A few days ago, we put up a post about how to pitch the media. Knowing how to approach the media is half the battle. Once you know which publication you want to target, how do you find the right contact? A lot of rookie publicists will a send an email to a publication’s shopping editor about a new face lotion. What they should have done is pitch the beauty editor, don’t you think?
The first step to finding the right contact to pitch is finding the appropriate section in the publication. For example, let’s say your pitching the success of your small business to your local newspaper or website. Browse through the publication and look for the writer who writes about small businesses. Be specific. Just because the writer wrote a business story BP does not mean the writer writes about small, local businesses.
Once you find the appropriate writer or editor, either search the publication for an email address or call the headquarters and ask the receptionist.
If you’re looking to pitch a magazine, you’ll want to search the masthead for the right editor. The masthead is found at the front of the book and lists all the editors, writers, and even interns. There’s usually a masthead for the editorial team (Editor-in-Chief, Features Editor, writers, etc.) and another page for the sales/marketing team (Publisher, Sales Executive, etc.). So if you’re looking to pitch a beauty story, check the masthead for the beauty editor.
Again, when you find the right person you’ll want to call the magazine’s headquarters and ask for an email address. Another trick is sometimes in the Editor’s Note (also in the front of book), you’ll see that the magazine lists his/her email address. So if the editor’s name is Joe Smith and his email isJSmith@magazine.com, the beauty editor’s, whose name is Jane Dunn, email will most probably be JDunn@magazine.com. For example, Conde Nast’s employees’ email addresses are FirstName_LastName@condenast.com.
So make sure you do your homework when pitching a story. You want to make sure your pitch gets into the right hands giving you more of a chance of landing that story!
xoxo,
Loren
