I was one of the esteemed judges at PRWeb (along with the more esteemed (list names). We voted on the best press releases of 2009. PRWeb supplied the list of 10 press releases that got the most clicks. We didn’t have guidelines but just compared them on our opinions.

What I love most is that there are mostly small businesses. The press release from Better Homes and Gardens was high on the list. I love that they led with the story not their brand name.

Here are the winners and judges.

I noticed one of the winning companies is from Utah – in a city I lived in last year. So I called them up to see how they made the list. Appigo was #8 in the judges estimates.-Here’s the press release from Appigo -  titled Appigo Focuses on Quality iPhone OS 3.0 Apps

It has a nice use of keywords in the URL — but I’m surprised they didn’t use the same keywords in the press release itself as links back to their site. The keywords are  “iphone  application”  http://www.prweb.com/releases/iphone/application/prweb2543494.htm).

Notice the lack of hyperbole – most just give the facts and are not overly promotional or flashy.

I spoke with Boyd Timothy, one of the founders of Appigo a company that was started a year ago (so it’s a new company probably with a very limited budget for PR). They have sent out a total of 4 press releases, all about their products. Boyd said that their iPhone application TODO was already popular. It was just missing one feature – the ability send alerts or reminders.

Then Apple announced that they were going to support push notification. That created a lot of buzz. A lot of their competitiors rushed to get a product out but they wanted to take the time to release a quality app. So Boyd did something brilliant. He sent out a press release about their intention to upgrade their app to include alerts. When the news was hot. That press release outperformed the one they sent out a few month later about the acutal product release.

Boyd was quick to point out that he’s a programmer not a marketer. Still, he was savvy enough to try his hand at it after someone suggested it at an iPhone developer’s group he belongs to. First he sent it to PRMac.com and then he started to use PRWeb. He doesn’t track results or know how sales have been impacted because it’s tough to track actual sales. However, the press release was one of the few ways he promoted the news. He did say on this particular release he tried to focus more on keywords.

In a nutshell these are his top 3 success factors.
- A great product made public through a press release.
- Sent a press release while the news was hot and there was buzz rather than waiting for the perfect time.
- Added keywords to his press release.

He said his biggest surprise with press releases is how long it takes to write them! I have to agree (and it’s why I charge a bit to write them and would often rather teach you to write your own).

Thanks Boyd for your time and I hope to interview more of the winners about the results of their press release efforts.

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