Startup "Press Release" months before alpha/beta product available

So I am currently developing a web project with is SaaS, I'm committed to the project, but in order to judge the market while I work on it I was considering doing a some blogs post about the project relevant to the market I am targeting (Health IT), to see if people in the field were interested and to get alpha/beta testers - we don't plan to launch the project till around Feburary. So I was wondering is this a smart idea or are the better ways to go about this (currently I'm emailing clients who would be interested and receiving feedback from them)

Thanks,

p.s. I think I should add - the purpose of this is more to judge the market/customer issues via validation and also get testers on board.

I'm not a big fan of the press release -- it's kinda old school and the value if it is quickly being replaced by blogs. You won't get much interest from a press release.

I think your approach of emailing clients is much better. It will also be more productive and the insights you gain will be much better.

If you really want to do a press release, do one when you launch but make sure you have built up a lot of good Social Media Content ahead of time. An effective press release will need a lot of meat behind it.