On Monday, September 28, TruLata launched on Product Hunt. The same morning, our launch press release went out, and by the afternoon it had been published on more than 600 news sites, including AP News, big-market TV stations and 226 papers across the USA TODAY Network.
Here is where it ran, what it said, and the honest version of what a press release does for a business like yours.
Where our launch release ran
The release, TruLata Launches AI Marketing Platform for Service Businesses With a Free Website Builder, is on AP News, and on the business pages of TV stations across the country:
It also ran across the USA TODAY Network, including:
- The Arizona Republic
- Detroit Free Press
- The Tennessean
- IndyStar
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- The Palm Beach Post
These are press release placements: each site publishes the release as we wrote it, and marks it as a press release. We say that plainly because it matters for the lesson below.
What we announced
We have run a marketing agency for service businesses since 2017. TruLata is that work turned into software. It runs your website, search, Google and Meta ads, content and outbound on a schedule, and shows every lead, where it came from and what it cost, on one screen. Our team runs it with you.
The launch also included the TruLata site builder. You can build your website free, with no card. Taking it live on your own domain is $49 a month.
Why we launched on Product Hunt
Product Hunt is where people who try new software go to find it, and where makers answer questions in public. We wanted honest feedback from people who have never met us, so we put TruLata there on launch day and have been answering every comment since.
If you have a question about the product, or a reason you would not trust software to run your marketing, leave it on our Product Hunt page. We read all of them.
What a press release does, and what it does not
We run launches like this for clients, so here is the straight answer we give them.
- It does put your news in front of people who search for you. A prospect who looks up your name finds a dated announcement on sites they recognize, not just your own website.
- It does give you something to share. Your socials, your email list, your sales conversations and your website all get a real link to point at.
- It does help AI answers find you. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini read the web, and a consistent description of what you do, repeated on many sites, is easier for them to pick up.
- It is not a news story. A reporter did not write it, and it is not an endorsement from the outlet. Never describe a placement as coverage.
- It is not a ranking shortcut. Google treats press release links as announcements, not as votes for your site. Rankings still come from a useful website, real reviews and steady content.
A release works best as one piece of a launch: a clear announcement, a place for people to respond (for us, Product Hunt), posts on your own channels, and a page on your website that tells the full story. This post is that last piece.
See it for yourself
Read the full release on AP News, watch the story in our launch post, or open the live demo and see the real product.
