A Publisher's Guide to Effective Financial Industry PR

A Publisher's Guide to Effective Financial Industry PR

Best Practices for Getting Your News Published

By Sam Low, Founder, LiquidityFinder

As someone who receives hundreds of press releases and news submissions, I wanted to share some insights on how financial firms can more effectively work with industry publishers. During a recent panel discussion with Yam Yehoshua from Finance Magnates at FMLS24, we explored the key elements that make for successful PR in our industry. Let me break down the essential guidelines that will help your news get published and reach its intended audience.

First Things First: Let's Talk About Embargoes

One of the more amusing moments in our panel came when Yam shared an example of an embargo that stated the release could be published "after breakfast" - leaving us wondering whose breakfast and in which time zone! This highlights a crucial point about embargo clarity.

When setting embargoes:

1. Specify the exact date and time
2. Always include the time zone (e.g., "Embargo until Thursday, November 28, 2023, 14:00 GMT")
3. Don't use relative times or vague references
4. Consider your global audience and different market hours

TIP - best not to post news on a Friday, especially on a Friday afternoon! See below for some other timing guidelines for embargoes:

Best times:

1. Tuesday through Thursday, 10 AM - 2 PM in your target market time zone
2. When markets are open
3. Early in news cycle for maximum coverage
4. The 1 - 3 days ahead of a relevant and significant industry conference or event (the best!), if it also follows the rules below.

Worst times:

1. Friday afternoons (news gets buried - people's attention is on the weekend, or they are 'down the pub' already)
2. Mondays (competing with weekend news backlog)
3. After 4 PM (journalists are wrapping up)
4. Major holidays or during significant market events (eg Non-Farm Payrolls)
5. During major industry conferences
6. Late afternoon in Europe (US markets closing)

Understanding the Publisher-PR Relationship

Let's be clear about how this relationship works: you're using press releases for marketing, and we're using your content to provide value to our audiences. We are boh looking for traffic. It's a symbiotic relationship that works best when we both understand each other's needs.

At LiquidityFinder, we handle news in two ways:

1) We receive direct submissions from companies

2) We monitor news wires for relevant stories

Important note: Additionally, companies that sign up with LiquidityFinder are free to publish their own content directly (both as news/blog posts and feed posts in our feed) - similar to LinkedIn or other social media channels - with minimal editorial intervention. Companies are free to publish (within obvious reason) what they consider works best for them, whether this is market commentary, announcements about awards, thought leadership pieces etc. However, submissions that require our time (consideration, rewriting, image creation, submission to social media) are more closely scrutinised for newsworthiness and suitability. Some guidance on this aspect of news submission follows.

What Makes a Story Newsworthy?

Yam and I agreed that from our perspective as publishers here's what catches our attention:

1. Significant company developments that impact the industry
2. Genuine innovations or major product launches
3. Strategic partnerships or acquisitions
4. Market-moving announcements

What doesn't make the cut:

1. Minor award announcements
2. Basic sponsorship news
3. Generic market commentary
4. Minor product updates

PR agencies try to submit too many low-threshold announcements (all publicity is good publicity?) in the hope that they get through. Most don't. For example, announcements that company ABC is a proud lead sponsor of an industry event is not news (in my opinion - altough that sponsor would disagree). That company should be thinking that being a lead sponsor of an event is in itself enough publicity no? Otherwise, why do it?

Visual Content is Crucial

This is a major pain point for us as publishers. Yam says that he often tell companies, high-quality visuals can make the difference between a story being published or not. Here's what works best:

1. Image dimensions: 1200 x 628 pixels (optimized for social media)
2. File size: Compressed to around 250kb (I recommend using Canva)
3. Multiple images: Provide 2-3 options for publishers to choose from
4. Professional quality: Avoid recycled LinkedIn profile photos
5. Context shots: Include images of people in their work environment

It is additional work for us if we receive a 7MB photo that we then have to reduce to a more workable size, ultimately, if our sites ae stuffed with large image file sizes, our sites will slow down and be lower ranked by Google etc. It is still possible to submit high quality images in reduced file sizes. There are loads of free tools out there, but Canva is a great all-round tool. (Other tools are Compress PNG, Tiny PNG, Cloud Convert - Cloud Convert is particulary good at converting to different formats such as png, jpeg, svg, ai etc. But there others.)

