Reach Out to Your Target Audience

Hope you found my last post useful and managed to identify and write a story for your company/product. Now that you are ready to share the story with your target audience, let's discuss how you can do this.

Make a Database
Once you have identified a story that you will share with the media, you need to idenfity newspapers, magazines and TV channels that publish and air such information. To get started, gather all the forthnight's newspapers and magazines in your region. Also look for industry or trade newspapers/magazines pertaining to your sector. After a fortnight, scan through the entire set of newspapers along with their supplements, magazines, industry/trade newspapers/magazines for sections that are relevant to your piece of news. For example, if you have launched a new product and wish to get coverage for that particular product, look for newspapers and magazines that have a section on product reviews and whether that section fits your product profile. A health product will not fit into a section that does gadget reviews!

As a golden rule, do not write to or contact a newspaper or a magazine which does not have sections for your story. You will just be scoffed at by the journalist and could end up getting up negative publicity.

Each relevant section usually gives the name of the contributing journalist or the section editor. Most often, publications also give their email addresses. Note down the name of the journalist or the section editor and contact the newspaper/magazine for their email address, fax number and a direct number.

Disseminate
Once you have your database in place, select a suitable day of the week, preferably between Monday - Thursday, to send out your press release to the entire set of journalists. Send your release by email and fax. Always send your release in the first half of the day or not later than 4pm as most daily newspapers that go in for printing each night will not accept a story beyond 5pm. After sending the release, follow it up with a personal call to the journalist a couple of hours later confirming the receipt of the press release. This is a good opportunity to strike a conversation, but do not repeat blatantly what's writen in your press release. Ask the journalist whether he/she would be able to carry your release in the next day's newspaper or next issue of the magazine.

Personally following up with a journalist is a sure shot way of getting maximum coverage. A lot of companies and PR agencies fail to generate enough coverage as they do not follow-up with the journalists. Sometimes a particular journalist may not have come in on a particular day and your release will not get noticed. Therefore, it is important to call and check, and if the journalist covering your industry is not in, ask for the person filling in for him/her for the day.

Do not forget to include photographs if they are revelant to your story.