It's no secret that the world of PR has not kept pace with advances in digital marketing. This has diminished PR budgets and for good reason. Since marketing and advertising personnel have been able to show ROI (good or bad), they've enjoyed a larger share of the corporate spending pie.
For decades, there has been a lack of innovation, and, even more to the point, measuring ROI for Public Relations. Reportable, which is full of ideas on how the world of PR can be disrupted, is poised to change that. Co-founded by Tom Baker and Eric Skiff, Reportable in the words of Mr. Baker, has enjoyed rapid success because, "We're filling immediate company needs with visual news releases and plug and play newsrooms tailored to how reporters, investors and customers consume news today."
Traditional news releases tend to be static, copy-heavy, and generally not inviting to read. Entrenched habit and lack of innovative alternatives is a main reason companies continue to rely on this model and explains why PR professionals are reluctant to overturn the system.
Reportable is altering this paradigm that leaves the traditional news release far behind. Reportable provides far more value than the traditional news release in three ways: story-telling visuals, the new lede and link distribution, and real metrics.
Visuals
Visuals are more effective at getting to the point. Attention spans were in decline pre-pandemic. During Covid, it's worsened, thanks to non-stop Zooms, virtual learning, and non-stop remote-work. Using visuals to communicate your news makes company news more quickly and easily understandable. It also helps reporters who increasingly rely on visuals for their own online stories and sharing those stories on social media.
Mr. Baker's assessment of the Reportable page: "Companies have only seconds to get the attention of reporters, investors or customers. This can only be accomplished with a media-rich announcement. Use of branded, multimedia landing pages strikes the right balance of form and function that the traditional wire on its own doesn't offer."
Lede & Link Distribution
Reportable is pioneering Lede and Link news dissemination. Think inbound marketing for corporate announcements, with a summary issued via social media as well as to major news outlets like Bloomberg and Marketwatch. This summary contains a link back to a branded landing page that allows companies to capture all associated analytics. This lets companies package news in a way that's tailored to how and where investors and customers consumer news in the digital era.
"Social media has become the new "wire" for tracking and discovering corporate news for media and investors. Companies need to put news out on both and in a way that better captures audiences' attention."
Analytics
For analytics, Reportable delivers concrete data - where readers are coming from on the web and around the world and how they're interacting with your announcement. Importantly, companies integrate this data with their own web analytics so they and put this data to work and incorporate it into their own measurement and targeting strategies. This contrasts with the limitations of the traditional wire on its own which share static vanity metrics that can't be integrated.
"Our customers confide that there's nothing they can do with inflated potential page views that have no underlying reader metrics. What they want instead is to capture and integrate the real web traffic analytics with their own website analytics."
Background of Reportable founders
Mr. Baker himself spent 20 years specializing in corporate communications and investor relations, so he is well aware of what works. For much of that time, he questioned the status quo. He continues to do that today with this new company, and that's why he and his co-founder have tackled the world of Public Relations, which has been essentially stagnant for decades.
As to how the Reportable page represents a major improvement over the traditional news release, "Visuals are a part of communications today. The old adage that a picture's worth a thousand words still ring true and people respond better to it. That's why social media algorithms place greater value on anything with an image in it. That's how we're wired as humans to respond to those visuals." Recognizing this crucial fact and incorporating it into this new approach represents a quantum leap for Public Relations as an industry and Reportable as a company.
Reportable clients
It hasn't taken long for some major players to notice Reportable. Eyewear and helmet brand Bolle, Covid vaccine-developer Novavax, regional utility company UGI, refurbished electronics company Back Market, political polling leader Emerson Polling and others regularly use Reportable. Whether it's announcing a product launch, a financing, development progress or management growth, customers are seeing their news covered in the news and shared on social media.
