Mastering Trade Media Benefits: Effective PR Strategies

This podcast is ranked by Apple as being among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide , so thank you to all of our guests and listeners for making this possible , and please leave your review after the podcast , because we certainly like to see what you think about the show Now .

Many PR pros believe landing a placement in mainstream media will reach their desired audience . Well , in some cases yes , In some cases no . However , with smaller media staff , mainstream media may not get the results you anticipate . So the question becomes have you thought about tailoring your news for specific audiences ? Have you paid attention to trade media .

My guest today will provide you with some valuable insights on outreach through trade media to your specific audiences . That's right trade media . So my guest today is Nicole Schumann . She is a writer with PR News Online and she joins us today from Alexandria , virginia . So , nicole , welcome to the podcast .

So you can find trade media that are specific to things like dentistry . You can find media trade media that is specific to defense contracting . You can find it for people that are covering food business , those sorts of things .

So what we do is I work for PR News and we cover the PR and communications industry , so our articles and our content is directed towards that community .

Some of our readers are in-house , so they may work for a beauty brand , or they may work in higher education , they may work in health care , so they need to find the outlets that are specific to those industries that they are working with .

They have Marketing Dive , they have HR Dive , they have Restaurant Dive . People may have dives . They have restaurant dives . People may have heard of them because they're bigger , but they may not have , whereas if you're looking at something like Forbes or Wall Street Journal , those aren't necessarily trade publications but they cover business specifically .

People may think about that in a more broader aspect . They are out there . You just have to look for them .

If you work in education , almost everyone that works in higher education knows the Chronicle of Higher Education and that is their , you know , obviously main trade publication , and when a trade publication is really good , they're able to tell stories that can appeal to all sorts of people , even people that don't work in that industry .

So you know you really have to do your research and look for them all sorts of people , even people that don't work in that industry . So you know you really have to do your research and look for them . I don't run into a lot of people that do not know trade publications .

I run into people that don't know my trade publication or they confuse it with another PR trade publication , because there are quite a few . There's PR Week , there's PR Daily , there's Ad Age , there's Ad Week . You know so a lot of people writing about the different aspects of PR and what it means , and we all try to kind of differentiate ourselves .

When you look at these different publications per industry , they may be covering things in different ways . You know , for example , I get a lot of pitches about mergers and acquisitions . We don't cover mergers and acquisitions . I get a lot of pitches about mergers and acquisitions . We don't cover mergers and acquisitions .

I'm happy to know about , you know , any kind of promotions , any kind of new people that are coming in that might be good for sources in the future , but we don't do that Now . If you read PR Week , they cover mergers and acquisitions . So that's you know . We're trying to differentiate ourselves from each other in the things that we're doing .

You know , the other thing I think about too is that , particularly for large industries and I do some work for the National Health Department and I want to say there's so many different areas and arenas there that that means if I were to call you , I need to fine-tune a particular area that I want to talk about or pitch you about .

Would that be the way of going about it ?

So that was a way that a lot of I worked with a lot of different people in health care communications , for example .

Or , you know , sometimes someone might pitch me like like hey , we're doing this new campaign , these are the kind of tools that we're using for it , where we decided to , you know , launch a video game , um , to get people interested in what we're doing .

Um , you know , would you guys be interested in writing about the campaign because it's a new and different technology . So I get pitches like that , talking about campaigns . So so , you know , obviously , yeah , for us , we want to , you know , share with other communicators in the industry the different things that people are doing and how we can learn from them .

You know , for example , even if I am writing about something in healthcare communications , I want to pull something out so that anybody in communications could learn from this . You know whether it's you know something out so that anybody in communications could learn from this .

You know , whether it's you know about crisis communications or it's about a new way of using digital media . So that's you know kind of how I'm looking at things .

But yeah , I mean , I mean someone could approach me from oh , I've done articles with Wisconsin cheese , which is the promotional arm of , of of officially of cheese of Wisconsin , and they have an amazing communications team and you know we've done stories in regards to . You know how they work with journalists that are not in their area .

You know to kind of expose them to products and do interviews and those sorts of things . You know to kind of expose them to products and do interviews and those sorts of things . So you know it . Really , you need to read from the PR person's perspective .

