Occasionally sending press releases out seems like a real hit-and-miss affair. Editors may or might not use the story, it may or may not be used "as is," it might or may not be read by the target audience, it may or might not go in the right part of the periodical.
In business-to-business markets this can be an even greater problem: apart from any other considerations, the quantity of clients you are dealing with is likely to be an excellent deal smaller than could be the case in consumer markets, and the same is true of the number of available periodicals. Business-to-business companies as a result need an additional trick up their sleeves.
Most B2B journals know fairly well in advance what topics they will be covering in future issues. They will typically plan six to 12 months ahead for special features on aspects of the industry: the purpose of this would be to enable the advertising salespeople to plug ads to potential interested parties. For instance, a construction industry magazine might have a special feature on road building, and thus be targeting tarmac suppliers as advertisers.
Astute PR people will find out what the forward features list contains and provide to provide relevant articles and pictures for it. This virtually guarantees inclusion on the right date, in the right place, and for the right readership.
Nowadays, magazines and newspapers are like any other business-they need to cut their overheads. Employing individuals is expensive, what with saving up for their holidays, paying their National Insurance, putting money aside for their old age, paying sick leave, and so forth.
The answer for many periodicals would be to use freelance journalists. This is often a win-win situation: a freelancer will often have the ability to charge higher fees and earn more money than would be the case if he or she had been directly employed, but equally the on-costs for the employer are lower, especially since the periodical can simply whistle up a freelancer if there is a shortage of stories without having to pay his or her salary in times when there is not much work on. This opens up an interesting possibility for the astute PR person.
Cultivate some freelancers. A typical freelance journalist will be filing material to a wide range of publications, but will in reality be a specialist on a specific topic-for instance, a science correspondent might be sending articles to a number of national newspapers as well as radio and TV stations. This means that one press release or story may be recycled numerous occasions.
Freelancers also need to sell their work if they're to earn money, so they try harder. Not to mention that all they have to sell is their time-anything that saves them time will be welcome, along with a well-written press release will save time even if it has to be rewritten to suit various publications.
Finding a freelancer is usually straightforward, because they often market themselves in their bylines-in other words, a freelancer will finish the article by saying "Joe Soap is really a freelance business writer" or something similar, since this might outcome in being offered work by another periodical.
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Note: This article was sent to us by: Jeff Brown at 01242011
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