North American Precis Syndicate, Inc. (NAPS) was founded in January of 1958 for the purpose of distributing press releases to all daily and weekly newspapers across the U.S. in a ready-to-use format, already set in type and easy to reproduce. It became known as a "mat" service because of the process of setting type with individual letters and pressing those into papier-mache molds, known as mats, into which liquid lead was poured to produce a printing plate that could be used for mass producing articles to be printed in newspapers. NAPS has always been a more cost-effective means of reaching out to the media than trying to do the same job in-house because we are able to spread the cost over a large number of clients, to provide economies of scale. The process changed in the early 1970s, when offset printing of repro proofs, in wide and narrow column sizes, replaced the mats that were distributed to newspapers. Those became known as camera-ready copy, which is still used by many publications today. Editors can reproduce articles by shooting a picture of the camera-ready repro proofs. This process is a convenience for editors at more than 1,500 daily newspapers and 8,500 weekly community newspapers with news holes to fill after the initial layout of the publications. Many editors are low on staff and are under pressure to meet deadlines so they are likely to use the articles as is, not heavily edited, if they know that the information is valid and think it will be interesting to their readers. NAPS has built up a relationship with editors over the years. They know and trust us to send quality material and many use our service exclusively as an external source of content. Thousands of bloggers are now reached by NAPS in addition to traditional newspaper editors. The media relations team of NAPS keeps track of the high turnover of editors, which editors actually use the content and which formats each needs to receive. With the evolution of technology over the years, the variety of formats that editors require has changed to include several more versions of what is sent out in print. The most popular format is now the CD version, which editors can easily store until they need a story to fill special sections, and use to flow information right into their publications. Other formats include all the digital formats commonly used including downloadable files on the www.napsnet.com site, RSS feeds by subject, e-mails, direct computer feeds, Twitter feeds, and Facebook and Pinterest posts. Each article gets 100 to 400 placements in print and over 1,000+ placements online. Results are tracked in print and online by several monitoring services and the staff of NAPS, which subscribes to thousands of publications that are not monitored by other services. Broadcast capabilities were later added to make NAPS a more comprehensive service, reaching millions more people nationwide. Radio Roundup started out as distribution of scripts for local talent to read, as filler, and now includes professionally voiced spots on CD's, downloadable files in broadcast quality on our site and podcasts via iTunes reaching more than 6,500 radio stations nationwide. Each spot gets 300 to 400 on-air placements. TV distribution started out as scripts with four color slides that could be used by broadcasters, primarily on news and talk shows, to fill in. This was replaced by Consumer Science News & Notes, a 23-minute program that is currently produced once a month by NAPS and distributed to over 1,000 stations. The program goes out as scripts and as professionally voiced spots in a variety of tape and digital formats including downloadable, broadcast-quality files on our site and the NAPS YouTube channel. Each spot gets 100 to 150 on-air placements. By popular demand, recognizing the need for reaching out to a multicultural audience, NAPS began including Spanish versions and African-American versions of stories to increase awareness of messages among diverse readers, listeners and viewers. Those stories are distributed to a supplementary group of media outlets that target the millions of Spanish-speaking and Black Americans. We started doing line drawings to help captivate the attention of readers and we now have an artist who does color drawings and infographics for clients that don't have a photo, or we can provide stock photos to help increase results. We can also provide stock footage and motion graphics for TV spots. We have become more than a distributor of content as clients have depended on seeking our advice about how to extend the reach of a message to millions of additional readers, listeners and viewers nationwide. After careful review of results each year, the NAPS writers have been considered the experts at what will get the best coverage in community news outlets in the wealthy suburbs nationwide. Those are the primary users of our content. Our writers are happy to offer their suggestions on copy and layout at no cost or obligation. NAPS guarantees complete satisfaction with each release or another one free. After more than half a century, we know what to expect. We have worked for most Fortune 500 companies, the top 20 PR firms, over 100 associations and many government agencies. Results have been better than ever, with many more clients receiving the highly coveted Golden Thinker award for results that are well above and beyond what is typically expected. As always, we are committed to providing excellent results and welcome suggestions for improvement. We continue to monitor feedback from our clients to make our service the best that it can be. We embrace the advances in technology and we will continue to take full advantage of those to achieve even higher levels of success in the future. NAPS has supported many trade and educational organizations relating to PR, communications, media relations and journalism. We have also done a lot of work pro bono for many worthy causes. We sponsor professional development events and support a variety of charitable organizations to help make the world a better place to live in.
Here are some of the developments made just since the start of the new millennium:
NAPS is adding VALUE without additional cost to clients. Here are some of the many improvements that have been made:
