;31;11

Serena

That is the problem. If you do it in a specific format, in a specific, specific manner, then you really have this opportunity to be visible in this places where your audiences are searching for you.

00;00;31;14 - 00;00;32;04

Jason

Right?

00;00;32;07 - 00;00;35;17

Serena

And that is what a press release should do.

00;00;35;17 - 00;00;45;15

Announcer

Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd.

00;00;45;15 - 00;00;58;23

Jason

Hello, and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. Today I'm joined by my friend Serena Ehrlich. Serena has been a past guest on On Top of PR, and, we'll certainly put a link to her previous episode in the episode notes today.

00;00;59;01 - 00;01;07;00

Jason

But, Serena is a seasoned communications and marketing leader with more than 25 years of experience in content creation and audience engagement.

00;01;07;00 - 00;01;10;09

Jason

Currently serving as the director of Go to Market at Notified,

00;01;10;09 - 00;01;18;23

Jason

Serena specializes in product marketing, sales enablement, and strategic communications across public relations and investor relations sectors.

00;01;18;25 - 00;01;31;15

Jason

Her extensive background includes leadership roles at Business Wire and expertise in content amplification, making her a recognized authority and modern media strategy. Serena, welcome back to On Top of PR.

00;01;31;17 - 00;01;38;00

Serena

I am so happy to be here. Oh, I know I brought my appropriate I love ur coffee mug with me.

00;01;38;05 - 00;02;01;21

Jason

Nice. All righty. Well, we're excited today to talk about rethinking press releases with the rise of generative AI. Certainly an interesting topic. And this came from a, LinkedIn post that I saw where, somebody posted about, press releases not working anymore or something like that. And you were very quick to respond and say hard disagree.

00;02;01;24 - 00;02;30;28

Jason

And, and then your, your, your commentary was very interesting to me. So, you know, I think that, this would be a good topic for our audience to see. So, somebody said basically, the client says we need a press release so we can get media coverage for the story. And, and he tries to kind of object is what he's saying in his narrative, sir, but saying that every PR pro is dealt with some form of this, this conversation where the client is insisting we need to write a press release in order to get us coverage.

00;02;31;00 - 00;02;47;06

Jason

I know I've had that happen in the past and, and, at different times where I just educate the client that some of the best media coverage we get actually does not come from a press release, but having a relationship and making a good pitch. But that doesn't mean press releases don't generate news coverage. Right? Serena.

00;02;47;08 - 00;03;09;03

Serena

You are right. And it's very interesting because even right here, this idea of what a press release can do and what it should do, and then what it can do for companies literally today, in May of 2025, it's the whole game is changed. I'm obsessed with what where the opportunities are for PR pros.

00;03;09;03 - 00;03;24;16

Serena

But what I have seen recently is that when we're trying to activate. What if you think about what a PR pro's goal is, is in some way, shape or form that coverage has to impact corporate ROI, that coverage has to drive some sort of metric.

00;03;24;18 - 00;04;04;25

Serena

And so what we're seeing with press releases and with media coverage is that in the media landscape today, coverage is really difficult to get. There are less publications. And there were before there are fewer influencers in spaces. But what's interesting and what's happened is buyers don't just look at trade publications, they don't just look at major media when they're looking for coverage or when they're making their research decisions, what they're looking for, what your buyers are looking where they're at is they're in search engines and actually where they're moving from is from search engines into AI.

00;04;04;28 - 00;04;27;20

Serena

And this is a very unique space for for communicators today. I think if you were in this industry in 2008, this is going to seem a little bit familiar. It's very similar to the rise of Google search. And what's happening is, is when somebody says a press release doesn't work, the very first thing I think of is, oh, you don't know what it's supposed to do.

00;04;28;20 - 00;04;38;15

Serena

Because a press release itself is not going to and rarely generates coverage automatically. Right. Some releases do. It depends on the news.

