PR Enablement Technology Platforms: Feature-by Feature Comparison

In this post, I’ll tell you how Cision’s product offering compares to their competitors and update you on where the other platforms are, feature-by-feature.

Like sales enablement technology, which accelerates the sales process by automating manual task and creating repeatable sequences, PR enablement technology does the same think for public relations.

Companies in this space all refer to their solutions differently, but after spending the last 5 years building revenue stacks to align sales, marketing and service, I like the phrase PR Enablement Technology Platform, cause I think it describes best what all-in-one software providers catering to public relations practitioners do.

More on those those specific features later, but first let me say how rewarding it is to see Cision — the market leader in a sector I helped create — sell for unicorn numbers.

I was down at the PRSA International Conference yesterday and I met with folks from Cision, Intrado, Meltwater and iPRSoftware, saw their products and this is my state of the PR Enablement Technology Platforms comparison post for 2019.

I saw this day coming. I founded iPRSoftware, the smallest of the 4 full-stack, PR enablement technology platform providers many moons ago. Today, I’m a minority shareholder and totally uninvolved in the day-to-day operations of the company.

But just as I thought it would, the internet forever changed the way organizations communicate and the way people consume media and information.

Today’s media relations professional uses on average, 3.5 different technology platforms each day, switching from system to system to get their job done.

Just as sales relies on a CRM and modern marketers rely on marketing automation, PR enablement technology platforms give media relations professionals a single technology solution, which lets them monitor what’s being said in the news and online, build lists of journalists and influencers to pitch, publish content an online newsroom, promote company news through a news wire services, email and social media and measure and report their results.

Market leader Cision originally started (by another name) as a news media contact database service. If you were in media relations and had a healthcare-related press release, for example, you used Cision’s directory to see who covers your news beat, find their contact information and build a media list of who you to send your announcement to.

In 2014 Cision merged with a PR software company named Vocus and in 2015 Cision they bought PRNewswire for $841M. Last summer they acquired Austin-based PR monitoring, analytics and social influencer database company Trend Kite for $225M.

Traditionally, advertising gets handled by marketing, and media relations is handled by public relations.

Cision’s PR enablement platform is the first to cross the gap between...

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