You really need to read the publication , read some articles and kind of see , get a feel of what they're looking for when you are approaching them .

I get a lot of people pitching me tools that they're working on , tools that they're using , how they're using them , articles about ethics and AI , disclosure , articles on how to write pitches with AI , how to write press releases with AI , what makes it a good one , what makes it a bad one , all those sorts of things . We've done workshops on this .

We have done live events on this . It is something that our readership can't seem to get enough of . You know , because so many people are working with this in the industry and in some ways , it's making their work more efficient . But there are always , you know , nothing is . There's always a yin and a yang .

Nothing is perfect , so there's also a very human element to it and we get a lot of pitching to write contributed pieces about that and how you can use the tools responsibly . But it is a huge topic in the industry right now .

It will also then offer some suggestions for the title of the show of this particular episode . I can look at them , I can accept them , I can modify them or I can just completely write my own . It's there . It also puts together snippets for social media .

There's a snippet for Facebook or X and so forth , and so on and so on , and it certainly does come in handy in a wide range of areas . So I just wanted to make sure that it hadn't skipped over trade publications or the use of it by those getting into trade publications .

And I'm reading it , and I'm reading the transcript , which I know was , you know , definitely it correct and things like that .

And I'm reading it and I'm reading the transcript , which I know was , you know , definitely put together by AI , and I said I went back and I said you guys need to go back and read this , because a lot of sentences in here don't make sense and you probably know this , like generating a transcript and then reading it back , a lot of times it doesn't catch

everything or it catches the wrong word and it doesn't make sense . So and this is you know , I think this is common sense but if you are utilizing a tool like that , you need to also go back , and I mean that's just the grammar person .

I mean you always need to go back and reread and double check because there will be errors , I guarantee you a hundred% of the time . So you want to make sure that what you're putting out to the public then is readable and , you know , without errors and things like that . Because , too , that's you know , that's the first thing at the podcast .

That's their reputation at stake as well and you don't want to leave that completely in the hands of AI . So I think , like I was saying , a yin and yang , a balance , utilizing the tools but then going back and doing some human surveillance , I think is good for that . And I will tell you , the person that emailed me this blog thanked me profusely .

They checked the things that needed to be corrected .

I understand people are human , but when I see that or you know name of another person or something , I'm thinking that someone is just sending me pitches out on autopilot , a technique that we usually call spray and pray , which is , you know , maybe they're sending out hundreds of pitches trying to get one .

And you know , if someone's like dear Mark , I know , like they don't know me as a journalist , they , you know they're . They're just they're not doing their due diligence . And I , you know I could talk about media relations all day , but so that's , that's probably my number one .

I usually , if it's someone I don't know , I will give them a second chance and write them back and say , hey , that's not my name . Similar thing , when someone is addressing me but they'll say , oh , hey , nicole , been reading your work in PR Week or PR Daily , and I'll just write back and say that's not my publication .

That is really offensive to me , not because I don't like their publications I think anyone who works at any of those publications does an amazing job but because that's just that's lazy in my opinion . Like you know you need to know where people work . Go on their LinkedIn .

Like you know you need to know where people work , go on their LinkedIn and you know kind of kind of write you know with you know a little bit of respect and anticipation there . That stuff really makes me crazy . What else makes me crazy in a pitch ?

I mean I , I have , I feel so bad , like my email is just overflowing at the moment , but you know I , I mean I'm getting like 100 emails a day , sometimes more , um , so I don't have time to read and and this is different , everybody's different but the majority of journalists , they want a subject line that's to the point , like don't make me , don't have it

vague , so I have to guess what you're talking about . And then , as far as a pitch , I like maybe like one paragraph or like a couple sentences and then , if you have more information , attach a press release . That's always helpful .

You know I can't , I can't be scrolling through , you know , email all day trying to get to the point of what you guys want to pitch me about . Shorter pitches from me is always great , just because we can always go back and forth then and talk more about it . The attached press release is always helpful with a quote . That's even more helpful .

