Technical and traditional communication vehicles are all valuable ways to share information about your company. You need to use as many as possible and manage them effectively. You also need to ensure that any announcement or news item that your company has to share is leveraged as much as possible.
Make sure to manage your contacts in your CRM, Outlook or wherever your corporate contacts are stored, to ensure delivery by the preferred method of the contact. Make sure you know what it takes (how and the cost) to leverage technical vehicles. This includes your website.
Review the checklist below and add any additional methods or reminders that will help guarantee that you cover all your bases in your news distribution.
Use this checklist each time you have a press release or story to share.
| News Posting Checklist | |
| Distribute your news by regular mail | |
| Distribute your news by fax to editors who prefer it this way | |
| Distribute your news through the newswire services for thorough coverage in print and online | |
| Distribute your news by e-mail to editors who prefer it this way | |
| Post rewritten and brief excerpts of your announcement to appropriate newsgroups | |
| Distribute your news to individuals who have voluntarily signed up for a company-managed Internet mailing list (Check cost to manage mailing list) | |
| Upload your news in HTML to your Website | |
| Upload your news in ASCII text to an FTP directory | |
| Upload your news in ASCII text for use by mailbots | |
| Provide your news in ASCII text on diskettes | |
| Include all Internet addresses in your news releases, either preprinted on letterhead or included in the body of the release | |
| Participate frequently in online discussion groups by providing answers about your news that directly addresses users’ concerns | |
| Refresh your online files by removing old news or archiving them | |
| Distribute news via other traditional methods to reach those editors who prefer it that way | |
| Follow up with editors by telephone or in person to provide them with additional or new information | |
| Understand your costs for contracted Internet-related services – Setup fee __________ Monthly maintenance __________ (contact your local Internet service provider or your computing services department for costs to add to your budget) | |