00;04;38;17 - 00;04;48;04

Jason

But it depends on the company also. Right. Like if Google or Nike or Starbucks puts out a news release, people are probably going to cover it because they've got dedicated beat writers.

00;04;48;06 - 00;05;08;03

Serena

That's right. So if it's and that's so you think about this, if it's going to influence the stock market in a significant manner, if it's going to influence a geographic market or a sector in a specific manner, coverage is going to come. But a lot of us have news that we want to share, that we want our buyers to see.

00;05;08;05 - 00;05;25;21

Serena

It's not who we want the our industry to see it, but we may be getting drowned out from that coverage. We might not be able to secure that media coverage. So where else are the buyers going? Well, Gartner's got them moving way off of right. They're going way out of search and they're going right into AI systems.

00;05;26;22 - 00;05;55;02

Serena

AI systems are not necessarily based on traditional SEO. So if you're a brand new company and you're trying to build your brand, you've got a website and you're trying to do all the traditional SEO features to get a more and more visibility. In SEO terms, that can take a while. In a AI terms, you could be in AI and be served as a response the same day you issue a press release.

00;05;55;04 - 00;06;05;25

Jason

Now, even even though I, platforms are not always using, data from the exact date.

00;06;05;27 - 00;06;18;05

Serena

That's a very good point. Some systems, their data is from 2008. There are quite a few platforms that that is where they sit. But there's also a wide range of data platforms that go in real time.

00;06;18;05 - 00;06;22;21

Jason

sorry? I think you said 2008, which would be nearly 20 years ago.

00;06;22;24 - 00;06;46;01

Serena

Yes. So, 2008 was when search first got started. Right? Well, actually it was before that. So this quick little history story and why I feel so excited about what PR pros should be doing now, is when Google Search first came out in 2000, they, you know, obviously before 2008 when they were rising and rising, rising press releases were appearing at the top of search.

00;06;46;08 - 00;07;15;22

Serena

They still do, by the way. Newswire delivered releases, trusted Newswire plus real news. We'll get you to the top of search now. But what was happening back then is you could get higher, you could get more visibility in the top of search. And what that did was all the sudden is it allowed small companies to have that same visibility and go into the same recommendations and be in the same systems as big companies?

00;07;15;28 - 00;07;16;20

Jason

Right.

00;07;16;22 - 00;07;28;25

Serena

And so what's happening right now is with AI is that your your news, your press release delivered over a newswire suddenly has this capability. Right

00;07;28;25 - 00;07;45;09

Serena

00;07;45;12 - 00;08;00;08

Serena

That is the problem. If you do it in a specific format, in a specific, specific manner, then you really have this opportunity to be visible in this places where your audiences are searching for you.

00;08;00;11 - 00;08;01;01

Jason

Right?

00;08;01;04 - 00;08;04;14

Serena

And that is what a press release should do.

00;08;04;14 - 00;08;14;08

Jason

So so, Serena. What is what you're saying is that press releases, when done right, posted to a wire service, will help a company get into an answer.

00;08;14;08 - 00;08;18;08

Jason

And engine optimization. Yes. You know.

00;08;18;10 - 00;08;46;04

Serena

So yes. So what's very interesting. So let me put us in parameters around. So it just doesn't sound like people can go cuckoo. Don't go cuckoo. Because at the end of the day, it's about the quality of the news. So we're already, by the way, we're already starting to see people trying to issue fake releases or, releases that are clearly written to impact AI, and they don't get that same visibility because they're not the quality news they need to be.

00;08;46;06 - 00;09;09;12

Serena

But press releases over the major wire services all follow a set structure, and that's the structure that LMS follow, and that's what they ingest. So sending it out, you're going to get in there how you get kind of coded in there and how you get ranked in there. Those are things like your headline what your headline is with with with Globenewswire.

