Find the reporters. Sign up for a Google Alert to get emailed articles, websites, columns and blogs who are writing on your area of expertise or focus. This is a great way to find out who is out there writing about your topics. If you do a Google Alert, Google will do all the heavy lifting for you.

If you’re trying to get into magazines, pay particular attention to the column in front of the magazine. It’s usually written by the editor. That will tip you off to all kinds of issues that they think are important. It will give you names of freelance writers who are featured in that issue.

Let’s say you’re trying to get on a National Public Radio program. Go to the NPR website and use the search box at the top to plug in your topic and it will bring up a list of programs that NPR has featured on that topic. Many of those programs are archived right at the website.

The smarter you are about the publication you’re pitching, the better you’re going to pitch and the more publicity you’re going to get. Your job is to help make a journalist’s job easy. Once you’re familiar with their publication or program, you can offer story ideas that are a perfect fit.

Identify emerging trends. A great way to make a journalist’s job easy is to tip them off to emerging trends. The media relies on really good sources to tip them off to emerging trends that they can write about. So if you’re starting to see emerging trends in a certain industry and you think it would make a great story and we haven’t seen a lot written about it, tip off a reporter on your media hit list to that trend.

Offer background information.  Newspapers don’t want only one person quoted in the whole story, so if you can hand contact information and names to a reporter who’s interested in your story idea, you’ve just positioned yourself as a golden source.

Read the rest of the series;

9 Proven Ways to Get Publicity for Your Law Firm, Part 1 of 3

9 Proven ways to Get Publicity for Your Law Firm, Part 3 of 3