Pitch the right editors with the right stuff

In this month’s edition, you’ll get advice on picking the right publications for your work and how to make sure it fits their editorial point of view.

Also, if you’re new to Wolf Craft welcome!

This newsletter feature was inspired by you! If you've attended one of our workshops, you likely noticed there were A LOT of great questions. We typed out everything and once a month you'll get two in-depth answers to common PR questions.

Q: How do I decide what publications I should approach?

A: Research!!!! Meaning actually reading the publications, so you know where you’re a good fit and where you’re not.

So many of our clients want to be in Architectural Digest or want to be in the New York Times. But the New York Times almost never writes about interior design anymore, for example.

They used to have a weekly interior design section and they cut it like six years ago. Our clients clearly aren't reading the publication they want to be featured in. They just know they like the idea of the New York Times.

If you're unsure of what publications may be a good fit for your work, go to the press pages of your industry peers. Where are they getting featured? You may even find publications that you didn't know about.

It can be easy to get jealous when you start combing through peer press. But for me I'm like- "awesome, now I have a roadmap. Now I know exactly which publications, to pitch and the types of products or products they feature."  

You can get jealous, but I would instead get strategic. Leverage what other people are doing and understand how to employ that for your business.

Q: I make custom jewelry and accessories.

Is it better to:
1) create a new production line of products
or
2) reach out to the higher-end publications and pitch the custom work that I’m already doing?

A: A lot of business owners who come to our PR workshops make one-of-a-kind, handmade, or limited-batch products. So, this question should help a lot of people.

Magazines and editors have an established structure and a point of view. We can't make them change that point of view. But we can think about how we fit into this structure!? How do we fit into this point of view?

So, start with the question, “How do I take what I'm doing and make sure that a publication will be interested?” That’s the question you bring to your research.

And this should be a whole lot easier than creating a whole new product line!!

Let’s say you want to pitch your custom jewelry to holiday gift guides, for example. Here are a few questions to get you started:

How are people who do custom jewelry (or any type of small-batch products) getting written about in the gift guides you find from last year?

How are they putting a spin on it?

How are the products merchandised?

Are they saying, “You get a gift card, and then whoever receives it can work with you to make their own custom thing?”

Are there local guides that are showcasing locally-made products specifically?

When doing publication research, make sure you're looking at what has worked for your peers with a similar point of view.

Maybe, instead of looking at custom jewelry, you'll find some success looking at other custom things as well, and how they packaged and managed to sell it to make it fit inside of a gift guide.

So that's what I would say, really lean into that research with that question.

Useful tools to help you get started:

5-Day Pitch the Media Mini Course (psst it’s only $15)

9 PR Tips from WIRED Magazine’s Pitching Guide

Want to see your products featured in holiday gift guides??? Sign up for one of our upcoming free workshops:

• Tuesday, April 16th - 4:00 to 5:00 pm EST

• Tuesday, May 7th - 4:00 to 5:00 pm EST

• Tuesday, May 28th - 4:00 to 5:00 pm EST