Reviews
Prowly Review: The Best Way to Boost Your Media Relations Game?
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Starting a business is only half the battle. The secret to success is reputation.
There are many ways to build your reputation. The first step is providing a great experience for your customers. Still, to build a high profile, you inevitably need to get into the social media game.
Prowly promises to help with that. This SaaS tool by SEMrush lets you manage media contacts, shape your narrative, and create winning press releases.
Is Prowly the real deal? Let’s break it down.
Getting started with Prowly
As mentioned in my Demio review, the convenience of SaaS allows you to quickly use software through your browser. Signing up for Prowly is as simple as clicking the “Try it for free” button in the upper right corner of the site.
Prowly pricing
Prowly offers a 7-day free trial so users can try before they buy. Beyond that, they offer an Essential plan for smaller-scale users and a Professional plan for agencies.
The most basic form of the Essential plan starts at $119/mo, while the Professional plan starts at $189/mo. You can add features to your plan—including media monitoring and access to Prowly’s media contact database—for an additional cost.
What can Prowly do?
Remember that thing I said about customer experience? Prowly clearly got the memo, because as soon as you sign up, they invite you to schedule a meeting with them. This shows a real dedication to customer support that you don’t see every day. But since I’m only trying out the product for a review, I opted out.
Dashboard
Prowly’s dashboard maintains a simple, inviting design. This is especially helpful since the choices you’re presented with are a bit overwhelming. As someone with limited PR experience, the very idea of starting a press release feels daunting.
Still, front and center on your home page is a simple timeline you can use to wrap your head around Prowly. It breaks it down into four easy steps: creating press releases, finding media contacts, setting up a newsroom, and sending email pitches.
Let’s take a look at each of those features.
Making press releases with Prowly
Prowly has a wide array of options for crafting press releases. You can upload a .docx file, start from scratch, or choose from various templates like event announcements and new hires.
These templates are designed to get your mind jogging, rather than filling in the blanks Mad Libs-style. The text editor is fairly simple with limited font and formatting options. Still, you generally don’t want to get too wild with a press release.
Make sure not to hit “Publish” before it’s fully done, as you can’t go back and change it.
Finding media contacts
Like with the press release tool, there are a few ways to get started with finding media contacts. You can import or manually add your existing contact list, but you can also peruse Prowly’s extensive database.
Media contacts range from entertainment to politics, business to beauty. They include some of the biggest names and publications in journalism. Just keep in mind, you’ll have to buy an upgraded plan to get access to the contact database.
If you just want to get started, importing existing contacts makes for much less hassle. At the bare minimum, you can put in a few emails and move on to the next step…
Creating a Prowly newsroom
A Prowly newsroom is a custom webpage designed to compile your brand’s content, press releases, and other news. While it’s less customizable than your own website, it allows your media contacts to easily find all of your content in one place.
This can be a useful tool for shaping your narrative. You can organize your PR output into tabs and categories, and customize the design to suit your brand. Still, I’d argue you could probably do better making a media tab on your own website.
Sending an email pitch
Finally, the main event. You’ve made your press release, your newsroom, and compiled all your contacts. Time to pitch!
You can choose to select certain recipients or email your whole contact list. Prowly gives you the tools you need to create an engaging email, with a dozen professional fonts and a bevy of text options.
Where the newsroom layout is fairly one-size-fits-all, you have much more customization options with your pitches. This makes sense since the email pitch is the thing that gets your media contacts hooked.
You can add images, tables, files, and links to your pitch, as well as additional press releases and a call-to-action button.
Like many CRMs, Prowly includes personalization tokens. These are variable text elements that can be tailored to specific recipients. For example, you can add a Greeting token that inputs different greetings for different recipients. Then, by applying values to people in your contact list, you can ensure they each get a greeting that’s specific to them.
After that, simply review your email and send it off! Prowly recommends you sort your emails into campaigns, which makes it easier to keep track of different releases and review their success.
