Make Your Own Press Release Mailing List.

• Check out Newsletter Access. This site has over 5,000 newsletters in various subjects including over 430 investment newsletters. You can sometimes find their websites.
• The WSC Publications Page. To focus on many of the most important newsletters, look for the Hulbert List on this page.
• Our own press release mailing list of the major publications' editorial offices. Changes occur often in the media world; so call the offices to see if the listed contact is still there. Remember, it is bad form to send a release to more than one contact at a magazine unless there are truly two versions of the magazine (for example "Barron's" and "Barron's Online Edition").
• Micro Cap World Summarizes OTC-BBS companies which have been written up in newsletters or research reports by an independent (non-compensated) broker/dealers or newsletter writer. Has someone written about you?
• Who's Who in Investing (Online) by InvestorHome. Columnists, movers and shakers.
• Publications Etc.
• The Magazine Boy
• PR Newswire's journalist profiles. Reasonably priced. Look for the link under "For PR &IR Professionals"

Should You Sign Up With A Wire Service?

The major wire services are summarized below. There are a number of new services which distribute releases by e-mail, etc.; however if you have researched companies at Yahoo, Hoovers, etc., you will have noticed that the releases which show up are from PR Newswire, Business Wire, Reuters, etc. These major services are not as expensive as you might think. For example, after paying $100 to join, PR Newswire costs approx. $70 - $500 per release. $70 will buy you 400 words covering Denver. The NY metro area is $160. National coverage is $500. Additional words cost extra. However, if you buy just one little regional coverage your release also goes into over 600 databases, such as Yahoo! These, of course, are national and international. Any ticker symbol mentioned in the release will be linked to your home page. Any specific URL you mention in the release (such as your IR page), will link to that page.

The big difference, for an IR person, lies in what the wire service charges for the longer wording you may feel necessary in order to incorporate "safe harbor" statements, etc. Also, since Reg. FD most companies want to fulfill their obligations to the public by posting their releases on the major Internet financial centers such as Yahoo! Finance, Quicken, Bloomberg, CNNmoney and Microsoft Money. Only the major wire services can provide this.

The wire services whose releases we have seen at major financial Websites are:

• PR Newswire
• Canada NewsWire -- CNW is affiliated with PR Newswire.
• CCN Matthews -- A competitor to Canada NewsWire.
• Business Wire
• MarketWire (formerly Internet Wire Bureau) -- which has been described in a news story on release services as a "distant third" after PR Newswire and Business Wire. The effectiveness of this service was proved in a rather unfortunate way in August 2000 when sophisticated criminals used Internet Wire to distribute fraudulent releases to drive a company's stock down, thereby allowing themselves to make a killing in options. MarketWire is now more sophisticated and is a "NASDAQ Preferred Partner".
• PrimeNewswire (a NASDAQ company).
• CNW Group

Here's services on Comtex's list which we haven't seen at sites like Yahoo Finance. However, that does not mean their financial release wouldn't show up there.

• Eworldwire.com -- As of November 2006 was offering a special rate for their Public Companies Disclosure Distribution service, which they say will enable companies to meet Reg.D requirements.
• FinancialWire (Investrend)
• Knobias.

Some smaller e-mail news services which bear watching are:

• PR Web -- Has grown from a free service to a reasonably priced service which has proved to be quite effective in having its releases show up on search engines. Was bought in the Fall of '06 and no longer offers a free option.
• Internet News Bureau -- was bought in late 1999 by Alan Meckler's Internet.com , a company which may have enough capital to give the traditional news services a run for their money.
• Web Wire -- Offers a number of levels of distribution. Uses PR Newswire for wire distribution.

Maintaining an E-Mail List

To avoid making mistakes when you start e-mailing, first read this article on e-mailing by IR101.

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