Quotes that just say you know , pat Smith , ceo of Good Life magazine , says they're very excited about the launch of this new product , and most people know that . That's a quote . It's never going to get in an article . It doesn't explain anything . Of course . They're excited about a launch .

You know , so I mean a quote , I'll get into a story then is you know , and a lot of times we don't have time to do interviews we try , but if it's , you know , like a quick piece or you know , you want to include it , some kind of roundup or something like that .

Like having a quote from leadership that's interesting , that provides some kind of insight , is really welcomed . So I kind of threw a lot in there . But , yeah , get the name right , get the name of the publication right , keep it short and make sure you have good quotes . Those are my big things , that I enjoy .

My big things that I enjoy , honestly , the best pitches I've had . You know , the best PR people I've worked with . I've developed relationships with them . So they know what works for our publication , they know what we don't write about .

And even if it is something we don't write about , they'll approach me in a way where you know they've been thoughtful about it . They'll try to provide me with ideas . I'm like , oh , you could cover the story this way , or blah , blah , blah , you know . So that's always kind of nice .

And then , once you do get to know a journalist and they've written about you a few times , it's always nice if you can offer them some kind of exclusive . I would say nine times out of ten . They'll usually write about what you're offering if it's applicable to the publication . So you know , don't get those all the time .

We're not the New York Times , but that's okay . We're not trying to be , so that's always kind of nice when that's available .

You know it's one thing to do the interview , but if there's data that goes along with it fine Photographs . You know , comments , can we ? But if there's data that goes along with it fine photographs , comments can we sit down with the congressman and talk directly to him ?

Those kinds of things that we know right up front that we can get done will certainly make the path for getting interviews a lot easier and much more supportable when they pitch it , I guess , to the editors .

You know , we can't use like you can't just like , take a photo off the internet it has to be licensed , it has to be approved that kind of stuff and you know we're a smaller publication so we don't have access to like a getty .

You know we we have , um , you know we use shutterstock , which is um very helpful , um with licensed photography and things like that . But um , yeah , I always , you know , will appreciate some kind of photo . Um , if you're talking about a campaign , if you're talking about a specific product or something you're working on , that's always really helpful .

So I'm not spending 20 , 30 minutes , sometimes an hour of my day , looking for a photo that would go with what we're talking about . So that's always very helpful and needed .

You know you can have a story in the New York Times , but the New York Times is a big paper and people aren't necessarily always going to see your story . They might not care about it . You know , because there's maybe they're reading it . To you know , read about politics , or they're reading the paper .

To you know , read an update on a book that came out or something like that . They're not necessarily reading the website or the paper or something like that . To you know , read about , you know , your new healthcare product or something of that nature . When you appeal to a trade , you know the audience that you're getting .

You know who you are appealing to and I think you're getting more direct readership because , also , a lot of trade publications you have to subscribe to , um , or there's a paywall , uh , so the people that are reading it are really investing the time , um and energy and uh , you know , to give the subscribers what they're looking for , um , so I think that's you

know . That's pretty interesting . One other thing I wanted to mention was , um , substack . Substack is where a lot of very , very good journalists are going to put out their own newsletters , so to speak , but newsletters that cover different aspects of news . You might call them niche newsletters . You know , you can subscribe to different ones on travel .

You can subscribe to different ones on politics , on politics , different ones on business technology , those sorts of things . So it also is good to take a look at Substack , for example , where you might be able to find a journalist that's really specific , that has an amazing following .

Some of these journalists have millions of followers , um , on sub stack and they pay to get to receive their newsletter and to receive this news . So you're really getting a specific niche there , um , but that's another option rather than , you know , just pitching a thousand journalists , or right , or , you know , trying to get in a glamour magazine or something .

Sometimes doing things more focused can be more worthwhile in the end .

I know , having worked in Washington DC and several other places , how important at least they are there and that importance perhaps spreads across the US , so more of our listeners should take advantage of that .

If you'd like more information or to get a copy and download the podcast , do that , and you can communicate with Nicole a bit more if you need to , and we'd also like to get a review from you .

So , don't forget , you can go to our website at wwwpublicrelationsreviewpodcastcom and leave your review there , and also don't forget to share this information with your colleagues and also listen to the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast .