Compile Your Media List

What magazines, trade publications, newspapers, e-zines, Web sites and blogs do your customers read? What radio stations do they listen to? What TV shows do they watch? What professional associations do they join? To what clubs and organizations do they belong?

A media list is a crucial component of your PR plan. To promote yourself as an expert and leader in your industry or profession, know the media that influence your customers. Distribute news releases and articles to these media. Keep up with articles on your subject of expertise and know the media coverage by name of publication and journalist.

Try this. Go to Google News and type in your subject of expertise. Let’s say you are an accountant who owns a full service CPA firm specializing in consulting, financial services and leadership development. Type in “leadership development.” Google News will search through 4,500 news sources for articles on this topic, and you’ll see there are thousands. To narrow your search to find out your competition, type “leadership development consulting” in quotation marks. See the difference?

Compile your list and obtain the names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of editors at each outlet. You can buy e-mail mailing lists from Gebbie Press or from Cision (formerly Bacon's). Your library will have access to online databases such as:

• The Gale Database of Publications and Broadcast Media, a comprehensive file containing detailed records on more than 87,000 newspapers, magazines, journals, periodicals, directories, newsletters, and radio, television and cable stations and systems.
• The Annual Editor & Publisher International Year Book, which lists addresses and editors of U.S. and Canadian daily newspapers, as well as alternative newspapers and specialty newspapers covering topics such as parenting, seniors, ethnic groups and real estate.
• The Writers Market, a database of more than 6,000 market listings, consumer and trade publications, syndicates and contact names updated every business day.
• The Encyclopedia of Associations, a comprehensive source of detailed information on over 135,000 nonprofit membership organizations worldwide. This can be helpful if your service or product targets a certain audience. A good example is Colorado author Christine Goff, who writes a birdwatching mystery series and often speaks to birdwatching groups.

Next: How to distribute your news release to the media and directly to your customers at the same time. Stay tuned.