What can we learn from 50,000 press releases?

WHAT 50K PRESS RELEASES CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT PUBLIC RELATIONS When should you publish a press release for the greatest reach? Should you ever publish a press release over the weekend? What's the best email distribution strategy? These are some of the oldest and most debated issues in PR. To shed some light on the subject, pr.co gathered data from more than 50,000 press releases published on the site since April 2013. WHEN DO PRESS RELEASES RECEIVE THE MOST VIEWS? MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY The old adage "PR doesn't happen on mondays" is a myth: Only 17% of press releases are published on weekends Most press releases are published Press releases receive the most views Most press releases are published 25% of the total views occur on Saturdays and Sundays 16% of press releases are published on the first day of the week Less than 1 out of 5 press releases are published over the weekend, 53% of all the press releases are published RESULTING IN LESS COMPETITION 61% OF READERS VIEW PRESS RELEASES IN THE FOR JOURNALISTS' ATTENTION FIRST FOUR DAYS OF THE WEEK 16% 15% 18% 15% 17% 16% 18% 15% 15% 14% 13% 12% 10% 7% J PRESS RELEASES PUBLISHED PRESS RELEASE VIEWS HOW DO DISTRIBUTION LISTS AFFECT EMAIL OPEN RATES? EMAILS SENT * CLICK % OPEN % 28 51 20 14 38 60 11 34 100 29 200 27 500 3 21 1000+ 2 16 53% of all campaigns sent through pr.co have less than 100 recipients 17% of campaigns have more than 300 recipients HOW IMPORTANT IS CAMPAIGN CUSTOMIZATION? A negative recipients and the open and click rates relation between the number of CAMPAIGNS SENT TO 2-9 PEOPLE 51% CAMPAIGNS SENT TO 80 PEOPLE THE CAUSE: MORE RECIPIENTS = LESS CUSTOMIZATION 28% 30% 1000+ 10% K MASS DISTRIBUTION 5 CUSTOMIZATION OPEN RATE CLICK RATE CUSTOMIZATION VS. MASS DISTRIBUTION CUSTOMIZATION MASS DISTRIBUTION PERSONALIZED MESSAGE COOKIE-CUTTER MESSAGE COST-EFFECTIVE EXPENSIVE REACHES THE RIGHT CONTACTS OUT-OF-DATE CONTACT INFO TARGETED MESSAGING IRRELEVANT MESSAGING BUILDS RELATIONSHIPS WITH JOURNALISTS ANNOYS JOURNALISTS O pr.co visual.ly