Your Measurement Tool Box:
Wire services’ tracking packages reviewed ...

They Sent It Out,
But Did Anybody See It?
How well do these services track your success?

Business Wire, PR Newswire, Internet Wire,
US Newswire and PrimeZone Media

by Lindsey Wyckoff

Today, the major wire services not only send out your press release, but offer tracking services to monitor where and when a release is picked up. Tracking through the wire services is simple: With one additional click of the mouse you will be notified in some manner of where your release is picked up. This one-stop shopping concept requires little or no effort on the part of the user, and yields generally good results, providing you with quick methods to determine the effectiveness of your recent communications. The results they deliver, however, are fairly one dimensional. Nevertheless, if your resources are limited, knowing whether your target audience received your latest news can be an important measure of success.

Business Wire, PR Newswire, Internet Wire, US Newswire and PrimeZone Media all offer some service to track the path of your news. Some of the services are more comprehensive than others, tracking your release through print, video, audio and online sources, while others focus simply online.

Business Wire

Business Wire offers users Instant Match News Release Monitoring. For an additional $95 per release, Instant Match scans over 175 dailies, both online and off, as well as 15 plus wire services for your news. Instant Match is a separate service and therefore should be requested concurrently with the submission of your release. Once the report is compiled, it can be returned by either fax or email.

PR Newswire

Broadcast Newsclips and NEWSdesk are two similar services offered by PR Newswire. Broadcast Newsclips traces your release through an “aircheck” that pulls together coverage of your release from local and network news and provides it to the user in video or print format. It tracks broadcast, print and Web sources. Prices are: Video— $65 for the first clip on a tape, plus $35 per additional clip on the same tape. Transcript—$40 for up to five minutes, then $10 per minute. Radio—price unavailable at press time. NEWSdesk provides users with a report of where their release was covered and viewed.

Internet Wire

In the same price range, Internet Wire offers I-clip. Ringing in at $125 per release, I-clip creates a custom PowerPoint presentation that is emailed to you the day after your release is sent out. The presentation includes images of your release as it appears on various sites, as well as a URL that remains live for as long as your release is posted. For an additional $50, the presentation will be sent within 24 hours of the distribution of your release, allowing you to gauge a more immediate reaction. However, the range of I-clip is significantly more limited than that of other services, since it only allows a glimpse of your online audience.

US Newswire

For a heftier price tag, US Newswire offers a more comprehensive audience base, distributing and tracking your release through print, audio, video and online sources with the services News IQ and Daily News Digest. News IQ monitors broadcast news and makes it available to users over the Internet. So if your release is covered by a broadcast news source, access to real-time coverage and text are available in a searchable database. The price is $795 per year for monthly access, but the information remains captured and available for as long as you need it. Daily News Digest summarizes the coverage of your news and delivers it every day in a sort of mini-newspaper format. Each summary includes a link to the original site.

PrimeZone Media Network

PrimeZone, a relative newcomer in the press release market, specializes in corporate financial news. They track by ticker symbol and their tracking services are free to publicly traded companies. Clip Report is sent out as soon as your news is picked up on the Web. It tracks Web sources only, arrives via email and includes links to Web sites on which your news has appeared. A recent addition to PrimeZone is Disclosure Report. This service is included in many of their package deals and is designed to track and provide data on your press releases.

In Summary: Which One Is Right For You?

See our Suitability Meter to the right for our recommendations on which service might fit your needs. In general, sending out a release through multiple wires will bring the best tracking results. However, when time is not on your side, the services offered by Internet Wire and US Newswire—which promise next day (or even sooner) results—will provide the accountability you are looking for, and in a neat package to boot.

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