00;09;09;12 - 00;09;38;29

Serena

We also even have two other services. So we have when you upload your press release to us, you get a chance to do a free, optimization. You can do a release summary, you can give us release tags for your press release and all of that goes into the metadata of your press release. So when it crosses the wire, these bots, these lamberts, they can take all of that information and they ingest it and they tie your news to it.

00;09;39;02 - 00;10;01;06

Serena

So if your press release says today, Jason and Serena did a podcast to talk about AI and press releases and somebody went in to search and said, who talks about AI and press releases? We could actually show up. There's a lot of people who talk on that topic, but owning that narrative is where you want to be.

00;10;01;06 - 00;10;38;00

Serena

You want to be what who shows up, you want to be in AI response because whoever showing up there is showing up for your buyers. And if you don't have that narrative, your competitors do. So it's very interesting. But back to what I said. It's about the press release. It's not about, you know what I mean? Like, yes, you should use Globenewswire because we do actually have these two added massive benefits, but the quality of the content, the way it's formatted, adding photograph, these are all things that have to happen for you to actually be able to take advantage of this benefit.

00;10;38;03 - 00;10;50;08

Jason

Should we, sandbag you or put you on the spot right here? So should we work together to put a release on the wire about this episode and follow the best practices that you're prescribing? I want to demonstrate to our audience.

00;10;50;10 - 00;11;12;22

Serena

I feel like we may have to. I mean, I have to get approval for that. But along those lines, I will actually tell you a quick side story. Sure. We because we want to know, you know, you always hear like, well, what kind of news should go out over our newswire? I'm going to tell you that if you want editorial coverage, if you're looking to activate media reporters there, it's very specific things.

00;11;12;24 - 00;11;36;13

Serena

But because you also get your press release into search engines, things like research reports, sending out press releases to support a blog or a content series does very well. We actually tested that ourselves on low performing blogs, and we increased visibility across the board on all the blogs just by using press releases. So to your point, two things.

00;11;36;13 - 00;11;52;06

Serena

Yes, and we try that at two. Side note, content's doing very well. It's get there, get 6 to 7000 views. And again the tracking systems could only track 20%. But it's really amazing.

00;11;52;08 - 00;12;25;10

Jason

So and this is very interesting and is you've got me thinking here a little bit more you know, about it. Let's kind of explain, I think the two services that people tend to think of, when they think of, newswire, you know, paid newswire services. Right. I think the first one is, at least for me, my brain goes straight to this idea of, you know, through content agreements, we're sending out our company news or our client's company news, and it's going to appear on a whole bunch of websites, near instantly.

00;12;25;12 - 00;12;47;21

Jason

You know, with that piece of news. And the second thing I think people think of oftentimes when they think of a paid, news release service, is that it's also going to be sent directly to corresponding content contacts that are interested in that topic or that beat, or whatever the case might be. Let's kind of just clarify, the those seem to be the top two perceptions, right?

00;12;47;25 - 00;12;49;24

Jason

Do you agree or disagree with with that.

00;12;49;28 - 00;13;08;02

Serena

I think you did a great job. I think you're exactly right. It's about hitting the reporters that are relevant to your news. So, if you want your news release to be picked up in Oklahoma, your headline. But I should say Oklahoma, if you want it to be picked up by retail publications, you should mention that in your head.

00;13;08;02 - 00;13;11;06

Serena

Like, you know, the release still has to be aligned, but. Yes.

00;13;11;09 - 00;13;12;03

Jason

And optimized.

00;13;12;03 - 00;13;21;13

Serena

Yeah. And optimized. But you pick the geographic region you want to reach. You pick the, you content, you pick the, industry trade publications.

00;13;21;13 - 00;13;32;19

Serena

Those are the two big places. But the other places again, are these search and social, search social and I and what that is, those are on demand places.

00;13;32;19 - 00;13;54;24

Serena

Right. So those are response engines. To your point. Those are answer engines. So not only are we pushing it out in real time to the right reporters, but then we're making it available immediately and long term across all of these other platforms. So it's a really like this press release is the most visible document of an entire launch.

