How to Distribute Your Press Releases to the Largest Financial Media Outlets

How to Distribute Your Press Releases to the Largest Financial Media Outlets

With tens of millions of unique visitors annually, large, authoritative financial media outlets, such as Yahoo! Finance, Reuters, Bloomberg, and others, provide businesses broad visibility for their news and press releases..

For publicly traded companies obliged to comply with legal requirements governing the fair and simultaneous release of pre-market data, it’s almost a given to include these financial news titans in their distribution strategies. Still, getting your release distributed is not always a slam dunk..

Here are a few tips to help boost your chances of getting your press release distributed to the world’s largest financial media outlets.

Use a Newswire That Subscribes to Your Targeted Financial Media Outlets

For many larger financial media outlets, such as Yahoo! Finance and Reuters, press releases are only accepted from subscribing newswires. And the media outlet will only publish newswire content that adheres to their strict acceptance criteria.

For example, the newswire must ensure press release content is newsworthy and market-relevant (see more about this below). It must also conform to a traditional press release format, including text on who, what, where, when, and how, among other elements. Leading inbound marketing, sales and CRM platform HubSpot offers a helpful primer on press release basics.

Some outlets offer additional means of submitting a press release for publication. Bloomberg, for example, provides regional newsroom email addresses where you can submit a press release for consideration. However, your likelihood of getting your press release posted will almost certainly be greater if you submit your release through a subscribing newswire. This is due to the quality screening subscribing newswires provide media outlets before a press release ever crosses the wire.

News Direct, a state-of-the-art news and content distribution company, provides distribution to all the leading financial media outlets, such as Bloomberg, Reuters, MarketWatch, Yahoo! Finance, Dow Jones, Factiva, and many more, for one flat-rate fee.

Specific Sites Require Your Press Release to Include a Ticker Symbol

Mega-sites, such as Yahoo! Finance, only cover companies appearing on most major domestic and international exchanges and markets, such as the Dow Jones Indices, OTC, NASDAQ, S&P Indices, and exchanges in New York, London, and Tokyo, among several others. The complete list of markets and exchanges covered can be found on the Yahoo! Finance website. In addition, every press release must include the relevant ticker symbol for the profiled company to be posted.

Ensure Your Press Release Is Newsworthy

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Sure, after 12 months of product development, your company’s newest gizmo is exciting news一but does it truly impact consumers or the product market? Does it represent a weighty pivot in organizational strategy? Does it relate to a current trend or popular discussion in a significant way? Will the news impact the company’s market value?

Not every press release has to precisely live up to these standards, but those you want distributed to tier-one financial sites should lean in this direction. Every day brings company news, but it has to be newsworthy for your press release to get noticed.

Reach Out to Journalists With Relevant Beats

If you’re trying to get earned media coverage of your press release (and who isn’t?), there’s always the chance your press release might serendipitously catch the eye of the right journalist at the right time.

Alternatively, you can reach out to journalists proactively about doing a story. If you take this approach, be sure to contact the journalists themselves rather than their newsrooms. This can be accomplished via a newswire service with targeted media lists, or a media database for targeted emails.

News Direct makes this process a breeze thanks to its integrated DB Direct™ Media Database, powered by Agility PR Solutions. The DB Direct™ plan enables you to search a global database of more than 1 million media contacts and outlets by journalist beat, media type, location, and more. Once your list is created, you can email journalists directly from the News Direct platform.

And when it comes to reaching out to journalists, according to leading PR and communications publication PR Week’s 2020 survey, nine out of 10 journalists preferred PR professionals to pitch via email instead of by phone. As a further example, Bloomberg suggests if you want to pitch a story, reach out to a Bloomberg journalist using the email contact information listed on the site.

Of course, be sure to pitch the right content to the right journalist. Sending a press release on your organization’s newest developments in AI-powered sports wearables to a handful of medical business journalists isn’t going to get the coverage you want. 

In fact, 85% of journalist respondents from the same survey cited PR professionals pitching irrelevant content as their biggest complaint. Take the time to identify journalists who cover your industry. By reading their stories, you’ll better understand their beats, angles, and editorial voices. For more on this, have a look at News Direct’s comprehensive piece on how to formulate an effective journalist approach.

News Direct Has Reimagined Financial Press Release Distribution

News Direct has streamlined the financial press release workflow from start to finish. The self-directed, cloud-based workspace enables PR and IR professionals, and other stakeholders to create, collaborate, and fully control their content. Pre-market data is secured with best-in-class protection protocols including cloud isolation technology, advanced encryption protocols, and permission-only access.

News Direct’s proprietary SimpliFi™️ feature enables users to simply copy and paste their financial content, including tabular data, from a document directly into the News Direct platform. All data retains its original format, and no human, third-party editor is needed.

Users select distribution preferences in the same platform from a premier, worldwide network of financial media agencies, news outlets, trade press, exchanges, targeted lists, and others. From there, the user decides when to submit the press release for distribution.

Finally, News Direct utilizes a flat-rate, asset-based pricing model that’s simple and fully transparent一for a mere fraction of the cost of mainstream newswires.

Transform your financial press release process to include industry-leading distribution, security, efficiency, and predictable flat-rate pricing. Contact News Direct for a demo today