15 of the Finest Public Relations Tools for 2022

As a business or brand owner, two thoughts trigger every step you take and every decision you make concerning your business and brand. These thoughts are: “how to make huge sales” and “how to do better than your competitors”, and these boil down to one thing – which is getting your Public Relations Tools right!

Back when things were done manually and outside the social space, the tools obtainable were newsletters, advertorials, flyers, posters, pamphlets, radio and television broadcasting, etc. Still, these manual tools can only do as much as their capacity can do.

But now that everything has been moved online and digital, the coverage and effectiveness of Public Relations have been taking up several notches using relevant digital PR tools that make the job less tedious and more productive.

Statistics say:

• In 2019, the public relations industry generated $14.07 billion in the US
• In 2020, the global PR market size was worth around $50.1 billion
• About 88% of PR professionals believe the future of the field lies in digital storytelling
• In 2020, PR budgets for the top 100 communicating corporations dwindled by 13%

What Are PR Tools?

Before we go into the core of this article, let’s talk a bit about what these are and how they can help to top public relation companies.

These tools help you connect with clients interested in what you do, help you reach a wider reach, and help you create relevant content for your target audience.

In basic terms, we can define public relations tools as the tools brands and businesses relay relevant marketing messages to their target consumers. They can be classified as both small business software and enterprise tools.

In summary, the job of these tools is to help breed positive public behaviors towards your business so that prospective customers are converted into customers who patronize you.

Now that we know what digital PR tools are and how they can be implemented as digital agency services, it is high time to get into the nitty-gritty of this article – highlighting 15 digital tools/software that you need to try out.

Let’s not forget to mention that there are different types of tools, but this article has helped you streamline the long list and handpicked the best 15 you can bet on.

The Best Public Relations Tools for Brands & Businesses

1. Cision

Known for offline and online use, Cision is a media cloud-based software that affords users amazing features such as social media management (monitoring and reporting of social media engagements and publishing content on social media platforms).

Another pivot benefit of Cision to brand management and growth is that it also helps to monitor your competitor’s performance on social media platforms. This helps you stay abreast of what your competitors are doing on social media.

Not to forget to mention that should you desire to find contacts of media personnel that would help with your marketing campaign, that is, editors, producers, bloggers, writers, and reporters, Cision is right there to help you generate a robust contact list of reputable persons.

With Cision’s public relations software, you can create customized messages to reach out to these persons.

For your press release distribution, influencer location and identification, content marketing, social media platform analytics, and monitoring, Cision is your go-to PR tool.

Saying that Cision is a multipurpose PR tool is an understatement of the century.

To purchase Cision software is a bit dicey as the cost depends on the particular features that you need. According to Prowly, the price of Cision was quoted to have cost “$5700 for a single media database license, and additional users available at $1275 each” in 2014. 

To get a recent price, kindly consult the sales team at Cision, and before you make your purchase, take advantage of the 20-minutes free demo window to have an idea of what you are spending money on.

2. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

An offspring of Cision, HARO is one of those PR tools that helps connect bloggers, journalists, and brand owners in a ‘love triangle’ that is beneficial to all of them. For journalists and bloggers, this tool helps them get content and quotes from credible sources, which they share with the public.

For this group of people, HARO helps them garner exciting and amazing content and quotes through crowdsourcing. On the other side of the coin, for you, the business owner, HARO helps you get featured in reputable news outlets, publications, and blogs such as Fox News, CNN, Forbes, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Allure, etc.

All you have to do to get featured is to find a relevant question and give a suitable response to it, and there you are, being featured for the whole world to get to know! Get on HARO now, and tell your story like you want it told.

There are four subscription plans on HARO, and although almost every user claims that the Basic Plan, which is free, is their best choice, you can subscribe to other plans such as The Standard ($19/monthly), The Advanced ($49) and The Premium ($149).

3. Ninja Outreach

If marketing via social media influencing is what you want for your PR measurement activity, then Ninja Outreach is your best bet. With this PR tool, you can easily search and find the direct contacts of Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram influencers that you can bring on board.

The good thing about this tool is that it gives room for a narrowed search that gives you a media list of influencers relevant to your product/service and brand. There is a free 7-day trial period that you can enjoy on Ninja Outreach before you get on the Flex Plan (which costs $119/month).

