By Mark Macias

How valuable is a press release when it comes to moving the market? Try $30 million dollars. That’s how much a 28-year-old Ukrainian hacker generated by hacking into PR Newswire, Marketwired and BusinessWire last month.

According to the FBI, the hacker stole 150,000 unpublished press releases and traded on the information before it hit the news.

What does this mean to you as a firm or company trying to reach investors?

Use Financial PR to Find Investors

Press releases – when done effectively – can influence the market. A recent study by Engleberg and Parsons revealed that trading volume increased by 75 percent after a stock appeared in the news. Another 70 percent of investors said they reallocated their portfolio after reading a story on the news, according to Cogent Research.

This ability to influence investors will only grow larger as more companies actively go after investors following the recent SEC Regulation A changes.

I’m constantly meeting with fund managers and business owners who are trying to attract investments to their fund or company. Most of these people seek investments through the traditional route: via networking at investor conferences and investment forums. But as the SEC Regulation A changes become more accepted and smaller companies begin seeking more funding through mini IPOs, the pool of quality investors via friends and family will get smaller and become less effective.

At the same time, the ability to reach targeted investors via the financial media will continue to remain the most influential medium for introducing your fund or business to investors. The job of securing media placements will get harder for financial PR firms, which is why even more so – you will want to make sure you do your due diligence on your financial PR firm before signing up.

Did we mention that Macias PR was named the 2015 top “PR Consultant Firm of the Year – USA” by Finance Monthly based on our expertise, media deliverables and innovation in PR?