Hacker News Reader

Press releases are very effective. I've done them professionally and had them lead to articles in all but one of Sweden's large newspapers. Marketers with the skill of finding interesting angles shouldn't have a problem to get exposure this way, if they target the right magazines / news outlet.

As a news-stand magazine editor I used to love getting properly targeted press releases for relevant products from small organisations. "Properly targeted" is the key: if you write one release and send the same thing to a thousand publications, of course it won't work.

In this case how would a press release be different from a targeted pitch email? Or would you skip the latter because it wasn't in a PR format?

I'll admit, I haven't personally tried every one of these tactics. I'm not sure how to include opinions on what works and doesn't, plus I like the idea of the list being more comprehensive rather than opinionated.