Duct Tape Marketing / 2.26.08 / 9 votes Vote I found this article useful

The proper way to stalk a journalist

First off the title of this post was meant to get attention, I only mean stalking in it’s most polite form of course.

You know you need to get your story told in the media, but you can’t seem to get anyone interested. The problem is you need to look at journalists as a target market - you need to get them to know, like and trust you just like you would a customer.

Now, would you send a customer a one page flyer and then follow-up with a phone call asking them when they planned to write a story about your company, I mean buy from you. No, of course not.

Here’s how you get journalists to know, like and trust you.

  1. Build a list of journalists that you think might care your story.
  2. Read everything they write (use a Google News search by their name and subscribe to the email alert or RSS feed - you can follow a lot of journalists this way.)
  3. Find their blog and subscribe to, comment on and write relevant trackbacks to it. (Most journalists have one now)
  4. Set up a routine of sending relevant content to them that is related to articles they right.
  5. Don’t push for any stories (unless they are truly news) until you’ve done this for weeks

Here’s the thing, if you can prove yourself a reliable resource for a journalist you will be looked upon as a friend, until then, you’re just a pest to an overworked, often underpaid, reporter.

By following what a journalist writes you will often find clues to the kinds of things they really care about, how you might pitch them and what they might write about in the future. I read an article by a journalist that I was following that stated he just started using Facebook. I connected with him through Facebook and the next you know I had scheduled an interview. My guess is that he would have ignored an email directly from me.

So, it takes a little work to earn media mentions, but it can be well worth the time spent.

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2007/10/07/the-proper-way-to-stalk-a-journalist/

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Comments:

  1. Brian Diehl says:
    March 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am

    The biggest thing is to know what the writer writes about. If they only do show reviews, they probably don’t quite care that your theater just won a major award. Get the right content to the right writer!

    I’ve been going through this with my promotion of Actors Inequity, a new site for theater lovers and performers: http://www.actorsinequity.org Not all theater sections care that an organization exists. They just want to publish their reviews… c’est la vie

    (by the way, check out Actors Inequity! It has free and affordable resources for performers and theaters… and the “Inequity Card!”)

  2. Anthony Donnelly says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 7:31 am

    Great article! Many strong points. Respect the journalist’s time. Like word-of-mouth advertising, getting a respected journalist to write an article about your company, or give you a mention is like gold, BUT it takes time to create those relationships.

    Never push a writer. If you care as much about THEIR needs as you do your own outcome, you’ll have much more success. Again, as the article states - do your research, pick the right journalist. One quality, good-fit writer is better than a handful that are not perfect. For a small investment in time, this is an awesome promotional tool.

    I’ve been working with a handful of national and international writers now for a number of years and we have established win-win relationships. They help put my barter company (Merchants Barter Exchange: http://www.merchantsbarter.com) on the map in places I wouldn’t have thought.

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