Media Timetables Lead to Better Coverage

Get the best results from press contacts by knowing how far ahead they need information.

(Shel Horowitz's Frugal Marketing Tip, October, 1997)

To get press coverage, you need to plan ahead—sometimes way ahead.

For instance, as I'm writing this in September, I'm planning to push the "frugal romance" angle of my book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant's Pocketbook to monthly magazines—because at least some of them should still be working on their Valentine issues right now. But with some markets, it's already too late for February even now. Thus, if you were planning to send information about a Christmas or Chanukah angle, don't even bother with the monthlies this year—but put it on your calendar for July.

On the other hand, daily and weekly newspapers will be hearing from me this week about frugal Halloween costumes (the subject of this month's Frugal Fun tipsheet, incidentally). They don't even want to *think* about Halloween until October hits—but they will be making their feature assignments very soon now that October is just about here.

Of course, these are both "soft" stories. If there was major breaking news, you get the word out as soon as you can—and if you have a way of hooking into a current news story, get on the horn with the fastest methods available. Don't wait for snail mail, but get your fax machine, telephone, and e-mail humming. Say for example you had a book on dealing with credit card debt. If a prominent person announces a problem managing credit cards, your release should be in the editor's hands before the ink is dry on the original story.

Thank you reading this back issue of Shel Horowitz's Monthly Frugal Marketing Tips, published every month since May, 1997; please click here to view the complete archives, grouped by subject. Shel is an internationally known copywriter and marketing consultant, author of Grassroots Marketing Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and several other books, and creator of the Frugal Marketing web site. Please click here to contact Shel.


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