Cost of living and technology topped the 2022 press release rankings

From blogs to webinars, training courses to e-books, there is a burning question never far away in the world of PR: how do I get my press release to cut through with the media?

After 20 years in newsrooms, my everyday answer to that still stands: understand what makes news, ruthlessly ask why your story is of interest beyond your own organisation, and know the segment or audience that you really want to reach.

But to add layers to that we can also look at what journalists actually do and how they engage with press release content. At PA we have one of the most connected press release distribution networks in the UK and Ireland, with news releases sent via our newswire and online platform to thousands of journalists in print, broadcast and digital newsrooms. And that online platform – which has seen usage grow quickly as hybrid working has accelerated – has started to yield some new insights.

Tracked engagements with press release content increased 25% in 2022, covering PA’s online newswire and email notifications delivered to journalists based on their saved preferences. This is the second year we’ve been able to look at this data and we also saw a 12% year-on-year increase in the number of press releases distributed.

The cost of living crisis was strongly represented in the most engaged press releases of last year, including the top two. The release with the highest number of engagements was from charity Epilepsy Action with a warning that “anxiety surrounding the recent climb in the cost-of-living is having a detrimental impact on people living with epilepsy”. Health platform Healthily came in second with its survey showing how women hit by the cost of living crisis are having to make difficult spending choices – at the expense of their health.

Technology ranked as the subject with the highest total number of engagements by journalists, followed by health, finance, environment and consumer. Technology and health were in the same positions in 2021 and between them make up 45% of the releases sent via the PA newswire.

But digging a bit deeper there are topics that outperform technology based on engagement per release, including royal, charities and science. Environment-related updates have more engagements per release than tech and also saw a 30% increase in releases compared to 2021, keeping in step with the growing focus on ESG topics for organisations of all kinds.

Tuesday is the day of the week which saw the most releases and most engagements in 2022, with Monday and Friday being the lowest weekdays. Sunday – the day with the lowest number of releases across the year – stands out with the highest engagement per release of any day, perhaps reflecting the need to draw on press releases at a quieter time in the news cycle and the continuing place for the traditional ‘Sunday for Monday’-type news story.

Our data shows that press releases continue to remain important for journalists. On our online platform the most active consumers of releases are regional publishers, followed by national and regional broadcasters. PA’s email notifications meanwhile are prominent for national publishers and show an overall open rate of more than 36% for press release content.

But of course journalists want to receive relevant and timely press releases rather than a wave of irrelevant updates and that’s what PA is focused on. Whether that’s through our new Media Outreach contacts database service, our hyper-targeted Release Amplify option or upcoming feature releases for our online newswire, our goal is to provide the best match for a release with the target audience and create mutual value.

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