Are press releases a good idea for a bootstrapped company when launching a product?

Yes. You can write them yourself and, if you do some homework, get them run without paying money in many markets. It may take a few iterations before the "big boys" will listen to you, but it's something you can build over time. However, you have to write a good press release that conforms to the norm. There's some good (and cheap) books on doing this.

I've had huge success doing this in the past, especially with non-traditional publications for the products I was in--as those publications weren't getting a lot of PR about products like mine. Get creative.

Yes BUT They are valuable in that they create a foundation for the media relationship you want to have with the industry as a company. That said, they will almost never get the attention of the media so don't expect much coverage or interest because of them.

Set up a blog and make sure you evangelize the new features or services from there. Link to relevant influencers' blogs and you'll get their attention by showing your support.

Network. You need to create relationships with the media and bloggers if you hope to have their coverage. This is the role a PR firm really plays early on (they already have those relationships); until you can afford one, do what you do best as an entrepreneur - reach out and say hello!

Press releases are a useful tool; you'll find that there is another question in the wiki about writing a press release.

If you use press releases, make sure you write something of interest to the media you are pitching. I get a lot of press releases every day, occassionally a handful are relevant to me, but most often they go directly into a storage file or the trash.

You can do it yourself and send the releases out, but occassionally it's a good idea to spend money to release it through the wires. We did this when we launched our site and got coverage in most mainstream papers; we did not have the resources to coordinate this amount of coverage on our own.

Also, if you send it out yourself, make a list of recipients and follow-up.

A useful way to get attention is to piggy-back your story on something that is prominent in the news at the time it is sent. That is, you link the relevance of your product to a major news event.

Here's an example - an entrepreneur was launching a used bookstore (Re-reading) in Toronto and he piggy-backed his story onto a very hot topic at the time: the recession. His pitch? That he quit a secure day job at the height of the recession to start a business. The result? He got covered in at least 3 major media outlets in Toronto and in one his story took up half of the front page of the business section in the Toronto Star. You can't buy coverage like that.

Another example that comes to mind is Freshbooks. They have piggy-backed the story of their business on the topic of social media, presenting themselves as a case study of how a business is using Twitter as a customer support channel. They've had some good media coverage as a result.

We had the same question early on with our startup, will a press release really do anything? Ultimately it's not going to have a dramatic impact, especially when you're just starting out. But, if you land any clients that are willing to participate in a "new client" type of release, I think it can have an impact, especially if you leverage it across all the other social media sites such as Twitter/FaceBook/LinkedIn, etc.

A cheap/free press release site we've used is prfree.com. Be careful when using their service. Even though they have free in their name, they do a great job upselling you on all the additional services. Still, if you have discipline, use the basic free service to send out a free press release. It will still be picked up by a few other sites and it's worth the effort. Then Tweet about your new client/new product offering and reference your press release. And if you want to track who's clicking on your press release link, I recommend juicytags. FULL DISCLAIMER....I'm the owner of this service...but there are many others out there that will do this for you too. Bottom line, I think it's important you're measuring the impact these type of releases have.

I've rarely seen press releases work, for technology products anyway. What almost always happens is you write them, submit them. The bots pick them up but humans ignore them. Although occasionally - very occasionally - they just run them word for word.

What has worked is building personal relationships with journalists / influential bloggers, and then pitching them, very personally, an interesting story. A very different skill though.

Here was my experience with press releases:

Press releases great, press release distribution services worthless

I'll just cover this one first because it's the first thing most people think of when they think of promoting a new company, not because it's the most effective.

Press releases can be fairly powerful tools, the problem is a lot of people either don't understand their purpose or how to use them. A press release is rarely going to generate traffic or customers, the purpose is to tell a story that will help other people to write about your startup or product. Forget the marketing crap, get straight to the point tell your audience (writers) what your are doing, why it's valuable and also create a vision that makes them interested in writing about you.

As a startup with a small budget, there's no need to pay thousands of dollars to have one professionally written. Even if you don't consider yourself a great writer, it one skill as an entrepreneur you should practice and get used to doing. Look through lots press releases of companies who you feel do a good job of PR and emulate what they do. Get people you respect to read over and give you feedback, and spend some time polishing it.

Don't bother paying money for those expensive online press release distribution services, either. I've probably done a dozen press releases over the years, and NEVER once have they resulted in a write up. Neither have I seen any significant amount of direct traffic generated. Fifty unique visitors for a several hundred dollar distribution is not good ROI.

Get your press release directly into the hands of the people you want to write about you. Email the releases yourself to key bloggers or relevant journalists. Don't spam them, take the time to personally address them and tell them why they should pay attention to you, kinda like submitting a resume with a cover letter. If it's a multi-author blog or news source, approach the jr. writers, they will be more receptive, get one tenth the people contacting them, and often do the majority of the writing. The easier you make the process of them writing about you, the more likely they are to do it.

In order to announce the launch of a startup I worked on, we used PRWeb. I am currently working on another startup, and we used BusinessWire this time. The results were underwhelming in both cases. BusinessWire did give us some links from Yahoo, CNBC,etc. so - it might be good for some SEO juice but nothing much else. Constantly reiterating the product by listening to user feedback, I think, helps gain more traction and overall a better result.