January 17 2011

3 tips to help you develop a good media contact list

It’s useful to keep a list of journalists, editors, blog authors and producers who might be interested in sharing newsworthy information from your business. To build your list, first identify your markets and the people who matter. Document what they read and watch—these are your target media. The next step is  to identify the people at your target media who write or talk about topics that relate to your business. These three tips will help you develop an effective list:

1. Review and update your list of media contacts at least quarterly. Editors, journalists, news producers change their beats and their media. Be sure your list is current.

2. Don’t send every news release to every contact on your list. Take the time to match up your news with the right media contact.

3. Be sure your news is actually newsworthy to the public. Too frequent,  or irrelevant material (such as a purely local item sent to the national media, or something with little visual impact offered to a television station) may turn off their interest.

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PR Briefs is a blog of tips, resources and case studies for the public relations professional and the PR novice. Feel free to comment, re-post or ask questions—I hope you enjoy your experience here.

PR and marketing have been the focus of my career for the past 30 years. As an ad agency client during the early years, I got to experience a birds-eye view of agencies and the experience wasn't always a good one. When Ideaworks opened in 1995, we were determined to break the mold, and after 15 years, more than 300 awards and hundreds of client referrals, I think we're starting to get there.
—Caron Sjoberg, APR, CPRC

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