00;13;55;28 - 00;14;19;26

Jason

Yeah. Yeah for sure. So just going back a little bit to my point. Just feel free to correct anything that I've said or I'm going to say, which is I tell people oftentimes that to think of the newswire posting to be a way kind of somewhat to circumvent the newsroom, because you're still posting that content directly on, you know, dozens, if not more of newsroom websites.

00;14;19;29 - 00;14;47;09

Serena

Yes, and I apologize. I get in my head and I'll answer all the other questions I think you have. So very interesting. This is all about trust signals. So if your press release appears from your newsroom on the web, people see it and they know it's yours, but it actually ticks that box if I know it comes from you, but it doesn't necessarily tick the box of this is trusted news.

00;14;47;12 - 00;15;09;29

Serena

When they see our version surfaced and I mean a newswire version, it could be the Yahoo landing version. But when they see the Globenewswire version that has a trust signal, because it's saying not only did Globenewswire trust this, but it's Google's trusting it, Yahoo's trusting it. And what happens is those trust signals directly impact how users do use it.

00;15;09;29 - 00;15;37;09

Serena

So when you think about getting to the web and without even without the coverage, you're still activating these buyers and these interested parties on demand where they're from, and they see it as a trusted source. The other thing is nobody opens a press release unless they care. So when somebody goes to that press release and opens it, they're a brand fan.

00;15;37;12 - 00;15;59;25

Serena

And then when they go through and they read it and they click that link to go back to your website, they're coming in as a highly qualified person. They're coming in educated, they're coming in. So the the traffic that will come in from your press release is very high value, because these people have all sorts of other things they can be doing all day long.

00;15;59;28 - 00;16;23;21

Serena

Right? So there's a lot of value in the way it appears when it appears. And then when you have AI that will take a question and give the answer will include 4 or 5 different companies. And you're one of those companies. That's another trust signal that all of this just happened from being on the web, from using the wire service.

00;16;23;21 - 00;16;24;24

Serena

I mean.

00;16;24;26 - 00;16;53;28

Jason

So what you're saying is that Yahoo and these other websites are, basically lending trust to the organization through these trust signals, as you're describing them, because they're publishing, the companies news release or press release onto their own website. Yes. And is that done? You know, 90% or maybe even 100% without any human intervention. And then if they see a release they don't want to put on their website, they could just kill it.

00;16;53;28 - 00;16;55;28

Jason

How does that work? I've never really understood that.

00;16;56;05 - 00;17;20;05

Serena

That actually that all that screening comes on our end. We have an incredibly rigorous it actually especially in the time of AI, we have a very rigorous onboarding. Like in order to actually become a member, we have to have a lot of requirements. We go back and look at the what day was your website start founded like we look deep to confirm that they're real.

00;17;20;05 - 00;17;47;24

Serena

And then our team reviews the release. Now we don't review the content, but we know like we have what we call a soc2. So it's a highly secure platform. You can't upload a press release to us. You can't email releases to us unless we know who you are. So everything is validated, validated, validated so that by the time the reporter receives it, we haven't guaranteed it because we don't own the world.

00;17;47;27 - 00;17;54;23

Serena

But they know that it's through our wire and it's gone through our our system, if you will.

00;17;54;25 - 00;18;13;22

Jason

Was. And what was the notorious back story behind that? Or maybe there's, you know, several back stories, but ultimately, you had people who were posting fake news releases that impacted, the stock market or stocks of a company. Right. Can you kind of summarize what happens there?

00;18;13;25 - 00;18;38;00

Serena

This is what okay. This is back in the day. This is a company that's, it was the company was internet wire and it was back in the day. So we're talking, I don't know, like 15 or 20 years ago. And what happened was it's a public company. One of the an editor or an existing employee set up a fake account for a publicly held company.

