Coveragebook is an online PR solution that automates the compilation of PR coverage books. Users input the url links of their online PR coverage, and Coveragebook pulls in screenshots, as well as website visits, social shares & Domain Authority from sources like SimilarWeb & Moz. Users can customize each coverage book by choosing to show/hide metrics, apply high impact backgrounds, add their own commentary, and then share online or print. Coveragebooks also stores all past…
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Help a Reporter Out (HARO), discontinued
Score 5.0 out of 10
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Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was a service owned by Cision (via the merger with Vocus) for reaching out to journalists. It is discontinued.
Coveragebook is great for any organization that needs to regularly track client media coverage or even just trending news stories to send to clients in a professional looking report. It is ideal for small, medium, and large PR and marketing firms. For firms or companies more focused on internal communications, this would not be a regularly used tool. For those focused on external communications, it's a must-have tool that helps save time and makes it easier for people at every level of an organization to create branded coverage reports that are easy to download or link to and share with clients
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was (and today, HERO is) an incredibly valuable tool that effectively bridges the gap between journalists and PR practitioners, and it filled a need on both ends. A perfect solution to an ongoing industry problem. When I have a client that needs media coverage, and a lead is shared in the daily email that fits the client's expertise, it creates an opportunity that we may never have otherwise been able to identify.
More ability to customize cover (title page) of report
Provide total (collective) backlinks for all pieces of coverage as a metric (currently you can only do one at a time)
Allow custom metrics for the offline coverage (currently, you can only add add'l info in the comments section so it looks like a quote vs. numerous metrics on the slides for online clippings)
I've noticed that some queries are incredibly vague to the point where they could or could not apply to me. I feel like they should implement more strict parameters on what the query has to include.
Sometimes the outlet is marked anonymous which is not beneficial at all to those who are browsing queries. I think the outlet should be required as that is a pretty essential piece of information to consider.
I think they email slightly too often. My inbox gets flooded with HARO emails and I'm not able to go through all of them because they get buried. Maybe explore a new strategy to organize the huge amount of queries that get submitted every day.
Coveragebook is incredibly easy to use--so easy to use that we've never run into any issues that required additional support from the Coveragebook team. In the event that there is an issue, they have a detailed help section on the website with answers to FAQs to assist professionals at every step of the process.
I didn't look too closely at the other services above because it was quickly apparent that they do different things than Coveragebook. We were looking for a reporting and valuation tool but didn't need help creating or distributing releases or finding client mentions. (Our PR programs are very targeted towards relevant trade press; we aren't looking for thousands of mentions in any/all media outlets.) Coveragebook accomplishes all the tasks we required at a reasonable price.
They are different tools. While HARO pretty much gives you feedback on media opportunities you can pitch for and allows you to get in touch with the reporter, so you can get exposure and they can find people for their news. Cision allows you to syndicate your press releases. You need to have a written press release in order to use it.
The ROI is mostly on time. I used to spend hours upon hours designing and inputting information for reports. Now, Coveragebook does all of the hard work for me.
A hard thing to measure in terms of actual sales dollars, however, being able to provide fresh content is essential to any brand. When someone mentions they saw the published piece or it grows organically from social media, that is a win.
