I don't know if you are aware of this, but on January 25, 2010 Best Buy announced their scholarship opportunity for college bound students. Best Buy is awarding 1,000 scholarships of $1,000 to students in grades 9 through 12 living in the United States. The students must be planning to enter as a full time undergraduate student after graduation, and can come from public, private, alternative or home school backgrounds. A total of $1 million will be awarded.
Showing committment to helping today's youth is great for Best Buy, afterall today's youth will be tomorrow's leaders! The students will be judged by their committment and involvement in community service or work experience, with high academic standing.
This scholarship opportunity was annouced by Best Buy in a press release. The press release contains all of the important information necessary for those who are interested in the opportunity and is located on Best Buy's corporate page.
Business Wire picked up the press release on January 25. Many websites picked up the release, including but not limited to streetinsider.com, smartbrief.com, msn.com, cnn.com and Reuters UK. The New York Times also picked up the press release from Business Wire.
Sending the press release to Business Wire was a good idea for Best Buy because many websites picked up the release from Business Wire. It also got the announcement released in The New York Times which has an extremely high circulation.
As far as online media hits, I would say that Best Buy was successful. Many websites picked up the announcement which is good because so many people are getting their news online instead of more traditional media. As far as newspapers, I don't think it was successful. A search of the top twenty circulated newspapers in the United States only provided the release in The New York Times and not in any other large papers.
Best Buy did a good job with this announcement overall. It is in the news center on Best Buy's corporate page and sending it to Business Wire got the release on many online news websites. To make it better, I would have tried to get the announcement into more major newspapers. Focusing on pitching editors at traditional newspapers would get the announcement in both traditional and non-traditional news media which would cover all target markets.
Could Best Buy have already tried to pitch larger online newspapers? Possibly. That is definitely the area that they could have had a higher success rate with this announcement. Overall, this announcement was well publicized. It even made it to the SAT College Prep website, which is viewed by thousands of high school students who would love a chance at this scholarship!
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