00;18;38;03 - 00;19;08;01

Serena

The back story you learned later was that this employee had lost money shorting stocks, and he wanted to short stock. And so he issued the call for the public company at the time was called Emil Ax. So this guy set up a fake account, quit his job, drove to Las Vegas, went to the University of Unlv. He use their computers, uploaded a fake press release that he, in his setting up of the account, had approved the press release crossed the wire.

00;19;08;08 - 00;19;30;03

Serena

Dow Jones I think it was Dow Jones. It might have been. Bloomberg picked up the story and wrote on that story. The stock went from, I believe, 70 to 30. They shut the stock down trading. And obviously, I mean, this all happened before the market opened because Emil Access, a West Coast company okay. So they weren't in the office when the market opened or they weren't really.

00;19;30;03 - 00;19;57;17

Serena

I mean, everyone's around if you're an IRA, you're online, but you. And this was also a long, quite a long time ago. And that was was probably the most notorious situation where fake news impacted the stock price. People got sued, by the time they opened the stock back up for sale because investors the 15 minute rule was in existence then where investors had access to buy and sell stock.

00;19;57;19 - 00;20;01;16

Serena

They had access to information 15 minutes before the general public.

00;20;02;19 - 00;20;17;22

Serena

So there was a lot of stock market work that happened and it really changed the whole industry. It did everything. It made the rules that everybody gets the news at the same time. And that was a big change. But this bad Apple situation has not gone away.

00;20;17;24 - 00;20;34;04

Jason

Right. And that's why they're so careful about screening the releases that come in and so you know obviously that was kind of the first one. Have there been you know, I mean just for we don't need to talk about all of them, but obviously for context, you know, has this, has this happened on a big level?

00;20;34;04 - 00;20;38;11

Jason

You know, five other times. 20 other times, what would you estimate based on your knowledge.

00;20;38;14 - 00;20;55;22

Serena

In all different ways it has happened. And I'll tell you two quick stories. One is I had a friend, she doesn't work there anymore, but she worked for Cloudflare and she called me one day and she's like, your company's website is is what? And I was at Business Wire at the time. It's what it's like. People are always trying to hack it.

00;20;55;24 - 00;21;23;01

Serena

And they could see all the time. And that's why Globenewswire notified. That's why we have a soc2. It's that security system. It's a very big deal for us. We have a lot of news. It's pre-market, so that's a big deal. And then we actually like and I'm sorry, keep tapping my mic. We launched a program with clear where you can actually verify through clear that you sent the press release out.

00;21;23;04 - 00;21;46;19

Serena

And we're starting to see public companies verifying their release. And it verifies the sender. And it says publicly in the press release, this sender has been verified by clear, okay. Because they want it's not that there. But all of this is protection for the future because one piece of bad news, the impact could be anything.

00;21;46;21 - 00;21;47;04

Jason

Right?

00;21;47;05 - 00;22;10;07

Serena

Absolutely. Look at what's happened with KTLA. I mean, they had a, a curse word crossed the wire and they don't address, I mean, not cross the wire, cross Twitter. And it's a huge amount of damage is happening right now around that, that they are I mean, doesn't seem like they're really getting themselves out of so long story short, verification I think is becoming the norm.

00;22;10;07 - 00;22;36;21

Serena

And I think this clear verified tool is going to start to pick up as the risks start to really become seen. And I is where these risks are, right. If, if, if it is easy for you and me to issue a press release and have that impact, I look at the opportunities. So this is where it's becoming a really big deal for companies to own that narrative and own their narrative.

00;22;36;24 - 00;22;55;09

Serena

Not only can your competitor issue six more releases than you and take up the entire ownership of the the space, the space, I'm kind of making that up. That's not exactly how it works, but you know what I mean. These things are constantly happening because I is relying on releases just like Google used to do in 2008.

