As I have mentioned previously, I am not only a model, businesswoman and hobbyist blogger, I’ve been a professional journalist working with some of the largest online media platforms since 2015–and if there’s one thing I think is totally unnecessary it’s got to be paid press release distribution platforms. But don’t just take it from me, there are tons of others out there who have dished out a lot of money to distribute their press releases through one of the dozens of sites available, only to have not gotten any media coverage from it at all.

Now, to be fair, that’s not to say no one ever gets a good outcome–but in my experience, with the premium price some of these distributors make you pay (take for example, PR Newswire’s annual membership of $195 plus the price per release ranging from $350 to $8700, according to Prowly) you should be guaranteed a much better outcome–again, in my humble, journalist opinion. Seriously, I don’t know too many news sites that would turn down that much money for a sponsored post–but I digress.

I like to think of it this way, if you put $400 into advertising spending on a platform such as Facebook or Google, you can guarantee at least “X” amount of people will be exposed to that ad, whereas in the case of some of these press release sites, there is usually no guarantee of your story getting picked up at all, which means you paid for what? Of course, when it does, it’s great and often well worth it, but it’s a little like gambling–and in my opinion, that’s a lot of money to gamble for not-so-great odds, especially when you have a lot of press releases to pitch.

Personally, I would never spend that kind of money on press release distribution–but that’s probably because I know the ins and outs of the market and can tell you from personal experience there are other potentially more effective ways to get published.

So if that’s the case, why do people continue to do it, and what’s the cost-effective alternative?

There are several large news companies such as Yahoo! who use these sites to sift through releases and pick out the ones of interest. This is a great way to be discovered by these large sites that normally wouldn’t take the time of day to answer to a general email.

But what a lot of people don’t realize is that it’s not the only way.

When I was a journalist working for a national online media company I would get unsolicited pitches and press releases sent to my direct work email every day–and a lot of them that were relevant I often picked up or at least investigated further. Again, from personal experience, I can tell you that these publishing companies want relevant content to write about, you shouldn’t have to pay to give them good stories.

Additionally, even in the case of Yahoo! who claims they search only through specific press releases sites, I have had representatives of their company reach out to me directly on Instagram to offer a paid media feature (approximately $300 for a guaranteed feature in an article). And yes, I even turned that down! Knowing how unpredictable and short-lived media hype can be, I absolutely refuse to pay for features unless they can guarantee a specific outcome (“X” amounts of organic views, for example).

So… All in all, my best advice for the most cost-effective way to get your press releases–and ultimately, business–seen and republished by media companies is via direct contact and pitching. The key, though, is pitching directly to the right people and not just the general@website email, where yours is sure to get lost in a sea of other hopeful pitchers. And just to get you started, here’s a previous article of mine that goes over how you can do exactly that.