Prowly estimates (rival) PR software pricing; Access Intelligence acquires Isentia; Talkwalker acquires Reviewbox; plus mentions and content picks
Every month I struggle to avoid starting these roundups with “Wow, another month has gone by.” And yet here we are.
Labor Day is done. The weather is cooling. If you are a business owner Q3 taxes are due in eight days.
If you think back to this time a year ago, many of us were coming to grips with the idea the pandemic would be lasting. Now with the variants, it’s like déjà vu.
Here’s the monthly PR Tech Sum rounding news and links from the world of PR technology.
1. Estimating PR software pricing
Many PR tech vendors make it difficult to find pricing information. Yet Gina Nowicki penned a piece that estimates the pricing of PR technology tools for Prowly. The article obviously favorable to Prowly – but the list does look like a reasonable benchmark for starting prices.
Keep in mind what’s included in terms of features (i.e. monitoring or contacts) can vary and impact pricing. Don’t let the list dissuade you from pursuing discounts in exchange for a longer commitment.
She puts prices as follows:
- Cision starts at $7,200 (annually)
- Muck Rack starts at $5,000 (annually)
- Meltwater starts at $4,000 (annually)
- Agility PR starts at $1,000 (annually)
- Propel starts at $199 (monthly, ~$1,200 annually)
- Prowly starts at $189 (monthly)
For your reference, Prowly is based in Warsaw, Poland and the tool is probably better in the European theater than in the U.S. The company was acquired by the SEO tool SEMrush in late 2020.
I found the acquisition interesting because I see an opportunity to marry some simplified versions of backlink and keyword analysis tools to PR – something the incumbent vendors should have been doing 10 years ago. You can also see their SEO expertise at play because pricing is always an important search term for software companies.
SEMrush held its IPO earlier this year and raised $140 million in cash.
Vendors are welcome to clarify pricing if you wish. I’m inclined to include candid, transparent and substantive pricing explanations.
2. Access Intelligence Acquires Isentia
Access Intelligence Plc. (LSE: ACC.L) announced it has closed its acquisition of Isentia, a media monitoring company that operates in “eight geographical markets across Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia working with 2,400 customers.”
Isentia has been doing interesting things with AI and media monitoring, including “boundary detection” for broadcast media. The company was publicly traded on the Australian Stock exchange and did $120 million in sales in 2020.
Access Intelligence Plc. – which is a different company than Access Intelligence, LLC that publishes titles like PR News – owns several related PR tech tools already. These include Pulsar, which is a social media monitoring tool and Vuelio an all-in-one PR software tool based in the UK. Vuelio itself acquired ResponseSource – a ProfNet or HARO style tool – in 2018 for £5.5 million.
The company rationalized the acquisition to investors by saying Isentia has a leading market position in APAC, while it has a leading position in Europe and a “growing presence in the U.S.”
I haven’t seen much evidence of a U.S. presence yet, but it’s worth watching.
3. Talkwalker acquires Reviewbox
Talkwalker acquired Reviewbox – a review management platform. In a press release, the company said the “acquisition will enable Talkwalker to rapidly expand its product review capability and integrate Reviewbox’s e-commerce data, including product reviews, product catalogs, and pricing, into its consumer intelligence platform, providing additional customer insights for its clients.”
According to MarTech, Reviewbox gathers product data “from like Amazon, Walmart and eBay.” The publication says this will complement “Talkwalker’s social and customer data.”
“This continues the growth of our customer intelligence capabilities, to offer brands further insights into all aspects of the customer buying journey,” wrote Talkwalker CEO Tod Nielsen in a post on LinkedIn Pulse. This enables “them to make faster, more intelligent business decisions.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
4. PR tech mentions
- PRgloo social media. PRgloo has rolled out a social media tool for publishing. The feature only works for existing customers and is designed to be a middle ground between free tools like HootSuite and cost-prohibitive premium tools. The tool appears to work for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google.
- Q4 aims to support ESG. Investor relations platform Q4 said it rolled out “industry-focused templates for corporate websites and virtual ESG investor days.” It’s also offering “virtual event expertise to support public companies in delivering compelling virtual investor events focused on ESG.”
- Business Wire and Q4 offer integration. Business Wire partnered up with Q4 to deliver press releases directly to “their investor relations website and corporate newsroom.”
- SocialChorus closes on Dynamic Signal. SocialChorus and Dynamic Signal completed its “previously-announced merger in a transaction led by Sumeru Equity Partners. The combined company will continue to operate under their current brands until a unified brand is announced later in 2021.” SocialChorus was acquired by Sumeru in July of 2020.
- Meltwater growth. “In July 2021, Meltwater grew the Premium Client segment with 45 customers, representing a net growth in annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $3.9M since June and 30% year over year for the Premium segment, including M&A.” Among the clients named are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Alibaba, and AMC Theatres.
5. Content picks
- Strategic planning. “Organizations must actively prepare to respond to future disruptions and anticipate change. Executive leaders should evaluate the use of technological, political, economical, social/cultural, trust/ethics, regulatory/legal, and environmental (TPESTRE) – what Gartner refers to as a ‘Tapestry’ – factors and analysis to identify relevant accelerators and inhibitors.” (Bulldog Reporter / Agility PR)
- Print circulation drops again. “…America’s top 25 largest newspapers have lost 20% of their weekday print circulation since the beginning of the pandemic…data shows that the WSJ, NYT, and USA Today together lost more than 500,000 of print circulation between the first quarter of 2020 and the last reported period. (Beyond Bylines)
- History of blogging. “This year marks the 27th anniversary of the first blog…” (Burrelles)
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Have an interesting announcement from a PR technology vendor? Here’s the list of PR technology companies I’m watching and here’s how to get on my radar.
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LexisNexis Launches White Label Press Release Service [PR Tech Sum]
Image credit: Unsplash