Providing a selection of images is always appreciated, althoiugh we understand that this is also asking quite a lot from the PR/Marketing agency that is supplying the news article. It is possible to gauge the importance that the agency is giving to an article based on the number and quality of the images supplied.

As Yam highlighted, images of people at their place of work have perhaps the highest value and impact.

Compliance and Approval: A Critical Step

Nothing is more frustrating than having to take down a published story due to compliance issues. In fact, during our panel, we discussed how this happens far too frequently. Before sending your release:

1. Get explicit compliance approval from your firm
2. Ensure all mentioned companies have approved the content
3. Double-check all names and details
4. Confirm image usage rights
5. Have stakeholders review the final version

It is particularly painful having to take down a piece of content on your own site, and then having to go to the various social media channels where it has been published to remove that piece, and then to have repeat that process after a corrected image has been applied. This also applies to the name of someone quoted in a headline, as headlines are the slug, or the URL, that would have been used fotr that piece in social media channels. (Changing someone's name in the body of an article can just be done on our own site with minimal effort.)

Quotes Matter

I always look for strong quotes in submissions. They should:

1. Come from relevant executives
2. Provide genuine insight
3. Add context to the announcement
4. Be properly attributed and approved

I sometimes read quotes from some companies and sigh a little when they just provide something really generic. Quotes are the best opportunities a PR piece has to state the contextual significance of a piece of news. The strongest ones incorporate a market statistic which the audience can lern fromn and genreally is more memorable. The person quoted comes across as an authority / thought leader. It is often a missed opportunity.

The Technical Checklist

Here's Yam and my agreed upon must-haves list for any submission:

1) Clear, factual headline without hyperbole

2) Proper embargo instructions (if applicable)

3) High-quality images in correct dimensions, idealy a selection to choose from

4) High-res brand logos (black on white and white on black - transparent versions are ideal)

5) Quotes from relevant executives

6) Context or industry statistics where relevant

7) Clear contact information

8) Proper fact-checking and verification

A Note About LiquidityFinder

For our platform specifically, companies that sign up have the unique advantage of being able to publish their own content directly, similar to LinkedIn. This gives you more control over your content while still reaching our targeted industry audience. The content can take the form of news articles, blog posts (with active do-follow links) or posts in to the feed timeline, again with active links and images. You have full control over this content from your own publisher-centre on LiquidityFinder. All news articles posted on LiquidityFinder are provided to external users via our RSS feed.

Building Long-Term Relationships

What I value most are companies that understand publishing is about building relationships. The best PR professionals I work with:

1. Provide consistent, high-quality content
2. Respect publishing guidelines
3. Respond quickly to queries
4. Understand the difference between news and marketing
5. Help arrange interviews with key executives for deeper industry insights

Conclusion

Getting your news published effectively isn't just about sending out a press release - it's about understanding how publishers work and what their audiences want. Follow these guidelines, and you'll significantly improve your chances of getting our attention, your news out effectively and building strong relationships with industry publications.

Whether you're working with LiquidityFinder, Finance Magnates, or any other industry publication, the key is to provide valuable, well-prepared content that serves both your marketing needs and our audiences' interests.

Please feel welcone to send your optimised and compliance checled press releases to [email protected]. We are particularly averse to spam!

Thank you to Anton Sokolov, Brokeree Solutions, for the image used at the top of this article.

Author

Sam Low is the Founder of LiquidityFinder. With over 18 years in working with FX trading technology, Sam has deep experience in the FX (forex) trading industry, working with brokers, liquidity providers and end traders themselves.

You can message Sam directly here.