Submitted by Sabina Hitchen on | 0 Comments
This week for our member-only weekly #TuneUp meeting, we welcomed guest expert and Tin Shingle member Kelly Kepner of Kelly Kepner Public Relations, to help us master the art of "dissecting" and studying a magazine to help build a pitching road map. And MAN was it amazing!
If you're not a member of Tin Shingle yet, here are a few highlights from our chat. We host these weekly, and check out the schedule for next week to see what we're covering next that can help your buzz-building! Join us as a member to get in on these calls!
DISSECTING A MAGAZINE
It goes without saying that you should always know the magazine (or any type of media outlet) that you want you or your brand to be featured in or on. Simply saying "Oh, well I read Real Simple this past summer" or "I 'get' the vibe of Seventeen Magazine enough to pitch it, I know their demographic" is not enough. Sure you could send your pitches out with the assumption that you're on the right track but wouldn't your rather have a strategy that will save you time and money in the long run? Yes you would, trust me.
Pitching a magazine after studying it section by section, checking out who write what, mastering their language and style is directly correlated to pitching success. It is like trying to get to a destination you have never been to before with a road map as opposed to getting their via your gut or instinct. I don't know about you, but I'd rather use the map.
A few things Kelly covered in our call about mastering magazines:
- Study the magazine every single month.
- Use past articles for inspiration for everything from titles/headlines/email subject lines to how to deliver your information.
- Go the extra mile and actually lay out a product pitch.
- Don't forget this hot section that you can be pitching that is often overlooked by small businesses.
- Know exactly what type of story each magazine focuses on.
- Know the monthly themes in magazine world so you can prepare and pitch ahead for it.
- Celebrity weeklies love covering trends.
Kelly gave us several more clever strategies on our #TuneUp and will be sharing even more in our upcoming class that you will be able to download!