00;22;55;11 - 00;23;23;25

Jason

So what you're saying is that there are some AI tools that, you know, consumers or business people have access to that have more real time, access or real time data, real time access to the internet than others that might have delays. So, for example, you know, I have paid accounts with, you know, certain AI, tools that because I have a paid account, I'm getting more recent access than maybe somebody else who's using a free account.

00;23;23;27 - 00;23;30;26

Jason

And so these are able to pull some of these tools are pulling the data in more real time, same day kind of thing. Right. Is that what you're saying?

00;23;30;29 - 00;23;44;10

Serena

Absolutely. And the best example of that, if you want to just go see perplexity is real time and you can just do a search, but Gemini, look at the fact that Google now most people just go into Google and ask it questions.

00;23;44;12 - 00;23;44;25

Jason

Right?

00;23;44;28 - 00;23;46;02

Serena

And now AI is.

00;23;46;08 - 00;23;47;02

Jason

Becoming the answer.

00;23;47;02 - 00;24;02;24

Serena

Engine, right. And then look to the right of the answer engine. There's this links. And if you look further you're almost always a lot of times if you're questioning like go and do this with one of your own press releases, you'll see. But you'll often see a link to the press release right there.

00;24;02;26 - 00;24;04;04

Jason

Right? Yeah. 100.

00;24;04;04 - 00;24;13;25

Serena

And that also remember now that's that trust signal because it's not the it's not usually the press release on the client's website. It's usually a third party validator.

00;24;13;25 - 00;24;23;03

Jason

This episode is brought to you by Audible. Enjoy 30 days free of Audible Premium Plus by going to ontopofpr.com/audible.

00;24;23;03 - 00;24;47;20

Announcer

You're listening to On Top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted advisor to some of America's most admired and fastest growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.

00;24;47;20 - 00;25;11;15

Jason

So, I know I wanted to talk about just real quick. And I think some of this is highlighted in your past, appearance on our on our podcast, but four ways to make your press release stand out. Right. And that is right, a great headline format. You release the bullets, add a photo, and then use newswire, use a newswire and leverage their free, you know, search and optimization or AI optimization tools.

00;25;11;17 - 00;25;22;20

Jason

So I think I'm kind of taking a little bit of, of, of, of your topic away from you. But just as we look at kind of those four things, you want to walk us through those a little bit or just any other highlights.

00;25;22;20 - 00;25;28;24

Serena

Of to, I would love to. I'm going to mix it up a little bit and talk about formatting first because that's easiest.

00;25;29;01 - 00;25;29;10

Jason

Okay?

00;25;29;16 - 00;25;34;25

Serena

Okay guys. People, you gotta listen to me. You're writing to Queen.

00;25;34;25 - 00;25;35;25

Jason

Is talking.

00;25;35;28 - 00;25;57;23

Serena

Writing. I love you guys, but your press releases are terrible. That's a joke. Kind of. When you're writing a press release, you're creating it in a word document. So I think and for some people, it that sticks in their head that they're sending out a word document. We are not the newswire is not sending out a word document.

00;25;57;25 - 00;26;28;21

Serena

We're sending out an electronic news package. So when you're building the press release, this because this is stuff you can do without your approval format. It walls of text. No no no no no. You've got to have paragraph headers. You've got to have bullet points. Have bullets, have italics. These walls of text, there are so many press releases that just fail every day.

00;26;28;23 - 00;26;49;11

Serena

And it's literally the format. It's the format. You have to stop thinking about it as a press release, and I will get off my soapbox. But if you can remember that we're sending out an electronic news document. Those walls of text look terrible on a cell phone. They look terrible on a screen. They look great in your word document, I bet.

00;26;49;14 - 00;27;07;08

Serena

But they don't translate out. And literally, because people read in an F pattern. This is my f, I guess they're going to see your headline and they're going to look for something else. And if you don't have images here, yeah, if you don't have bullets here, you've lost them.

00;27;07;11 - 00;27;07;15

Jason

Yeah.