Monitoring and reports
One of Prowly’s more impressive features is its media monitoring dashboard. Above and beyond keyword research, this tool includes widgets to track sentiment, reach, domain authority, and much more.
While easily sending out and keeping track of pitches is great, this tool makes Prowly worth your while. Every tool at your disposal from WordPress to Google Ads has some flavor of monitoring, but this is the rare dashboard that synthesizes every metric a PR agency needs. Just as important, the custom widgets also let you exclude the data you don’t need.
Prowly is teasing a forthcoming feature that lets you view stats on your campaigns through PR reports. As advertised, these reports go above and beyond, compiling data to show the complete picture of your PR work.
As it currently stands, the lack of specific stats on a campaign’s success is one area where Prowly could improve. For PR workers, the ability to compile deliverables makes a big difference, so I hope this feature gets rolled out sooner rather than later.
Is Prowly worth it?
For companies, agencies, and entrepreneurs working in PR, Prowly (wait a sec… PR owly!) promises an easier way. It highlights the ability to easily create, release, and track press releases online.
Prowly’s most impressive features are its media monitoring tools and contact database. I was somewhat less impressed with the press release tools themselves, but I acknowledge the utility of having a simple online dashboard to keep track of them.
Prowly is definitely a strong PR tool; the contacts and monitoring tools alone are enough to make it worthwhile. Still, it faces a common SaaS problem: how much ownership will you give up for convenience?
For that purpose, I like the fact that Prowly also lets you import releases, contact lists, and more. You can choose whether you want a convenient experience or a custom one, which is an attitude more SaaS programs should have.
Prowly is sort of the Canva of PR software. It’s shiny, accessible, and gets the job done, with a few impressive tools that put it over the top. But if you want something fully custom, you’ll still have to make it yourself.
Final rating: 7.9/10 ✅
Like what you see? Sign up for Prowly today.
AI-assisted content writing is becoming popular. However, many wonder how to use it and if it sounds authentic. Writesonic is one of the many AI writing assistants transforming content creation. This article will help you understand Writesonic better, along with its features. Continue reading to learn more.
Overview of Writesonic
Writesonic is an AI-powered writing software that can help anyone generate an article or social media post. Writesonic uses GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and the new GPT-4 32K. In addition to these powerhouse large language models (LLMs), it’s like having a freelance writer on call 24 hours a day. Input some keywords, product descriptions, or phrases to work with, and it will return computer-generated results.
Why even use this writing app? It can help you with the so-called writer’s block and solve problems with structured writing, such as headlines, meta descriptions, etc. It’s so good that it sits near the top of our list of best AI content generators for 2023.
Key Features of Writesonic
Many people come to Writesonic because of its AI writing tool. But as Writesonic evolves, it creates other opportunities for users to apply advanced AI tools to different areas of their
tasks. Below are the three remarkable features of Writesonic.
1. AI Article and Blog Writer
Writesonic’s flagship product is its AI writer. It allows you to create long-form content using a simple four-step process.
- You’ll start with a topic; the AI will generate several titles/article ideas.
- After choosing a title, you’ll be given a few introduction options.
- Next, you’ll get outline options.
- Once you have selected a title, introduction, and outline, the program will generate your content.
A portion of the AI article generated with the title “How to Earn from TikTok Advertising
Writesonic’s AI article and blog writer is helpful for content creators, marketers, and businesses that need to produce content regularly. The tool supports content generation in 25 languages. It also allows users to set the tone of the content, ranging from exciting and professional to funny and dramatic. Writesonic can also mix different types of content creation within a single document so that you can easily create highly tailored pieces of content.
The tool can also rephrase content, expand sentences, and condense lengthy paragraphs, making it invaluable for enhancing and refining content.
2. Chatsonic AI Chat Assistant
Writesonic’s AI chat assistant mimics human-like conversation, providing users with a more interactive and engaging experience. It’s one of the better ChatGPT alternatives out there. Chatsonic brings multiple different skills to the table within the chat interface. It natively has access to the internet and current, live data to get you the most accurate responses. It can also handle requests to generate AI art and images.
