As an agency professional, you understand the importance of getting your client’s story in front of the right audience. To do so, however, you’ll need a media list of relevant journalists who are ready and willing to cover the business’s news.
Finding the right reporters to target can be difficult and time-consuming, but it’s crucial that you build a well-researched list of publications that are most likely to cover your client or business. To help you do this, the experts of Forbes Agency Council shared their insights for tracking down the right outlets and journalists. Here are the steps they recommend taking to build a solid media list for your client.
Forbes Agency Council members share the best ways to build a quality media list and reach a bigger audience.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Develop The Right Angle
You know what story you want to get in front of your audience and you know what journalists you want in your media list, so think about how to tell the story in a way that looks engaging and interesting for those journalists. This will help you keep your story targeted and relevant when you work to make outreach. – Daniela Pavan, The Ad Store New York
2. Do Your Research
Use the tools available at your disposal! Start by searching for key terms related to the subject or theme you’re pitching and then turn to media tools geared toward PR and pitching to find reporters and the publications or outlets covering related stories and the types of topics they emphasize. This enables you to focus your pitches more selectively. – Scott Kellner, GPJ Experience Marketing
3. Search For Reporters On Twitter
Did you know that when it comes to Twitter’s verified users, over 25% are journalists or media outlets? Goes to show that, chances are, your “target journalist” is on Twitter and, therefore, their Twitter handle needs to be on your media list, along with an outreach plan to contact them. – Danica Kombol, Everywhere Agency
4. Focus On Quality Over Quantity
A list is only as good as the precision of its targets. Take the time to research the journalists who are actively covering the topics that match your pitch and think about what’s likely to move each one. Don’t start with a database and pull names based on beat searches. A carefully researched list of 20 journalists will always be better than a clumsy list of 100. – Michael Gordon, Group Gordon Inc
5. Understand The Target Audience’s Media Habits
Understanding the client’s audience and their behaviors is key to getting the right placements. Do a deep dive into their behavioral habits, like how and when they consume media. What outlets do they regularly visit? What time of day? What days of the week do they most often consume media? Only by understanding who the audience is can you begin to build a solid media list to get your message out. – Kenny Eicher, The CSI Group
6. Look For Outlets That Cover Your Competitors
The most important step in selecting media for your business story is to target the top 10 or 20 editors that also cover your competitors or other companies that are most similar to yours. These editors will already know and understand the subject or industry and they will be predisposed to covering multiple sources, so as to provide different perspectives. – Francine Carb, Markitects, Inc.
7. Set The Right Expectations
One of the most important things that needs to be done by a marketing group is to make sure that they know and they understand their media contacts. While it seems that this should be easy, there are many issues that happen due to misunderstandings. One group thinks that they will get one result and cannot guarantee it. It is very important to align understandings for all groups. – Jon James, Ignited Results
8. Engage With Your Targets Before Pitching
Building a solid media list sometimes take a little more than simply adding a name to your spreadsheet. Take the time to learn about the writer or outlet’s content and have meaningful engagement on topics they have written about previously. That type of genuine interaction will not go unnoticed and will warm the outlet or journalist to be more receptive to your pitch when the time comes. – Michael Smith, iTribe Social Inc.
9. Segment Your List And Personalize Your Outreach
Building a media list takes time and creativity. But there’s one absolutely critical detail that can help you build a media list that will get results: segmentation. Segmenting your media list means breaking it down into smaller groups of reporters and journalists that have similar attributes to allow you to pitch more targeted stories that have a higher likelihood of getting published. – Lauren Fairbanks, S&G
10. Know The Readership Well
It’s incredibly important when developing a media list—and when cultivating media relationships—to be familiar with each media outlet’s readership and editorial focus. For example, don’t pitch a bylined article to an outlet that doesn’t accept contributed articles, and don’t pitch a vendor interview to a reporter who only interviews vendors’ end users. Send customized, not generic, pitches. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
11. Provide Value To Build Relationships
Start by targeting the right journalists—those who cover your client’s industry or business type. Next, realize that if you expect a journalist to cover your client’s business, you need to provide information they can use and will find interesting, even when it has nothing to do with your client. Building relationships takes time but pays off in actual coverage for your client over time. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
12. Keep Up With Staff Changes And Trends
This industry is very dynamic, so it’s not enough to gather a solid media list once and use it for the next few years. They change often and a lot. You need to keep your hand on the pulse of all the changes in the most relevant media outlets for your or your clients’ business. Follow the news to know when media outlets appoint new editors or producers, change the field of interest, etc. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
