Home Professional P.R. Tom's top tips P.R. -- a creative art? Analysis: P.R. sites Writing Speaking Geeking Terms Other areas About Tom Contact info Tom's other sites bandwidthpr.com spamcon.org openppc.org popcomputers.com Mailing lists: Tgeller-personal Tgeller-business Suespammers

Sandy Reed's "10 Ways to Get Your Product or Company Covered in Trade Publications" Contents copyright Sandy Reed, 1998. All rights reserved. Sandy Reed, Editor in Chief of Infoworld, presented the following outline at a talk I led on 3 September 1998 for the Silicon Valley Association of Software Entrepreneurs. It appears here with her permission. Know the publication's target audience. People read trade publications seeking very different information than they're looking for in Fortune, Playboy, or their local newspaper. Get the name right. Nothing makes me less inclined to pay attention to a pitch than being addressed to Editor in Chief of InfoWeek. Mine publication Web sites. Do keyword searches for categories and competitors so you can send e-mail to people you know are interested in specific topics. Don't assume that a single point of contact is adequate or that we talk to each other. It's good to let editors know you've contacted others on the publication's staff. Reporters hate running into someone from their own publication while chasing a story. Email, email, email. The busiest reviewers write two or three reviews a week. They receive 50-100 unsolicited pitches from companies and they actively track product plans of another 20+ companies. Use trade shows and conferences as opportunities. Trade publications like to report what?s going to happen at a trade show in the week or two before the show -- not after the show. Be explicit about what you're disclosing to whom. Some publications honor embargoes, some don't. Some departments honor them, some don't. We're leery about companies with no competitors who have a totally new product -- because our readers are. Sell your pedigree; technology and people can matter more than the specific product. Don't ever tell a reporter or editor that you're thinking about buying an ad or have bought an ad in their publication. If a staff member is unresponsive, escalate to their editor, and up the chain to the Editor in Chief if necessary. This page was last updated on Thursday, January 05, 2012 at 6:17pm CST. All contents copyright 2005 by Tom Geller.

All contents copyright 1998 by Tom Geller and Sandy Reed as appropriate. Duplication without permission (with the exception of temporary copies delivered via HTTP and appearing in a Web browser) strictly forbidden.