3. Botsonic AI Conversational Chatbot
This feature increases customer interaction by providing personalized and interactive conversations. Developed to understand and respond to user inputs conversationally, it makes interactions more natural and engaging. It achieves this by building off OpenAI’s API and appending prompt instructions with user chat messages.
Businesses can leverage this feature to automate customer interactions, provide personalized recommendations, and engage users in interactive conversations. For instance, a travel agency can use Botsonic to provide customized travel recommendations based on a user’s preferences and previous interactions.
Any business can “train” the AI chatbot on their data by uploading knowledgebase articles or providing specific URLs from which the bot should get information. This allows users to benefit from GPT-4 with their in-house data explicitly written for a single business.
Pricing Plans
Writesonic offers various pricing plans to cater to different needs, from individual users to businesses and teams. The Pro plan is the plan most will get because it gives access to all the features.
Free Plan
The free plan allows you to try out all the features of Writesonic. It includes 10,000 words per month with a one-user limit. Some features include the following:
- a ChatGPT-like chatbot
- an AI chatbot builder
- 100+ AI templates
- browser extensions,
- one-click WordPress export
- support for 25+ languages.
It’s important to note that this is a “free plan” and not a “free trial.” Use it every month if you like; it does not expire.
Business Plan
Businesses and agencies needing a set amount of generated words per month will typically opt for this plan.
It costs $19 per month and includes 200,000 words. It offers all the features from the free plan, plus:
- access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 32K
- a factual and personalized article writer
- an unlimited no-code AI chatbot builder
- an article paraphrase/rewriter
- Writesonic API
- Surfer integration
- access to priority support.
Unlimited
The unlimited plan is best for individuals and freelancers.
It costs $20 per month for an unlimited number of words. This plan is subject to Writesonic’s Fair Use Policy. Some of the inclusions of the unlimited plan are:
Chatsonic: ChatGPT-like chatbot
- 100+ AI Templates
- AI Article Writer
- Browser Extensions
- 1-Click WordPress Export
- Zapier Integration
- Landing Page Generator
- Sonic Editor (Google Docs like Editor)
- Complete Article Rewriter
- Brand Voice
- Factual and Personalized Article Writer (AI Article Writer 5.0; Uses GPT-4 32K)
- API Access
Enterprise Plan
This plan is best for content teams and whole businesses. It offers custom packages, AI model development, onboarding, and better customer support.
Choosing this requires contacting sales for custom pricing.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Suitable for all different types of content
- Generates plagiarism-free content
- User-friendly dashboard
- Write engaging social media content
- Create perfectly optimized ad copy
- Works on all essential platforms
- Includes an AI art generator
Cons:
- Sometimes, the quality of content is not good enough
- Makes content mistakes that need to be fixed
Conclusion
Writesonic is a powerful tool to use for producing your written content. While many platforms offer content generation options, Writesonic can assist with almost anything you need to write. It has features tailored for specific types of content instead of just one tool to write all content.
However, Writesonic does not claim that its AI can create perfect content independently. Instead, it aims to be a tool where humans can leverage AI to speed up content generation while still producing quality outputs.
Homeowners and interior designers save time and money using an interior design app. But, with so many online and mobile applications today, choosing the right interior design app may take time and effort. That’s why we’ll discuss Planner 5D, an app that harnesses creativity while planning and creating your own home. Let’s find out.
What is Planner 5D?
Planner 5D is an architecture tool that helps interior designers and home decorators create 2D or 3D floor plans. It allows amateurs to adjust the furniture sizes, walls, and colors to match the look of the building. Meanwhile, professionals can use it to create, save, and share designs with homeowners.
Planner 5D founders developed the app to help non-professionals visualize their future homes. With years of experience in design software development, they wanted to offer a simple tool to assist those who don’t have the means to hire an interior design agency.
Planner 5D works on various platforms, including web, iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows.
