BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The prestigious SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards were announced at a gala event last night and Get City Dealz, SEO-PR, and Business Wire won the 2013 Excellence in New Communications Award in the Visual Media Category of the Corporate Division. The three companies won for their test to see if an online video news release, a photo press release, or a release without multimedia would generate better results for three local merchants promoting their best daily deals in New Orleans.
Relatively few press releases include multimedia. The reason is obvious: The costs of creating, optimizing, and distributing a multimedia news release is relatively higher than a regular press release, but the benefits are unknown.
So, Get City Dealz, a technology company in New Orleans that specializes in assisting merchants in promoting their businesses on its deal platform, SEO-PR, the content marketing agency that pioneered press release SEO, and Business Wire, the global leader in press release distribution, conducted a test in February 2013 to find out if including a video or photo in a press release generated better results than a news release which didn’t include multimedia.
Get City Dealz created three similar press releases. Each one featured a different local merchant that offered a daily deal or local bargain in New Orleans on the recently launched Get City Dealz platform. Each of the press releases was distributed via Business Wire at 6:30 a.m. on successive Saturday mornings in February.
The first release for Jazzy Nola went out on Feb. 2 and included a video. The second release for Orleans Grapevine went out on Feb. 9 and included a photo. The third release for Glam 504 went out on Feb. 23 and didn’t include multimedia. The target audiences for all three press releases were more than 1 million tourists and 5,000 media members who were converging on New Orleans for two major events – “The Big Game” and Mardi Gras.
By April 1, the first press release with a video had 5,059 release views and 230 link clicks, according to Business Wire’s NewsTrak Reports. The video, which was uploaded to YouTube, also had 69 views. The second release with a photo had 3,406 release views and 181 link clicks. The third release with no multimedia had 3,255 release views and 169 link clicks. So, the release with a video had 55.4% more release views and 36.1% more link clicks and the release with a photo had 4.6% more release views and 7.1% more link clicks than the release with no multimedia. Together, the three releases had 11,720 release views and 580 link clicks.
SEO-PR used the Google Analytics URL Builder to tag the links in the three releases. This enabled the team to see that visitors from press releases visited an average of 3.12 pages per visit and spent an average of 2 minutes and 16 seconds for the duration of a visit. It also enabled the team to see that 72% of the visits from the releases were new, compared the site average of 42%.
Pat Hall, CEO of Get City Dealz, said, “We saw an 85% increase in referral traffic in February over January. This came from news sites like Yahoo! Finance and Reuters as well as social media like Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest. We saw a 407% increase in organic search traffic in February over January. Plus, the number of unique visitors to GetCityDealz.com on weekends doubled in February over January.”
Greg Jarboe, President of SEO-PR, added, “The online video news release for Jazzy Nola featured some unique wine tumblers made in a distinctly New Orleans style with a gold fleur de lis imprinted on the tumbler. The release helped sell out of the order of wine tumblers, which were great for tourists and visitors wandering the French Quarter during ‘The Big Game’ or on the Mardi Gras parade route.”
Laura Sturaitis, Executive Vice President of Media Services & Product Strategy at Business Wire, concluded, “The online video news release also mentioned that Jazzy Nola was promoting their Roger Goodell voodoo dolls. At the press conference before ‘The Big Game’, the media asked Goodell about the voodoo dolls and he joked that he’d read about them. They also sold out in a matter of days.”
The SNCR Award is the second honor that Get City Dealz, SEO-PR, and Business Wire have received for their test. Last month, the three companies won the award for the Best Use of PR in a Search Campaign at the inaugural U.S. Search Awards.
