Founded by journalists with a background in communication, netPRess has been designed with the media in mind to help make their lives easier, while supporting business people’s need to promote and market their businesses to their target audiences.

The directors

Founder and director Vicki Wilson trained in graphic design, before gaining extensive experience in printing and publishing. During her career she has held a variety of event management roles, established a design and communications business in Australia and set up and launched a successful community newspaper with a fortnightly circulation of 19,000.

Non-executive director and freelance business journalist Lesley Springall has been with NetPRess since its inception and played a crucial role in getting NetPRess off the ground. Prior to becoming a partner in NetPRess, she spent ten years in London in corporate and financial public relations before crossing the world and the big PR-Journalism divide and becoming a business journalist. Lesley’s journalistic experience includes several years with the infamous national business publication, the Independent Business Weekly, and the Sunday Star Times and National Radio.

Why netPRess?

As journalists Vicki and Lesley found their lives blighted by a constant stream of ill-targeted, badly researched press releases. Though both admit some press releases lead to useful story ideas, the sheer volume hitting journalists’ desks - often on deadline, and often from the same companies - made it easier to delete or file them in the waste basket.

But given that press releases can trigger ideas for stories and list contact details, this meant that valuable story ideas and contacts were sometimes lost. What both wanted was a resource they could choose to access when they needed a story idea or a contact to call.

At the same time they found many businesses often lacked the money or resources to promote themselves effectively to the media. The vast majority didn’t have dedicated PR resources helping market their business, yet often had the best stories to tell.

Thus netPRess was born, allowing businesses to list their spokespeople on a dedicated media site; access useful information to help promote themselves through the media; and say what they want to say, affordably, without driving the media away, while at the same time, providing a central resource for media wishing to find story ideas and contacts from a range of different business sectors and regions.

Check out what our subscribers say about netPRess

Well back in November 2006 when I first joined Netpress I emailed you to say that I’d received contact from NZ Women’s Weekly only 2 weeks after submitting a story on Netpress. That was great fun, and great for business too.

Well, now I have to report to you that I have topped this! Back in July 2007 I submitted a press release to Netpress written by my sister and myself. We loaded this onto your site on a Sunday night. The following Monday I had a call from a reporter at the Sunday Star Times who wanted the exclusive. They came and interviewed me and we had another photo shoot. The following week their paper came out and I started to receive a lot of enquiries through my website.

Well, what happened next I would never have imagined. Really the media grabbed the story and it kind of snowballed. There were discussions on Danny Watson’s talk back show for around 2 hours with people calling in expressing their thoughts, the story headlined in 2 or 3 other newspapers around the country, I did a radio interview on MoreFM, and the manufacturers of the product (that I had written my press release about) ended up on the John Campbell show on TV3 for about 20 minutes (and again my website and logo were featured on his show). The manufacturers also featured on the Australian Today Show.

The story also featured on Scoop which from there it ended up being discussed on many blog sites and internet forums. All of these internet sites used images from my website and direct links back to my website.

AMAZING.

This resulted in my website crashing twice due to the amount of traffic, so upgrades were quickly put into place. And the number of orders received from around NZ and the rest of the world has just been amazing. My business has just had so much exposure since this story broke. (and the good thing is that it is pregnant mothers that are purchasing products, which means they’ll know to come and buy their breastfeeding products from Breastmates when they need them too!) Thank you, thank you, thank you – I’m in love with NetPRess. This has been the best advertising tool ever – and it’s free too!

Frances McInnes, Director

www.breastmates.co.nz

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your newsletters and the great ‘food’ within. We have had so much on our plate this year that I have not used your service as yet, but I thrive on the tips and updates. Really looking forward to a day (very soon I hope) when I can sit and write our first ever press release – we need all the help we can get. Thanks again and well done.

Ada Davis – Manager

Arches Lodge www.arches.co.nz

Within 3 weeks of uploading my press release on NetPRess, I was interviewed by ‘Canterbury Today’ for an editorial on my business in their April 2007 edition. This editorial will reach 22,000 businesses throughout the South Island - my target market! From my prospective, it couldn't be better. Vicki I would like to thank you for your fantastic help and support in promoting my new business venture. For a small business, having written a press release, it is time consuming and quite daunting to know which editors to approach with your news. NetPRess is a streamlined solution and an excellent promotional tool for targeting media sources.

Rachel Wells, General Manager

TouchScreen Marketing & Research www.tsmr.co.nz

NetPRess is a good site and a good service. We are Sydney-based, where we produce a weekly newsletter, bi-monthly glossy magazine and 24/7 web site on retailing, and a weekly for Australia on the food and FMCG sector. It’s useful being able to know [netPRess e-alerts] when something relevant is up there to access – a way of checking we’re receiving all the information out there we should be.

Robert Stockdill, Publisher

Inside Retailing Online www.insideretailing.com.au

Your netPRess service is a great idea and I will certainly be keeping an eye on the info coming through in the future.

Homestyle magazine www.homestylemagazine.co.nz

This is just a quick note to thank you and to let you know NetPRess is the tool for NZ PR and communication managers. Thanks for supplying the industry with a grown up, opt-in tool for getting your message direct to journalists: no ineffectual scattergun approach; no invading editor’s in boxes with press releases they don't want; and it enables journalists to access your story when they want it! It's so easy to use and as well as media hits, we've generated new business opportunities through the site.

Core Communications www.core-online.co.nz

Just letting you know I've picked up a couple of releases off your site that could be of interest to the two free monthly papers I edit in North Rodney. Together, my papers circulate to more than 11,500 households and businesses in an area that is now NZ’s fastest growing. I think it could be very valuable for publications like mine to be able to dip into a news pool like this on an as-needs basis. Keep up the good work.

Local Matters www.localmatters.co.nz

Signing up to netPRess has been a great move for my business. I immediately received enquiries from the Business Directory alone! Thank you netPRess.

Paramount Business Solutions www.yoursuccess.co.nz

My thanks to HomeBiz Buzz for telling me about netPRess, and to netPRess for the opportunity. I uploaded a press release and on Monday (18th) I was contacted by Rebecca Milne of the NZ Women’s Weekly. She has arranged for photographs to be taken on Monday (25th) and will interview me over the phone. As you can imagine, I’m very excited about the potential for this national promotion – I’ll let you know how things go and, should they choose to proceed, which issue I’ll be in.

Personal Style Limited www.personal-style.co.nz