In just a few years, this Lithuania-based company has grown into a robust service with more than 64 million users and over 300 million interior design projects created.
Features of Planner 5D
Building a beautiful home with Planner 5D only requires three easy steps.
1. Layout and Design
2. Furnish and Edit
3. Visualize and Share
1. Layout and Design
- Use the 2D mode to create the house’s layout. The app provides a painter format and an automatic navigator to design floor plans by drawing lines on a grid line background.
- Once you’re done creating the floor plan and customizing measurements, you can add elements like walls, windows, and doorways to create a replica of the space you want to design. It’s good that the windows and door “snapped” directly to the walls and they automatically aligned at the right angle to the other walls.
- The details of these elements, such as their size and elevation from the floor, are also easy to adjust. This can be done by double-clicking on them and punching in the measurements in the toolbox found on the screen’s bottom.
- Continue adding the construction features until you have completed the layout of your physical space and are satisfied with how it looks.
- You can also use customizable preset templates if you prefer going through the easy route. These templates work nicely to familiarize yourself with different layouts, but we didn’t find them particularly useful. The free version only has a limited number of these template options.
- Using Planner 5D on mobile devices also presents a Capture Your Room feature to simplify the process. Once you give the camera access to the app, you can move your phone around to record the visual representation of the room, giving the app the data it needs to sketch it in 2D.
2. Edit and Customize
- Once you’re done creating the layout, click the Customize Interiors option to fill in the space according to your architectural taste.
- Add tables, chairs, unique floor textures, wall patterns, and more. You’d be glad to know that the catalog isn’t only restricted to indoor items but includes plenty of outdoor furniture like pools, fences, plants, and trees.
- With such an extensive collection of items organized in easy-to-find categories, the software dramatically simplifies the process, making it intuitive and beginner-friendly.
- You must drag the pieces out of the library and place them in your desired spot. Move them around or double-click on them to change their color, style, and other details.
3. Visualize and Share
- Complete your architectural drawing using the Render feature. The system will simulate your 2D sketch and the included elements in the most photorealistic way. It adds rich colors, lighting, and shadows to make your work look like a photograph.
- Compared to other software, Planner 5D gives you 3D models with a single tap instead of tinkering with existing 3D pieces.
- You can also quickly switch from 2D to 3D mode to view and compare how different combinations look. If you find a potential error or need any changes, swap back to the 2D designer format and tweak until satisfied. Since there’s no restriction regarding the number of revisions, you can spend as much time as you want to fine-tune for the perfect 3D modeling.
Pricing
You can use Planner 5D for free, but only some catalog items are available. This may restrict your design possibilities, which is why you may want to try your hands on the Premium Membership.
The premium subscription packages include the following:
- Individual: $19.99/month or $59.99/year, giving you access to the complete catalog, five textures, five renders, academy courses, and plan recognition.
- Commercial: $399.99/year, giving you access to all custom textures, 360° panorama, lifelike 4K renders, and custom branded profile.
However, if you’re not ready to subscribe to a complete package, you can purchase renders individually at $7.99 for 20 and up to $39.99 for 200 HD pics).
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Straightforward performance
- A rich collection of items
- Works across multiple platforms
- All-purpose solution
- Supports multiple languages
Cons
- The free version has many restrictions
- The web version loads the system and makes your computer sluggish
- There are too many pop-ups in the mobile version
- Sometimes, glitches when functioning
Final Verdict
Planner 5D is a meticulously crafted service that boasts seamless functionality across various platforms. Its user-friendly interface ensures a smooth experience, enabling swift project creation regardless of your chosen device. The process of selecting and modifying objects feels instinctive, while the presence of measurements in the 2D mode ensures effortless precision throughout your design journey. While the comprehensive features require a subscription, the free version provides ample opportunity to thoroughly explore the service before getting a premium plan.
Regardless of your expertise, the Planner 5D app is undeniably worth considering.
Are you finally at that point where you can finally build your dream home? If you are, try designing it first with a simple floor plan maker for free. Here’s a list of the best ones!
