The media is in the news business. And as you can see by the close resemblance between the words “news” and “new,” the mission of the media is to provide you with interesting and timely reports on what’s new. If you are an entrepreneur or organizational marketer and get your breaking news out to the media at the right time, you are helping them as well as yourself. You give them news to share and you gain credibility and exposure to potential customers.
Ah, but what is the right time? Media deadlines are the most important element at the right time. Follow these guidelines to make the advertising process work for you.
In one group are radio, television, newspapers and websites, which have short turnaround times, and in another group are magazines, which have considerably longer turnaround times. For the media’s short-range deadline, a week is generally enough time for those media outlets to pick up their story. In the case of magazines, the delivery time depends on the publication schedule: monthly magazines must receive their press releases or presentations 3 to 6 months in advance, while those that are published every two months need a delivery time. even bigger. Weekly magazines require 3-6 weeks advance notice, whenever possible.
When announcing events or seeking coverage for them (as opposed to, say, announcing a new product or providing insight on a trend), you often need to add a few weeks to the lead time, because the daily media often has a weekly post. instead of one. daily posting schedule for your calendar listings. That is, upcoming events are published in a batch once a week on Thursday or Friday instead of every day.
The biggest time constraints arise with a product launch, because magazines need to receive their advertising materials 2-3 months before newspapers, radio, television, and websites so they can introduce new things around the same time. If you simply rely on press release distribution for publicity, the magazine’s coverage will lag far behind other media or the newspaper, etc. coverage will be premature.
Solve that dilemma by sending publicity materials directly to magazines at least three months before you want coverage to appear, then wait until a week before you want coverage to hit newspapers, radio, TV and websites, either by contacting them directly. also or doing a general distribution of press releases. That’s right, advertise in two batches.
Using the guidelines above, plan your time carefully so that advertising doesn’t appear before your product is ready to buy or after it’s too late for customers to plan on attending your events.
Bonus tip: Make your time even better by searching or requesting a publication’s “editorial calendar.” This is a number-by-number summary of the planned topics; for example, the March 16 issue will cover network security, software updates from the March 23 issue, etc. If you match your advertising with the editorial calendar of a particular publication, you’re pretty much a winner!