00;27;07;15 - 00;27;27;01

Serena

And and if you go to your newswires website and just start opening releases and you're going to see how many options and by the way format your release, you get better message permeation. So for sure. So that's that's formatting.

00;27;27;03 - 00;27;45;21

Jason

So it real quick it's kind of like, you know, in the 80s or 90s that you're laying out and like you said, a word processing document versus, preparing it for a multimedia, document or a website, for example. You don't you don't have your website does not look like. And and if it does, shame on you.

00;27;45;21 - 00;27;48;02

Jason

Write a word, doc.

00;27;48;04 - 00;28;11;27

Serena

That's absolutely right. And I should give out a couple of, experts in this. When you talk about trust signals, Scott Barrett l kind of gave me a great education on that and formatting. Other than the results I see, the reason I noticed it was. And while she did a great job, just, I mean, and you start to realize when you hear her talk like, oh, wow, like, that's ridiculous.

00;28;11;27 - 00;28;19;12

Serena

Why wasn't I doing that? So the easiest way to think about it is think about it like you format a blog. Yeah. You want to make sure you have this.

00;28;19;18 - 00;28;21;23

Jason

Format a blog properly.

00;28;21;25 - 00;28;41;24

Serena

Yes, properly. But formatting is killing people. Yeah. So if you're wondering and you're blaming your newswire because something's not working or you're blaming the press release like people are doing, it's because it's it's format. So right off the bat, bullets and bolts make it easy to read. The second thing is going backwards is up to the headline.

00;28;41;27 - 00;29;09;10

Serena

So your press release headline is the search optimization of your press release. That is how people are going to find your news. So if you have a term that you want people to find your release on and it's not in that headline, your release may not come up. So you really have to, Jefferson Graham told me years ago before he retired, that if you were going to pitch him, he was the USA today tech reporter.

00;29;09;12 - 00;29;12;23

Serena

He you should spend two days on that pitch.

00;29;12;25 - 00;29;13;19

Jason

Yeah.

00;29;13;22 - 00;29;33;22

Serena

If you're going to write a headline for press release you should spend time on it. Because the headline two things one, you're not using the right words. Google trends will help you with that. But the second thing is your headline is all about you. Headlines cannot be all about the the company. They have to be about the impact of the news on the user.

00;29;33;24 - 00;29;50;26

Serena

So it's not that, we're going to create a podcast. Oh, we're going to do a video. I'm taking us back, Jason, to our our joint press release. It's not that you and I are doing a joint press release, it's that we're testing this. So PR pros have that result.

00;29;51;23 - 00;30;15;12

Serena

And if people stop thinking about themselves because again go to the wire services, start opening those releases and you see how many releases have no result. If you only say company X does Y then it doesn't answer a search a dance, an answer question. Right? Don't get included in I you have to put the Y.

00;30;15;15 - 00;30;30;21

Jason

You know, I'm just going to add in that HubSpot in their inbound marketing training, they say very specifically that you should spend as much time. You should spend the same amount of time writing the headline as you did writing the rest of the release. Nobody does that.

00;30;30;23 - 00;30;33;03

Serena

No, I have like.

00;30;33;05 - 00;30;39;26

Jason

I'm sorry, I should clarify. HubSpot was talking about blog post and other content, not necessarily news releases, but the principle still applies.

00;30;39;26 - 00;31;06;24

Serena

Absolutely. So and there's so many options today. I will say another little company plug is that a lot of people can't use AI to test headlines because the news is pre-market. So we actually have inside our secured wall, we have AI generation tools so people can check, you know, craft, headlines or pitches that are highly customized to their news without any security risk.

00;31;06;27 - 00;31;22;00

Serena

But the biggest thing as somebody can do is you write the press release, right? That release, get it all done, print it out, because that's what we did back in the day. Pull down that press release and literally underline all the important facts in terms.

