Credibility. Authority. Every business owner knows the value of being perceived as an expert, the go-to source when people think about your product or service. But, getting found as the expert in today’s market, with all of the market noise, is the challenge. ExpertClick helps you overcome this challenge by placing you in front of journalists for media interviews.
The site and service is designed for the business owner who does not have time for more elaborate or money for more expensive public relations methods. For example, if you had time, you could utilize the email digest called Help-A-Reporter-Out (HARO), but as much as I love HARO it takes a lot to manage the information fire hose that soaks you each day. Again, this takes time out of your day. ExpertClick does not.
Two of the many benefits of the service caught my attention:
1. A Press Room page where you create a profile others can find easily.
2. A News Release distribution service that saves you money over similar PR distribution methods.
Once you pay for your membership, you are able to set up a profile page in what ExpertClick calls the Press Room. In this area, you share information about yourself, your expertise, and your company including links and photos. Many notable speakers and experts use ExpertClick. Some names you may recognize: Dr. Joyce Brothers, Timothy Ferriss (4 Hour Workweek fame), Jim Cathcart (motivational speaker), and thousands of others.
The service also includes a listing in the Yearbook of Experts which gets distributed to many of the nation’s journalists and editors. The media looks in this directory when it doesn’t have time for a web search, which is likely very common. Think about how many times you’ve done a web search for something only to be pulled down a rabbit hole of information.
I performed numerous test searches for specific expertise and I often found an ExpertClick member high in the search results. The directory is organized by topic, so you can test it yourself and see that many topics produce professionals and business owners within the top search results.
This is the page that a journalist would find if she searched online for “Small Business Expert” within the ExpertClick directory.
This is what a member page looks like:
News Release Distribution in Five Easy Steps
ExpertClick makes it easy and affordable to get news releases out into the market with its NewsReleaseWire.com service. This feature alone makes the service worth the cost: 52 news releases a year are included, without per-release charges, which is a substantial savings over traditional distribution services. ExpertClick could pay for itself in two or three news releases. However, publishing 52 releases a year is ambitious for just about any company.
In five easy steps, ExpertClick has made it quick and painless to submit a news release to the public with ten distribution points, including LexisNexis (a subscription-based national research repository used by professionals). They also have a daily and weekly headline news feed to 11,000 opt-in journalists.
You can see in Step 1 that the user picks from formats, then at the top you can see the “breadcrumb” navigation: Release Format, Basic Info, Additional Info, Release Copy (your copy), and Preview and Finish. That’s it. Other release services might be similar in ease, but you pay $200 to $400 per news release. Remember, ExpertClick lets you do one news release per week with your annual subscription.
I’ve jumped to Step 3 in this next image because it shows a nice feature that lets you link to a video or a book you might be selling. It doesn’t apply to everyone, but if you have links like these, it is easy to insert them into your release.
Once your release is done, the content is then posted within your branded “Press Room” on your profile. They also provide a handy widget which allows you to post releases directly to your website, too.
CONCLUSION
There are more features to the ExpertClick service, but these two alone can save you money and time. It offers a powerful way to position your expertise and increase your credibility with journalists and customers without requiring daily superhuman marketing efforts.
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About the Author:TJ McCue is the strategic content guy at Q4 Sales and founder of Sales Rescue Team. He blogs at Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness.com about online research and marketing.
Hi TJ, that 200-400 per release is quiet expensive huh.
Martin Lindeskog
TJ,
If you are interested to see what’s going on in Sweden, check out Newsdesk. Peter Ingman (“Communication specialist, specially focused on social media, PR 2.0”) “pingman” on Twitter. Kristofer Björkman (“Founder of Newsdesk. Co-founder of Mrjet.com, SF-anytime.com, and in a way even Spray.se. Otherwise pure happy media entrepreneur.”) “mynewsdesk” on Twitter.
I listened to Peter Ingman at a social media event by the Marketing Association in Gothenburg some time ago.
Bill McIntosh
For your information press release services are not inexpensive. I work in PR. $250/release could even be on the low end. I know one guy who charges $500/release.
TJ,
I tried to write comment but it didn’t show up. I have some information regarding PR and news desk information in Sweden.
Rose,
If I read it right, you get 52 press releases included in the package.
Good one but expenses on the higher side.
Sonal Maheshwari
USourceIT: Single source for all your IT needs
Memberships levels are $995/$1295/$2795 per year. There seems to be a lot of services provided and a heavy emphasis on the SEO aspects (which I like to see). If you’re seriously an expert (like Anita) then this could be a wise investment.
It is a little pricey but I think that’s a good thing. With a larger price tag, that means that members who join are professionals who take their expert status seriously. That way you’re not just getting anyone joining just to get seen.
TJ McCue
Thanks everyone for the comments and thoughts. I can see both sides on the cost of ExpertClick. I see it as inexpensive, but I know that many will see it as pricey.
As an example, although it isn’t really my line of work, I have helped distribute three releases in the last 2 months for a client and they spent $1,500 to do it. Most of these releases were not for the media to pick up and do a story (although that happened a bunch), but to help customers find them. If you view PR these days as SEO-PR, then you can see the cost value.
Thanks Martin for the article links. I’ll go check it out. Yes, you read it right: 52 releases per year for the annual fee. That’s a lot of news releases. Thankfully, though, the service gives more than just that.
Oh thanks Martin for pointing that out to me.
Rose,
You are welcome. It is like a package of a yearbook, PR, and so on. Still it is a bit of an investment, but I think it could well worth it.
TJ: Could you list some other players on the PR service market with similar products and services like ExpertClick?
TJ McCue
hey Martin
Unfortunately, I don’t know of many others. There are way more expensive PR services, of course. And there are free profiles in various directories, but a close runner up to ExpertClick, I have not seen yet. They are probably out there, though.
T
TJ: Thanks for your answer. By the way, have you downloaded Stefan Engeseth’s new book, The Fall of PR and the Rise of Advertising, yet? Do it for free (PDF version) at DetectiveMarketing.com
RedHotFranchises
Looks very interesting. A good alternative to social networking sites. I’m curious to see how it would progress in the near future. Nice review
TJ McCue
@RedHotFranchises Thanks for the comment. I’m looking at ExpertClick for two other clients of mine who simply need a place where they can be found, but more so, where they can distribute news releases affordably and have those be found!
Like any business, there is a never-ending stream of things to do to grow it and keep it profitable.
Jones
Hmmm looks really interesting. I might just have to try it out for my small business. This might be able to complement my current plans well — getting a team of people to make a few short videos to put on YouTube and AdWido.