4. Muck Rack

If you are a PR newbie, we would advise that you stop reading at this point because this is one of the tools for PR that might not be for you. It is super sophisticated. But if you are not green behind the ears, then keep reading. Muck Rack is a tool that helps users search for media contacts that they can liaise with seamlessly. 

Through this tool, you can make your findings on the media personnel, their exposure range, and niche, as this information will guide you in creating specific pitches that you can share with these media contacts.

Also, with Muck Rack, you can get informed whenever anyone shares anything about you or your brand on social media platforms.

Requesting a free demo will help you begin your journey. To know about pricing, get in touch with the Muck Rack team.

5. Coveragebook

Should you need to create a presentation for your clients using reports from external sources, all you need to do is employ Coveragebook, one of the best public relations tools for this aspect!

With this tool, all you need to do is attach the links to posts and pages that your brand has been featured on, and voila! You have a beautiful, professional, and well-structured presentation ready in no time.

There are three plans to subscribe to with Coveragebook there is the Bronze plan ($99/month), The Silver plan ($199/month), and The Gold plan ($499/month). And of course, there is a free trial to try out!!

6. Buzzstream

There are a lot of brands and businesses that don’t care for other types of PR approaches but would pitch their tents with email outreach and maybe a bit of social media influencing any day.

If you are in this category, then Buzzstream is the best PR software for you! With the help of Buzzstream, you can do the following:

• Searching for prospective customers or influencers
• Searching for their email addresses
• Then sending emails to them
• And also tracking the rate at which they reply to the emails.

These are the awesome perks that you can get with Buzzstream.

Buzzstream doesn’t have a free plan, but you can get on the Starter’s Plan for $24 per month. And there are other plans such as the Group (going for $99 a month, Professional (which goes for $299 a month and Custom (which goes for $999 a month)

Check out all of the features on their plans page.

7. Prowly

Some pitches get journalists bored and uninterested in the brand and the person behind the brand and some pitches make journalists become chum with you.

The difference between these two media relations outcomes is Prowly. It is one of those public relations tools in marketing that can make journalists and other media contacts start eating from your palm. Ditch irrelevant pitches and create interactive and professional press releases from a journalist-friendly newsroom using Prowly.

Also, with Prowly, you can find contacts of important media personnel and send customized email pitches to the media personnel. What’s more? You can group your media contacts through the use of tags. You can group them by location, amount of value they add to you, your relationship with them, etc.

To start, you can enjoy a 7-day free trial, after which you can choose amongst the subscription plans such as The Basic Plan (costs $115/month), The Pro (costs $255/month), and The Premium (costs $549/month).

8. Prezly

When it comes to saving numerous media contacts without hassles, choosing to work with Prezly is one of the best PR tools any brand owner can acquire.

With this streamlined contact list, you can easily connect with anyone you want without going through any stress. Also, sending lots of image-imbedded emails is a breeze with Prezly!

Not to forget to mention that Prezly helps you create different types of communication with different people from one place, be it the media, a community, funders, target consumers, office communication, you can easily collaborate with them; from one spot.

The icing on the cake for Prezly is that it does well in helping to create amazing press releases from a professional-looking newsroom and aids a smooth delivery of the news cum pitches to the right media contacts!!

Prezly’s plans range from about $265 to $400 a month. But before you throw in your Cash, there is a free demo session for you to enjoy!!

9. Mention

If you are all about monitoring your brand’s performance and your competitors online, then opt for Mention, one of the finest PR monitoring tools out there.

This tool aids in successfully carrying out the following: analyzing your competitors and their performance online (especially on social media platforms) and, monitoring how your brand is doing out there, learning how to be better via your online engagements.

With Mention, you can monitor your brand and even engage with your audience.

Not to forget to mention that Mention helps you stay abreast of the diverse trends coming up on Social Media every day and helps you select which trends you should jump on for bigger coverage!

Starting with the 14-day free trial, you can kick start your use of Mention immediately!

