I use http://gsitecrawler.com/ which is awesome and can be downloaded for free. Does the job for me and doesn't seem to have any limitations such as number of crawled pages.

Really it depends on whether the release is "news worthy" or not.

My personal opinion is that regular and consistent press release distribution should be a part of your overall strategy if of course it is warranted and you can produce something of value.

I had one client who got a call and a write-up from Sky News, although a direct link did not result(completely gutted). I have had other clients who have also been contacted by media companies after viewing their releases.

If it is backlinks you are after, regular press releases may provide this. Remember though, just because your release is syndicated by 1,000 websites, does not mean you will get 1,000 unique backlinks that pass any value as it will be seen as duplicate content for sure.

If you are trying to build your brand and obtain more visibility, for the cost I think it is worth it.

I think Alan has made some really valid points. THE most important step in any marketing campaign is to know what you are selling, to who you are selling to and what your UVP is. If they don't know this then you are probably in for a really bumpy ride. I've experienced this and it's a pain in the butt for sure.

One thing I get them to do initially is to get them to sum up their business in one or two sentences. This will help them to be really specific and should give you a starting point.

Also get them to tell you who they believe to be their top 3 competitors or maybe which site they would like to emulate. This may provide further clarification as to what they are trying to achieve.

As Thomas mentioned, if they use analytics then taking a look at their current traffic and finding the best performing keywords in terms of avg time on site and low bounce rate could also provide you with a clearer picture.

Good luck!