Good Public Relations: Know the Editors on Your Media Lists

By Mike Epifanio

 

In last month’s blog on good PR, I wrote about how crucial it is to start by building solid media lists for your client or company. This month, we turn our focus to the importance of building relationships with the journalists on those lists.

When we distribute a press release, I can often predict whether a given publication or digital outlet will publish it. That’s because I have established professional relationships with many of the editors and journalists on our media lists. I know the unique focus of each outlet and who its readers are. As long as the information in your press release is relevant to the audience of an outlet, there’s a good chance your press release will be published. When this happens, we in the PR biz call it “earned media.” You earned that exposure for your company because of your relationships with journalists.

Earned media is certainly the gold standard, but sometimes we may pay an outlet to present our message to their audience (think of an advertisement or sponsored content) and that’s called paid media. When our press releases are placed on the news or blog section of a client’s website, that’s neither earned nor paid, it’s owned media. But I digress.

When we talk about building relationships with editors, we are not talking about intimate, personal relationships. The “relationship” could simply consist of knowing how to value an editor’s time by pitching only news that is relevant to their audience. Here are some examples of things I’ve done to get to know and build relationships with those on my media lists.

Midway through 2020, I realized that some of the folks on my media lists weren’t responding, and my clients’ press releases weren’t getting picked up in the outlets I thought would normally run them. I reached out directly via email to the editor in chief of a daily newspaper and briefly mentioned the unpublished press releases I had sent and that nobody was answering the phone in the newsroom. This editor wrote me back to explain the staffing changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and gave me advice about who from their remaining skeleton crew to submit releases to for each topic (entertainment, community, or business news). With that information, I was able to update my media lists to get our clients’ messages submitted to the appropriate editors or writers during the shutdown.

Similarly, recently we did some marketing for the operators of a popular restaurant that was expanding into a second location in a different city. When I built the media list for a press release announcing the opening of this new restaurant, I had to research community publications that covered the town where the second location was located. After distributing the press release, I followed up two days later, but still couldn’t connect with an editor of a newspaper that is part of a regional media conglomerate. I was able to find the email address of the newspaper’s publisher and wrote to explain my plight. She didn’t respond but routed my email to an editor who did. That editor gave me good advice for future submissions and got my client’s new restaurant announcement published on their website’s main page within an hour, and on the front page of the printed newspaper the following week.

Notice that in both of these examples, I didn’t build a relationship by doing something for them, but by asking them to help me. By doing so, they invested in the success of my PR effort.

A good PR person takes the time to read (or at least scan) as many of the publications you submit to as often as you can. One day, as I perused one of the weekly newspapers in the coverage area for a few of our clients, I noticed that the newspaper’s editorial staff had won a prestigious national award. I sent an email to the editor and cc’d the newspaper’s publisher to congratulate them on this recognition. I mentioned that, having been a newspaper editor for many years, I knew how important this particular award is and the level of journalistic excellence required to earn it. Both the editor and publisher wrote back to thank me for my email. I have a better relationship with this editor now because I took the time to communicate with them about something other than my clients’ messaging.

 

Next month’s blog on PR: The All-Important Follow-Up

 

If your company needs professional public relations services, including writing and getting press releases published in the media outlets your potential customers read, call Performance Marketing today at 609-646-0414 or e-mail mepifanio@callpm.com.