Provide news people can use, marketers urged

Marketers should not be lazy with regard to their website's content, a sector commentator has stated.

Gerry McGovern urged firms not to simply copy and paste content such as press releases and publish them on their website.

He describes such content as "classic propaganda", explaining that they were never intended to be read by the public and while they have a place in a site's press archive, they should not be found on a homepage.

"Publishing a press release on a homepage says the communicator is too lazy to take the press release and turn it into a story," Mr McGovern explains.

Concluding, he states that news "needs to be newsworthy" and should not be published on a site for the sake of producing new copy.

Meanwhile, sector commentator Christine Comaford recently wrote on web resource Business Week that marketers should seek to create email communications that are able to "spark emotions and action".