10. Anewstip

This tool has a lot to offer you, but allow me envelope all these features in just five key points that I am going to highlight below:

• Anewstip is one of those public relations tools that can help you search and get lists and details of media contacts that are important to your brand’s niche.
• Anewstip helps you create beautiful, attention-grabbing PR reports in the twinkle of an eye
• It also helps create alerts using your brand’s terms and target audience
• With Anewstip, you can monitor global media content, your brand’s performance, and also your competitor’s performance, while in the last point,
• Lastly, this is a place where you can sell yourself and your brand via well-constructed pitches to media contacts

There are different plans for Anewstip. You can choose the free option, or you can decide to subscribe to either the Standard Plan (which costs $200 a month), Professional Plan (which costs $400 a month), or The Partner Plan (which is custom made and you can learn more about it on their “partner page”).

11. PRnews.io

There is so much that PRnews can do for you. First off, with this PR tool, you can search and sieve thousands of websites to get real ones where you can publish your articles in no time. You can even go deeper to check the audiences’ Engagements and metrics of the website or blog space.

That’s not all! PRnews.io is among the most intriguing tools for public relations and via your custom-made online newsroom, you can create and distribute brand stories that you can send to these websites and personally to well-curated relevant media juggernauts on your list.

You can upload, share, edit, and distribute with just a few clicks while awaiting feedback.

The best part of this tool is the availability of an online support system that can aid a successful and hitch-free press release creation and distribution.

There is no candid stating of the pricing of the PRnews.io tool anywhere online and offline, but if we are to go by what they quote on their home page, starting price is $1.00. 

12. Mynewsdesk

This public relations tool allows users to search, collate and manage the contacts of relevant digital personnel in one place. Asides from that, Mynewsdesk helps you not just to create amazing digital multimedia content, but you will share this content in one optimized webspace.

You can merge all your content to send to either your email contacts, social media platforms, your newsroom, or all simultaneously. Do you want to hire the services of bloggers, media contacts, and influencers in telling your brand’s story, Mynewsdesk will help you achieve that with just one click.

You can enjoy the free demo before you subscribe to any paid plans. To get the pricing of the plans, kindly get in touch with the sales team.

13. Buzzsumo

With Buzzsumo, one of the rare public relations tools that offer competitor analysis, users can search for different topics on any website.

For people in business such as you, the benefit of Buzzsumo to you and your brand is that it helps you know what your competitors are up to. What they are doing right and what they are doing wrongly. Having this information can go a long way to help you not make their mistakes and replicate what they are doing correctly.

Also, with Buzzsumo, you can know what type of marketing content is trending and how you can incorporate that content into your marketing campaign.

Influencing is another forte that you can find at Buzzsumo. This is where you can identify trending creators, influencers, and authors who can promote your brand. There is a 30-day trial period with Buzzsumo. Hence you have more than enough opportunities at your fingertips to sample this tool.

After the trial period, you can choose between the different plans. There is the Free plan, the Pro plan (which costs $99 a month), The Plus Plan (which costs $179 a month and the Large Plan (which costs $299 a month).

14. Brand24

If you are a brand owner or manager who is particular about what everyone is saying about your brand, then Brand24 is for you. With the Brand24 tool, you can monitor and hear/read everything that everyone mentions about your brand.

Should your brand be mentioned anywhere, either on the web or on social media platforms, this tool is among the few PR measurement tools that will notify you via daily or weekly email alerts.

Brand24 features a free 14-day trial that you can try out! After that, you can choose from any of the different subscription plans: The Plus Plan (which costs $49 a month), The Premium Plan (which costs $99 a month), and The Max Plan (which costs $199 a month).

15. Moosend

Email marketing is one of the best activities that help brands and businesses get closer to their clients. But it is one thing to do email marketing, and it is another thing to do it the right way. The Moosend email automation tool is the right tool to use to employ email marketing the right way!

With Moosend, you can send bulk emails to your customers and prospective customers based on information from your sales funnel templates. What is more is that with Moosend, you can personalize your email messages according to your client’s needs. Also, segmenting your mailing list is another top perk of Moosend!

There is a 30-day free trial period that you can enjoy. And there are the paid plans such as The Pro plan (which costs $9 a month) and The Enterprise plan (which is a custom plan).

Wrapping Up the Best Public Relations Tools

Brand owners and managers are always in the market for the next big PR tool, but just a few of them understand that searching for the best tool largely depends on their PR needs. Hence, this list includes different types of PR tools that solve different digital marketing problems.

Of course, we can go on and on mentioning a lot of PR tools for you, but what is imperative is for you to find the exact ones that would profit your brand/business immensely, hence why we have limited the list such that you can easily go through and find one or two or even three that you need!

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