What's the Right Timing for Publicity?
By Marcia Yudkin
Media outlets are in the news business.
And as you can tell from the close
resemblance between the words "news" and "new," the mission of the media is to bring
you interesting and timely reports on what's new.
If you're an entrepreneur or organizational marketer and you feed your news about
what's new to the media at the appropriate time, you're helping both them and
yourself. You give them news to share, and you receive credibility and exposure to
potential customers.
Ah, but what is the appropriate time? Media deadlines are the most important element
in proper timing.
Follow these guidelines to make the publicity process work in your favor.
In one group are radio, television, newspapers and web sites, which have short-range
deadlines, and in another group are magazines, which have considerably
longer-range deadlines.
For the short-range deadline media, one week is generally enough lead time for those
media outlets to pick up your story. For magazines, the lead time depends on the
publication schedule: Monthly magazines need to receive your press releases or
pitches 3-6 months ahead of time, while those published every other month need even
longer lead time. Weekly magazines need 3-6 weeks advance notice, whenever
possible.
When announcing events or looking for coverage for them (as opposed to, say,
announcing a new product or providing perspective on a trend), you often need to add
a few weeks to the lead time, because daily media often have a weekly rather than
daily publication schedule for their calendar listings. That is, upcoming events get
published in a batch once a week on Thursday or Friday rather than every day.
The biggest timing complications arise with a product launch, because magazines
need to receive your publicity materials 2-3 months before the newspapers, radio, TV
and websites in order for them to feature new stuff around the same time. If you rely
simply on press release distribution for publicity, either magazine coverage will lag
way behind the other media or the newspaper etc. coverage will be premature.
Solve that dilemma by sending publicity materials directly to the magazines at least
three months before you want the coverage to appear, then wait until the week before
you want the coverage to hit up the newspapers, radio, TV and websites, either by
contacting them directly as well or by doing a general press release distribution. That's
right - do publicity in two batches.
Using the guidelines above, plan your timing carefully so you don't have publicity
appearing before your product is ready for purchase or after it's too late for customers
to plan to attend your events.
Bonus Tip: Improve your timing even more by looking up or requesting a
publication's "editorial calendar." This is an issue-by-issue rundown of planned topics
- for instance, the March 16 issue will cover network security, the March 23 issue
software upgrades and so on. If you dovetail your publicity with a particular
publication's editorial calendar, you're practically a shoo-in!
About The Author: Publicity expert Marcia Yudkin is the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity,
Persuading on Paper, Web Site Marketing Makeover and eight other books. She has
engineered coverage for herself or her company in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Success,
Women in Business and dozens of newspapers around the world. Get free access to a one-hour
audio recording in which she answers the most common questions about getting media coverage:
Publicity Ideas.
By Marcia Yudkin
Media outlets are in the news business.
And as you can tell from the close
resemblance between the words "news" and "new," the mission of the media is to bring
you interesting and timely reports on what's new.
If you're an entrepreneur or organizational marketer and you feed your news about
what's new to the media at the appropriate time, you're helping both them and
yourself. You give them news to share, and you receive credibility and exposure to
potential customers.
Ah, but what is the appropriate time? Media deadlines are the most important element
in proper timing.
Follow these guidelines to make the publicity process work in your favor.
In one group are radio, television, newspapers and web sites, which have short-range
deadlines, and in another group are magazines, which have considerably
longer-range deadlines.
For the short-range deadline media, one week is generally enough lead time for those
media outlets to pick up your story. For magazines, the lead time depends on the
publication schedule: Monthly magazines need to receive your press releases or
pitches 3-6 months ahead of time, while those published every other month need even
longer lead time. Weekly magazines need 3-6 weeks advance notice, whenever
possible.
When announcing events or looking for coverage for them (as opposed to, say,
announcing a new product or providing perspective on a trend), you often need to add
a few weeks to the lead time, because daily media often have a weekly rather than
daily publication schedule for their calendar listings. That is, upcoming events get
published in a batch once a week on Thursday or Friday rather than every day.
The biggest timing complications arise with a product launch, because magazines
need to receive your publicity materials 2-3 months before the newspapers, radio, TV
and websites in order for them to feature new stuff around the same time. If you rely
simply on press release distribution for publicity, either magazine coverage will lag
way behind the other media or the newspaper etc. coverage will be premature.
Solve that dilemma by sending publicity materials directly to the magazines at least
three months before you want the coverage to appear, then wait until the week before
you want the coverage to hit up the newspapers, radio, TV and websites, either by
contacting them directly as well or by doing a general press release distribution. That's
right - do publicity in two batches.
Using the guidelines above, plan your timing carefully so you don't have publicity
appearing before your product is ready for purchase or after it's too late for customers
to plan to attend your events.
Bonus Tip: Improve your timing even more by looking up or requesting a
publication's "editorial calendar." This is an issue-by-issue rundown of planned topics
- for instance, the March 16 issue will cover network security, the March 23 issue
software upgrades and so on. If you dovetail your publicity with a particular
publication's editorial calendar, you're practically a shoo-in!
About The Author: Publicity expert Marcia Yudkin is the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity,
Persuading on Paper, Web Site Marketing Makeover and eight other books. She has
engineered coverage for herself or her company in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Success,
Women in Business and dozens of newspapers around the world. Get free access to a one-hour
audio recording in which she answers the most common questions about getting media coverage:
Publicity Ideas.
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