How to Create a Press List
You want to reach the media to claim a thought leadership position. For that purpose, a good press list is indispensable. These three tips will help you with that.
A Good Press List Starts with a Target Audience
Do you want to get in touch with a journalist? Are you looking for relevant media? Then it's primarily important to determine who your target audience is. Even though you may have developed a product or service that you’d like to sell to the whole world, it pays off to initially focus on a single target audience.
By selecting a target audience, you can devise a plan on how to reach this group. However, determining your target audience is not as easy as you think. Did you know that this is a common mistake made by entrepreneurs and marketers?
Tip 1: You Are Not Your Target Audience
We often think that our target audience will read the same media as ourselves. If you have founded a startup in the event sector, you follow media that writes about startups and events. But your target audience – event professionals – likely do not follow media about startups. They will be involved with events, so they will only read media related to that.
In other words: our target audience – the starting point of the press list – are not our peers. They are your (potential) customers.
Tip 2: Choose the Right Categories
In many systems, like Presscloud.co, you can scroll through various categories. This way, you can put together your own press list. By selecting the branches that are relevant for you, you can easily compile a press list.
Note: not every medium in your target audience is relevant. Some media focus on the consumer side of an industry, and others on the business market. Fleet and Mobility is, for example, a business medium that writes about cars, Autoweek ('the car authority') is aimed at consumers. Therefore, carefully select which media are relevant for your brand or campaign.
Tip 3: Put Yourself in Your Audience’s Shoes
Ask several professionals from this industry within your network which media they find relevant. Thus, you will find media outside of your 'bubble'. It can also point you to unexpected outlets. Such target audience research directly presents an opportunity to discover which topics your target audience finds relevant. Therefore, regularly question and interview your (potential) customers.
In Conclusion
The three tips mentioned above will help you in creating a press list. Also consider using Google News as a source for a press list. Search in Google News for topics that have to do with your business, so you discover which media are writing about them.
