Global distribution platform drives brand recognition, website traffic and search engine ranking 

Background
InformationWeek and its portfolio of resources are highly regarded among business technology executives and IT professionals as the technology market’s foremost multimedia brand and the publication of record for news, analysis and research concerning the IT industry.  The real-world IT experience and expertise of its editors, reporters, bloggers, and analysts have earned the trust of its business technology executive audience by delivering actionable information that can be utilized in all phases of the technology decision-making process.

Challenge
Although the recognized industry leader, InformationWeek struggled to extend its brand and build additional readership.  It needed a proactive awareness campaign that would publicize its content to the general public. The strategy, as noted by Alexander Wolfe, editor-in-chief of InformationWeek.com, needed to be designed to serve several key marketing needs – increase public recognition and site traffic, re-enforce brand-building, and generate inbound links as a means to enhance InformationWeek’s Google ranking.

To execute this strategy in the most efficient, cost-effective and reproducible manner, InformationWeek decided that it needed a communications technology partner that could reach a broad audience via widespread online distribution, allow for search engine optimization, and promote sharing and interactivity within the social media realm.

Solution
The editorial team at InformationWeek had long been aware of a press release’s value, having reported on countless company and product announcements throughout its 29 years.  But the notion of using a press release as a primary tool for its own brand and audience building campaign was not immediately considered by the editors or the marketing team. 

The reason - the group at InformationWeek perceived the press release as a static text document used to announce a news event; not a multifunctional marketing and communications tool that allowed one to connect with a widespread audience using a variety of touch points and technologies.

However, as the InformationWeek team began to more closely analyze the tools available to them, it became clear that the press release had morphed from the text only news announcement of yesterday into a flexible communications tool. Today’s release could be used to reach all forms of audiences – whether it be media, investors, business associates or consumers – and serve as a powerful tool to increase online presence and supplement SEO efforts.Backed by this knowledge, InformationWeek elected to move forward with a press release-focused marketing strategy, and the first call the marketing team made was to PR Newswire.

“With its robust news distribution capabilities, PR Newswire was an easy choice to serve as the communications hub for InformationWeek’s marketing and branding campaign,” remarked Mr. Wolfe.

InformationWeek initiated a campaign whereby it distributed a series of press releases that pointed to content on InformationWeek.com.  The first wave of announcements included a round-up of “Editor’s Picks” articles, an analysis of Ubuntu 9.04 and an assessment of the Kindle DX launch.  The intent of the press releases was to highlight noteworthy reporting on InformationWeek in order to drive readers to the site and showcase the publication’s business technology acumen.

Results
The impact of PR Newswire’s news distribution platform was immediately evident.  The releases were posted on numerous highly trafficked business news sites, including Forbes.com, Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch, Reuters and BusinessWeek’s BusinessExchange, as well as hundreds of regional newspaper websites. 

The articles drew the attention of the sites’ readers, served as inbound links to InformationWeek.com and TechWeb and, ultimately, drove traffic to InformationWeek.  An analysis of the campaign by InformationWeek on Google’s Chrome OS, for instance, determined that the PR Newswire-distributed press releases generated more than 10,000 impressions.

With the program showing measurable benefits, the editorial and marketing teams plan to regularly distribute content from InformationWeek’s entire portfolio of resources, including DarkReading.com, ByteandSwitch.com, IntelligentEnterprise.com and InternetEvolution.com. 

Assessing the role of PR Newswire in the process, Mr. Wolfe commented, “We’ve found that the PR Newswire Portal – the Online Member Center, which is an easy to use tool for uploading press release content – greatly facilitates the process and is enabling us to expand usage of PR Newswire throughout our organization.”