The press release is one of the oldest tools in marketing, and it has been declared irrelevant more times than most people can count. Its original job was simple: relay newsworthy information to journalists in the hope they would write about it, giving a business direct publicity to that publication’s readership.
That job has not gone away, but it has expanded. Press releases are now written for print, radio, podcasts, TV and online outlets, still following a broadly formulaic structure, now usually paired with strong images and video to make the content easier to digest. They support your wider content marketing, blogging and social media activity. And increasingly, they play a role in something the traditional press release was never designed for: feeding the AI search engines that a growing share of your prospects now use instead of, or alongside, Google.
A press release announces something a business genuinely wants to make public, but the by-product of writing and distributing one well is much bigger than the announcement itself: expanded online reach, brand awareness, referral traffic, and improved organic visibility.
There are several practical ways to build this into your marketing:
That last point is worth its own section, because it is the part of press release marketing that has changed the most since this article was first written.
Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of shaping your content so that AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews actually cite, mention or recommend your business when someone asks a question, rather than simply ranking your website in a list of search results. It sits alongside AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) and traditional SEO as part of how visibility works.
Press releases matter here because AI systems scan the web for structured, factual, verifiable information, and a release is one of the cleanest ways a business can publish an official version of a fact. When these systems process a release, they extract entities (your company name, key people, locations, dates), assess the context (what happened and why it matters now), and lean heavily on the opening section, often the first 75 to 100 words, to judge whether the content is relevant and citable.
Here is the honest, current picture, though. Direct citation of press releases by AI platforms remains small. Tracking across major AI systems has shown press releases accounting for a small single-digit percentage of overall citations, while earned media and established news coverage make up a far larger share. So a press release alone is unlikely to get quoted directly in a ChatGPT answer.
What moves the needle is what happens after the release goes out. When the same story is picked up and reported by multiple third-party sites, rather than sitting only on a wire service or your own newsroom, AI citation rates for that story rise substantially. Consistent facts appearing across several credible sources make it far easier for an AI system to trust and reuse that information, because the model is effectively checking whether independent sources agree with each other.
In practical terms, this means:
For estate and letting agents specifically, this connects directly to local search. AI assistants are increasingly used as local recommendation engines, being asked questions like “who’s a good letting agent in [town]” or “which agency knows [area] best.” The same consistency in name, address, and local detail that has always mattered for local SEO now also shapes whether AI tools mention your agency at all.
Is your agency opening a new branch office? Making a senior appointment? Publishing original data on your local rental or sales market? Responding to a legislative change such as the Renters’ Rights Act 2025? Marking an industry award or accreditation? Supporting a local charity or community initiative? All of these are legitimate press release material, and original local market data in particular tends to perform well, since it gives journalists and AI systems alike something specific and factual to reference.
Press release marketing is especially useful for location-based businesses like estate and letting agents. Google’s local ranking is shaped by relevance, distance and prominence, and prominence is partly driven by how much verified information Google can find about your business across the web, including reviews, links, and citations.
A citation is simply a mention of your business name, phone number or address on another site, whether that’s a business listing, a news article, or a directory. Every time a well-distributed press release is picked up elsewhere, it creates a new citation, which reinforces both your local search ranking and, increasingly, your visibility in AI-generated local recommendations. Including full, consistent business details in every release you distribute is a small habit that compounds significantly over time.
Yes. They remain one of the most reliable ways to publish an official, structured version of a fact about your business, which supports referral traffic, local SEO citations and, when picked up by other outlets, AI search visibility.
They can, and they do scan the web for structured, factual content. However, direct citation of a press release itself is still relatively rare. Its bigger value comes from the earned coverage and third-party mentions it generates.
Clear factual structure, a strong opening paragraph, consistent naming of your business and people, verifiable data, and coverage by multiple independent sources all improve the chances of AI systems citing or reflecting the story.
Generally yes. Distribution increases the chance of pickup by third-party sites, and it is that follow-on coverage, more than the original release, that has the biggest effect on both local SEO and AI visibility.
SEO focuses on ranking your website in search results. GEO focuses on being cited, mentioned or recommended within the answer an AI system generates. They work together rather than replacing one another.
Branch openings, senior appointments, awards, original local market data, responses to legislative changes such as the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, and community or charity initiatives are all strong, genuinely newsworthy options.
For advice on how your agency can use press release marketing, content strategy and AI search optimisation together, get in touch with our team for a no-obligation chat.
Tags: B2B Services, Content Marketing, Estate and Letting Agents, Professional Services"*" indicates required fields
