When you are about to start your very own PR campaign, you need to make sure you contact the right media. When we say ‘right’, we mean the media that your target market reads, listens to or watches. So the very first task you have is to identify exactly WHO you are speaking to. It may be that you have a few different markets to cover.
For instance, one of our HYOPR clients, Pheobe, the owner of myfavourite.com.au, an online gift store, spoke to us the other day about her different target markets. She has Mums and Dads (parenting media and websites) as well as general lifestyle type products (lifestyle media which includes in-flight magazines). By using both lists and tailoring her media release, she is doubling her chances of getting coverage and targeting the media that her customers use.
If Simone and I are creating media lists for our own clients, (we also run a full-service PR agency, Handle Communications) we always try to include at least three or four distinctly different media groups. The more we can approach, the higher our chances of getting coverage. For instance, Simone has been working with a fantastic toy company who have clever sports goggles with built-in video cameras. To get them the maximum exposure she has targeted men’s media, gift guides, lifestyle media, newspaper product sections, technology writers, general sports magazines, speciality sports magazines (for motocross, skiing, scuba diving etc.) photography media and even kid’s media and women’s media.
Another example is a children’s wear company Jules works with. They have an incredible background story so as well as sending out a release to the parenting and kids magazines and blogs, and the fashion Editors for magazines and newspapers, she also pitched the idea to magazines like Good weekend who featured them in the ‘Two of Us’ section and Wellbeing magazine (it is a fair trade label) with great success.
Start by thinking about what kind of people your customers and potential customers are. Old or young? Parents, singles or grandparents? Male or female or both? Are they environmentally minded? Do they love sports? Then think of the sort of media they would use including online, magazines, newspapers, TV and radio. From there you will start to get a picture of the sorts of categories the media will fall into. You can then either spend some time researching media contacts online or via the contacts provided in such magazines and newspapers or buy the relevant lists from us. However you get your media contacts make sure you place them into an Excel spreadsheet with the name of the media, the contact person, their role, their email address, their phone number and a leave a column for notes. Read more…