Ask HN: Impact of press coverage | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Impact of press coverage

3 pointsmedianama1 comment

I run a small website (250k PVs/month) for non-techies. Its been growing steadily for last few months giving me the confidence that we've got the product offering right and we just need to scale and reach out to more people with similar pain point.

Last few weeks I've been trying to get some press coverage in mainstream (financial) newspapers. Its been a lot of effort (since I never did this before) and I am getting good response from the journalists.

Copule of days back I was quoted in an article in a national paper, along with the name of my website. The article was in a prominent position - back cover page.

When I look back at the stats for that particular day, I see no spike in traffic. This makes me wonder if it is worth all the effort that got into getting it.

What type of and how much press exposure is required before one starts seeing results, in terms of traffic growth?

Would appreciate if you could share your experiences.

Thanks

Hard to make a blanket statement, especially without knowing more about your specific niche (are your users newspaper readers? Would they read the paper you were mentioned in?).

A lot of your PR activities are about building up mindshare. Hardly anybody remembers a site or company the first time (or two!) they read about it. But after 6 or 8 mentions of your site/company in various places, the name starts to stick.

I have personally done product demos and interviews for articles for the WSJ, Boston Globe, dozen of trade mags, and TV spots (8 hours of filming for a 5 minute segment that didn't end up airing). Keep doing what you're doing and someone will run across one of your spots and think "I've been hearing a lot about this site, I guess I should maybe pay attention now". Eventually you'll find your efforts have paid off, even though it's a frog boil and you won't be able to define the precise inflection point.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Also, as soon as you can afford the ~$10K/mo, hire a PR firm. They're way better at this than you and already have the connections and know the ins and outs. Yes, you can do it on your own, but this is an example, IMO, of an activity prime for outsourcing.

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