For any company, the regular flow of news is critical. Key constituents – including customers, partners, employees, the financial community, and the media – are always looking for more information about your firm. They want to be updated on what is happening at your company, and this includes sales figures, new customer wins, technical innovations, and corporate achievements and awards.
As a result, what is needed every so often is what the PR trade calls a “momentum release.” A momentum release is a summary of positive corporate news over a period of time that is rolled into a press release. By recapping key positive metrics and relevant, interesting company news, PR pros can keep key constituencies informed and likely gain additional coverage.
These reputation-enhancing releases build a narrative of corporate accomplishment. For any reasonably successful company, sourcing content is relatively easily, particularly so if there is good communication between departments. They are more effective when paired with other news, and PR should seek out interesting data, including research findings, and thought leadership elements, like predictions for the coming year, to include. New executive hires, increases in headcount and geographic expansion are also indicators of success which should be included when one is talking “momentum.”
While momentum releases typically do not result in media coverage, they do help place companies on the radar of target journalists. In some cases, they can be a cornerstone of a profile piece or set a journalist off on the path of exploring an industry or sector that they were previously unaware (or marginally aware) of. That’s because even the most diligent journalists can’t cover every company, and educating reporters about new and emerging players is part of our role as PR practitioners. These kinds of introductions are relatively easy, given the eye-popping growth numbers that startups and tech companies can achieve; financial metrics can clearly demonstrate the economic potential and viability of markets.
If you’re working in an established industry sector, momentum releases will help ensure that your firm is included in industry roundup articles. They’re also important in existing markets because they help codify your firm’s position in the market by illustrating to the media – via documented facts – that your company or client is important.
Momentum releases are also useful in the context of an ongoing PR calendar, because they are useful for filling in any gaps in a regular cadence of releases. They also enable the dissemination of the small news announcements that don’t merit an individual release, yet are still worthy of publicizing. A comprehensive momentum release can also help with search engine ranking when released through any of the popular wire services. And momentum content can be broken up into individual news bites and reused as social media posts.
In the end, the momentum release is a highly useful, value-added tool in the PR practitioner’s toolkit, and they can be instrumental in building a long-lasting and positive narrative for your company or client.
