ZMarket Scoop

Choosing a Story Format Depends on Your Audience

After deciding on which markets you want to target with your PR campaign, choosing a story format that will fit the largest amount of publications is the trick to a successful PR campaign.

But, before you can decide on a story idea, you must compile a list of publications that cover the market.

Often times my clients can name the top five or six publications in a market, and are unaware that there are 30 or more. In fact, there are often 50 to 100 publications that can be targeted when going after a niche market in addition to the core market.

Media guides are the most valuable tools when it comes to editorial coverage. If you are wondering why you would target more than just the top five or six publications, you may have forgotten that we are talking about free editorial coverage. If you are going to spend the money on writing a story, why not go after the largest audience you can? Limiting coverage to the top five or six publications can mean the difference between reaching 100,000 or 500,000 readers (or prospects).

Beyond listing all print and Internet magazines that cover your markets, media guides also include valuable data like circulation (there's that 500,000 vs. 100,000), ad rates (so you can calculate what your editorial coverage saved you in ad dollars—although editorial coverage is priceless since you can't purchase it), lead times, contact information, website URL's (which lead you quickly to editorial calendars) and profile information (so you know you are reaching the right audience). Something else the profile may tell you is the preferred writing style of a magazine.

Information like lead times, site URL's (equals - quick access to magazine content and editorial calendars) and profile information are essential in deciding which format is best for editorial coverage.

Most media guides today offer instant online access to media lists and cost anywhere between $100. to $500. for a single media list, depending on what you need. The more user friendly they are and the more they allow you to hone your list, the more expensive they are. PR pros often pay thousands of dollars per year to have the most up to date and user friendly media lists. If you want to forego the cost of a media list, you could spend hours on the Internet researching different websites (tradeshow websites, magazine subscription sites, etc) to find most of the magazines. Personally, I think that spending the money on a list you can download in minutes is cheaper than the cost of your time searching the web for that information.

Once you have chosen your media list, the next step is to decide on the style and topic of your article.

Next time we'll talk about editors' number one pet peeve and what to consider when formulating a story that will gain the most of amount of coverage.

 

How to Write Great Editorial Articles

A great editorial starts with research and lots of it. It's easy to come up with a story idea, but the greatest story will end up dead in the water if the story doesn't fit the editorial scope of the media outlets you are going after.

The trick to getting the widest scope of coverage (without being too general) is isolating the markets you want to go after for the story.

You always include your primary market—let's say you are a conveyor company. Materials Handling publications would be the primary focus and then you would decide on a secondary market.

There is much to consider when choosing the secondary market.

Maybe you make the most amount of money in the automotive market so choosing that as your secondary market would seem like a natural choice—more experience, a larger customer base to get customer interviews and perhaps more marketing materials to pull information from. However, sometimes companies want to diversify where their money is coming from so they are not tied to the financial woes of a single market.

Faster Sales or More Leads?

Something else to consider when choosing which market to go after first (assuming your public relations effort is based on an ongoing campaign) is the turn around time on sales and the number of publications in a market. Let's say a company also sells into the aerospace market as well as the plastics market.

The aerospace market has a greater number of publications to pitch the story and a larger readership often translates to a greater number of leads. However, if the plastics market, with a smaller number of publications, has a short turnaround time on sales, then going after the plastics market may be a better market to target first. Then, you can go after the aerospace market second while sales from the plastics market sustains the cost of the PR campaign. Because even if you do PR in-house, a successful campaign translates into man hours in terms of research, writing, phone time with editors, follow up, etc.

Once you decide on the market, deciding which story format will get the most amount of coverage the fastest is key. This involves researching the publications (a media list company is key in an effective PR campaign), their publication lead times, editorial calendars, etc.

Come back next week (and I promise next week) to find out how to choose the story format.