00;31;22;28 - 00;31;50;25

Serena

Go to Google Trends google.com forward slash trends. Put in those words. Whichever of those words has the highest search results, use that Procter and gamble their releases say children. If you go into Google search results a Google Trends and you type in children versus kids, they're losing 75% traffic, like they could be so much more visible if they just use the word kids.

00;31;50;28 - 00;31;51;28

Jason

Right?

00;31;52;00 - 00;32;14;10

Serena

That's what our people have to do. They have to literally wordsmith that headline. But using because what Google is going to tell you is, is anybody searching that term? Are you answering anybody's questions? Right. And if you're not, then again, that's a press release mistake, not a, visibility mistake.

00;32;14;13 - 00;32;28;09

Jason

So, Serena, unfortunately, we're starting to run out of time here. So if we're rethinking, press releases, with the rise of generative AI, what are some closing thoughts you think are important to share with our audience as we're wrapping up?

00;32;28;12 - 00;32;37;18

Serena

Okay. Quite a few. So one, think about using press release for press releases still have to be high quality content, and they still have to be very well written.

00;32;37;20 - 00;32;39;23

Jason

And audience focused, like you said earlier.

00;32;39;25 - 00;33;02;13

Serena

And audience focus. So there's a lot of technical tips on how to use AI, but if that's not blended with actual news, it's not going to help you. Secondly, call your news wire, call us. Call us at globenewswire because we actually have free AI activating SEO tools. Ask us for help. We have tons of marketing pieces on this.

00;33;02;15 - 00;33;24;20

Serena

Third, write a better headline. Use that Google Trends children versus kids. Think about that. Are you using the right word for format? The release, these AI structures and these search structures there where your buyers are going, they look for bullet points. Structure is highly important to them. And to that end, the last thing is, well, two more things.

00;33;24;20 - 00;33;55;09

Serena

One is you want to make sure you have a photo in your release. Name the photo file before you give it to us. And it will appear in search under that. Have your photo file name answer question and it will appear it's very important. And lastly in your boilerplate expand your boilerplate expand it to include all of the industries that you cover and the various roles and responsibilities that you cover.

00;33;55;11 - 00;34;02;17

Serena

Because if you do that, that will also help you appear in wider segments in the AI systems.

00;34;02;20 - 00;34;07;05

Jason

Okay. That's a great tip. All right. Excellent. Serena, anything else?

00;34;07;07 - 00;34;29;21

Serena

No, I am super excited about this. Like, all day, every day. If anybody needs anything, we've got you covered. Because this is this is not something we own. This is owned by AI is surfacing these opportunities and it may not last. So the opportunity is now. And it's kind of a great chance for PR pros to see what they can do and test it.

00;34;29;23 - 00;34;31;06

Serena

And then take advantage of it.

00;34;31;08 - 00;34;35;20

Jason

Yeah I totally agree. The best way for people to reach you is to connect with you through LinkedIn.

00;34;35;25 - 00;34;45;19

Serena

Yes definitely LinkedIn for first name. Last name notified.com Serena dot Ehrlich. I'd love to hear from you. Like I'm always around.

00;34;45;22 - 00;34;51;18

Jason

Okay, awesome. Well, Serena, we appreciate you sharing your insights and your smarts with our audience today.

00;34;51;21 - 00;35;06;04

Serena

Thank you. Jason, thank you so much. And I just really appreciate this. This is what I care about more than anything in the world right now. And to family. Right. So if there's anything, I just can't wait to learn more.

00;35;06;06 - 00;35;15;28

Jason

That sounds great. All right, well, with that, this was another episode of On Top of PR. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you'll take a moment to share it with a friend or colleague who you think would benefit from this. So with that, thank you for your loyalty and tuning in to on top of PR. And if there's ever anything I can do for you, please let me know. Otherwise, be well.

00;35;15;28 - 00;36;11;20

Announcer

This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and check out past episodes at ontopofpr.com.

About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

Find more On Top of PR episodes on: