Learn from Western Digital’s Press Release Mistakes

The tech blogs were buzzing today with Western Digital’s press release that they now have a 3.5 inch 1 terabyte drive that is now shipping.

Let’s examine some aspects of the press release, and where WD failed to incorporate best marketing search practices.

A search for either model number on WD’s website bring up no results:

Price and Availability WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB drives (model WD7500KEVT) are available now through select distributors and resellers; the 1 TB capacity (model WD10TEVT) is available now configured into My Passport Essential SE USB drives. [Note: excerpt from PR]

Western Digital Search_1248691444729

The URL in the press release does not work:

More information about WD Scorpio Blue mobile hard drives may be found on the company’s Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=685

When copying and pasting the URL, you are redirected to a different page without any information on the hard drive:

Western Digital Hard Drives_1248691621295


Note: Several hours after the press release went out, this page now redirects to the proper page.

The press release lists the product where you can find the new drive, but the size isn’t listed on that page:

My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drives ( WDME5000 )_1248691498194

A search on Google bring up zero product results:

  • Either product number
  • Product name
  • 1tb western digital 3.5 inch drive
  • etc

If a product is too new to be listed number one organize, then buy some paid search ads so customer’s can find your product.

I’ve bought 3 500mb My Passport hard drives in the past year. I just gave away my last one for digital picture organization (these drives are small, and very easily portable) so I was going to buy myself another 1tb drive today. After looking at WD’s website, Amazon’s website, and authorized WD resellers – I couldn’t find a single 1tb My Passport hard drive anywhere.

While the press release might have looked nice and complete, the rest of WD’s website and resellers were not ready for these searches and volume yet. Make sure when you put out a press release that you links work, people can easily find your product, and your internal site search actually lists the products (especially part numbers) in your own internal search.




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