1. Cedreo
Cedreo is a great online floor plan maker for professional and personal use. It’s best to go through the tutorial first to get a glimpse of how the floor plan maker works. Their free plan maker doesn’t only let you add furnishing to your floor plan but also lets you choose materials for walls and flooring.
If you need a simple floor plan maker for free, the Floor Plan Creator should be at the top of your list. It has features like creating different-shaped rooms, wall drawings, and stairs. Plus, there’s an app you can download too.
2. Floor Plan Creator
3. Planner 5D
You don’t need an architectural background to use the free Planner 5D floor plan creator. It’s jam-packed with features that will help you visualize your future home. From furniture to outdoor items, Planner5D has it for you. When using this floor plan maker, make sure that you sign up so it won’t prompt you every time you click on various floor plan elements.
4. Visual Paradigm
Unlike other floor plan makers in this list, Visual Paradigm gives you ready-to-use templates for residential and commercial properties. Here, you can change up the placements of elements like walls and furniture. Plus, you can export the image without registering on the site when you’re good with a draft of your floor plan.
5. Home by Me
Home by Me is another simple floor plan maker for free that’s beginner-friendly. It’s easy to visualize your dream home thanks to their furnishing and decoration features. Plus, you can choose among branded household items and furniture as part of your imagined floor plan.
6. Sweet Home 3D
Although their site is not updated, Sweet Home 3D is one other floor plan maker to use. To start, you can choose among different homes and bedroom types. Or you could use an empty plan. Similar to other floor plan makers in this list, you can move things around and visualize your dream home with walls, doors, and furniture. Sweet Home 3D is also available for download as software.
7. Kozikaza
When you use Kozikaza, you can create a new plan or one from a current one, or form a new shape. Like some floor plans in this list, you don’t need to sign up for an account. In this online software, you can decorate the interior and exterior. One feature not seen in most floor plan makers is the electrical setting to add plugs and electric applications.
8. ArchiPlain
Here’s another no-fuss and simple floor plan maker free to use. Although ArchiPlain doesn’t have 3D renderings, it’s still worth a try. Beginners, real estate agents, and interior designers can use this floor plan maker.
9. Homestyler
Homestyler is one of the free best floor plan makers online, from templated house and room designs to empty plans. This is a perfect tool for professionals, but those who want to build their dream home can also enjoy envisioning their new home.
10. PlanningWiz
When you open PlanningWiz, you have three options, provide room measurements, open a saved design, OR start with sample designs. You can start with sample designs, especially if you have no experience using floor plan makers. In addition, you can also draw flooring, rooms, walls and add furniture as needed.
11. Roomle
Unlike most floor plan makers in this list, Roomle immediately has 3D renders of furniture and appliances for your dream home. It doesn’t have the grids you usually see in floor plan makers. You have to draw lines for rooms and add the furniture as needed. To start here, you need to sign up to play around with the floor plan maker.
12. Smartdraw
SmartDraw can seem intimidating to non-professionals, but it will help create a simple floor plan. You can start with an empty plan or use preloaded room templates to make it easier and faster for you to produce a floor plan. It may not have the sophisticated 3D rendering, but it’s a great starting point for those who want to envision their dream home.
14. MagicPlan
MagicPlan is an app available both on the Play and App Store. It’s ideal for those on the go and want to design their dream home anywhere. The basic features are there, but you need to upgrade to unlock other objects to get more out of the app.
15. Room Planner
Here’s another floor plan maker available as an app. As compared to Magic Plan, Room Planner has a more simple approach to adding objects and walls. Plus, there’s a wide selection of objects to choose from to help you create your dream home.
16. Floorplanner
Here’s another simple floor plan maker for free to use. When using Floorplanner, you have to sign up first to access their service. From there, you can choose among a room wizard, an image upload, or an empty plan. If you’re a beginner, the Room Wizard is the best choice in designing your floor plan.
For other content and articles, read more here at Owner’s Mag!
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