How to Customize Media Database that Drives Stellar PR Campaigns

Any journalist can generate pitch beguiling story ideas and interesting press releases (PR). However, your brand’s media relation placement won’t get far if you’re unsure who is the right and best person to contact. This is where media databases come into play. It’s also called a media list, press list, or media contact list.

It’s easy to purchase media lists online, but they can be very costly. Even worse, they’re notoriously inaccurate and outdated due to the never-ending turnover of journalists. Alternatively, it’s much more affordable to create your own media database. Plus, it’ll make your PR campaigns much more efficient since they’re specifically targeted to your needs.

Here are some tips on how to build your customized media database.

Determine Your Audience

Figuring your target audiences out means determining which media contacts you want to add to your customized media contact list. It’s among the fundamental tasks but sometimes overlooked. In addition to that, it’s essential to consider the geographic location.

Target audiences in this scenario are:

• The people who you want or will want to read about your stories (like current customers, potential clients, suppliers, and competitors;
• The places where you would want stories have to be (like web copywriting services);
• Online platforms where your audience frequently reads.

Create Several Different Lists

After determining your target audience, seek help from journalists and publications who tend to create content for your brand. For instance, several business owners tend to seek mention in national newspapers like the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.

However, newspaper mentions can be hard to achieve. It’s even a bigger problem if your target audience doesn’t read the publications. If that’s the case, placements in national newspapers may not generate business results, so your PR placement will become useless.

In Business-to-Business (B2B) firms, stellar PR opportunities are usually held out to niche consumers and trade publications. Besides that, enterprising PR professionals willing to attempt at the local angle can find opportunities at local news outlets.

Not only journalists and publications but also include bloggers, vloggers, and other social media influencers who specialize in your niche. In fact, they tend to outnumber reporters in your market and have wider loyal followings. Ultimately, make a separate late for vertical markets and various story angles. Make sure to include your pitch angle or target audience.

Run a Background Check for Each Contact

This part is where you’ll have to do focused research. There are a lot of things you need to consider when seeking out the journalists’ or online influencers’ contact information. On multiple internet searches, look for their:

• Industry’s keywords;
• Leading competitors;
• Publications names;
• Article writers and their job positions;
• Industry hashtags; and
• Social media profiles.

Manual searching is an uphill task. Hence, PR professionals recommend opting for media monitoring services or tools rather than relying on erratic Google Alerts. These tools provide you with a complete view of the digital landscape. They can easily find publications you can add to your database by tracking online news, blogs, competitors, and other relevant factors in your market.

Other websites, like those of news outlets, are more transparent on contact information. You may quickly obtain the names of the reporters or editors you’re seeking with a review of advanced operators or site maps, such as “site: editorial contacts.”

In addition, be sure that the information you’re taking note of is accurate and what you need. Job titles can be tricky. For example, reporting and editing roles tend to overlap, so run a background check properly.

On top of that, keeping a long list of wrong people is useless. Keep in mind to seek quality, not quantity. One of the critical factors in producing stellar PR results is to ensure a smaller list of well-targeted contacts.

Record Lead Times of Media Outlets

Include the lead times of media outlets in your customized database. That should include other key information like the readership, audience size, domain authority, and website traffic. There should be separate lists for every vertical.

Separate the lists for short-lead and long-lead outlets. Also, secure coverage with backlinks to your site on a high domain authority site. Doing so can increase your site’s ranking on Google and boost your website’s traffic.

Lastly, replace general email addresses with direct email, too. They’re more likely going to reach the person you want to contact. You don’t want your emails for them to be lost in other general inboxes. More importantly, make sure that no contacts have missing information or have listed more than once.

Final Thoughts

An effective PR campaign can help attract public attention, improve sales, and build good relationships between your brand and clients. It has a long-lasting impact on your brand’s public image, so it must be well-planned. Start with a systematic media database.