Top tips for contacting journalists

[qualitydiscountfurni]

Never done that but these are nice tips

[MikeBoxwell]

I've invented a new form of torture for my wife: finding relevant journals to send press releases to and getting all the contact information - names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and addresses.

It's a testimony to how much she loves me that we're still married.

Once we have the list, we split it into three - those that on reflection aren't going to be interested; those that are likely to be interested in what we have; and those who will bite our hands off for the information.

The first set of journalists we leave in peace - I'm not going to waste their time.

The second set of journalists will get a very short, polite e-mail introducing myself, explaining why what I have may be of interest to them and attaching a press release that has been personalised for that particular market segment, and offering them a free sample (it's a book) if they are interested.

The third set of journalists, I will call up and ask for permission to send them a press release. You can normally judge in the call whether or not they will be interested. If they are, I tell them that if they want a copy of the book once they have read the press release, let me know and I would be delighted to send them one. I then confirm their e-mail address and thank them for taking my call: normally the call is over in less than a minute.

So far, I get a very good response from those journalists I call and a reasonable response from the e-mails. I've never asked whether or not a journalist will use my story - that is up to them. I'll kiss a few frogs and hope that enough will turn into princesses and it seems to have worked so far.

[AboveParr]

Is there a list of contacts anywhere? (Other than a book I found that was stupid hundreds of pounds and is probably already out of date...)

[staffjam]

Thanks for the post - some great info there as i'll be looking to start (a small) PR campaign soon.

[MikeBoxwell]

Is there a list of contacts anywhere? (Other than a book I found that was stupid hundreds of pounds and is probably already out of date...)

If you're just after a list of e-mail addresses so you can blanket e-mail everyone, I would suggest you are missing the point.

The information is available, but you'll have to work with it. The web site you are looking for is www.MediaUK.com which is entirely free and provides a directory of pretty much every magazine and newspaper on the market in the UK today.

The amount of detail on each publication does vary, and they are all in alphabetical order, but it is an exceptionally good place to start. You'll need to do a fair bit of work to get all the right contact details for each magazine, but if you're not afraid of a bit of work, there is nothing to be scared of.

[chris.roland]

Make sure your press releases are small! I got burned by this recently, make sure that they're small enough to download in under 10 seconds, otherwise there is no interest because no one has bothered to read the darn thing.

Also avoid gush-adjectives: amazing, outstanding, exciting, brilliant, yadda yadda

[Cheapest PR]

good advice on how to send your press releases, even better is not to attach them but to paste them into the body of the email you are sending. Also, don't send large images, or any images at all - just say you have them if the journalist wants them.

Keep it simple. Getting the email opened is the second hurdle, after getting it delivered to the right person... then you have to make it enticing enough to be read.

[AboveParr]

If you're just after a list of e-mail addresses so you can blanket e-mail everyone, I would suggest you are missing the point.

Not my intention at all - in fact quite the opposite. I want to be able to pick out the right people to send releases to, so that I'm not wasting anybody's time...

[chris.roland]

I wouldn't actually print the release in the email: it looks a little sloppy. Pictures are great, but lower the quality to keep the file-size small. Also, worth saving text files as PDFs, that way they're readable by all.

[Fuzzy]

If you're just after a list of e-mail addresses so you can blanket e-mail everyone, I would suggest you are missing the point.

The information is available, but you'll have to work with it. The web site you are looking for is www.MediaUK.com which is entirely free and provides a directory of pretty much every magazine and newspaper on the market in the UK today.

The amount of detail on each publication does vary, and they are all in alphabetical order, but it is an exceptionally good place to start. You'll need to do a fair bit of work to get all the right contact details for each magazine, but if you're not afraid of a bit of work, there is nothing to be scared of.

Thanks for the link Mike