To get media traction and place articles for clients, you have to know which stories or ideas key editors, publishers, journalists, analysts and thought leaders are interested in.  The query that is sent to the media must also be written and pitched in a way that will ensure there’s a good chance they will want to cover your story.

Julia Hidy Marketing has successfully placed short to feature-length articles, worked with leading trade and consumer magazine editors, journalists, bloggers and producers.  She determines how and when to pitch editors and:

• knows what kind of articles and content they’re looking for
• writes tight, well-structured articles, client backgrounders, advertorials and press releases editors can literally quote verbatim
• only pitch articles that are most likely to be written up in their publication and
• NEVER waste a second of an editor’s time – unless they want to talk and discuss business, trends, kids or holiday.

Julia Hidy Marketing has developed solid working relationships with key trade publishers and editors in a number of verticals.  Julia Hidy studies the editorial calendars, develops generic story angles, refines the article and then fine-tunes the query until there’s a very good chance the editor will appreciate receiving your query.

Julia also makes sure she knows what your main competitors’ articles and press releases have mentioned.  She develops your content to be complementary rather than similar.  That way, an editor can choose to possibly cover both stories in the same issue.  Her clients’ and employers’ press releases have been picked up for their new product releases, client wins, upgrades, partnership announcements and award wins.

There’s no greater complement an editor-in-chief can give you than calling you up at the last minute looking to book your client for a four-page cover story because another vendor backed out.  They could have chosen any one of their other contacts.  But they knew you’d be prepared and able to connect them to your client immediately.

This scenario has happened to Julia Hidy a number of times.  Julia Hidy’s editorial contacts know that she pre-screens all the client stories she pitches.

\Julia Hidy Marketing gives professional editors what they want:  to work with another media pro who has the interests of all parties always in mind.  You win; the publication wins; readers win; and your future prospects win because they find out more about your products.  Julia Hidy is happy to facilitate, secure the interview and then it follow up after the article has appeared and the leads arrive.

 

Pitch Smart, Not Hard

Since content is king, each media outlet wants to cover only unique stories.  A classic mistake most media reps make is to develop one pitch for multiple media outlets and then wonder why their pitch wasn’t warmly embraced or placed.  Or they don’t specifically write press releases so the key content points could be published verbatim.

Julia Hidy Marketing specializes in working with high profile and reputable online and print media outlets.  She’s also helped develop client stories for and with top bloggers, leading analysts, University educators, think tanks and industry associations with newsletter publications.  She develops unique story angles tailored to each editor.  Julia would rather pitch and place a few select, well-crafted article ideas, than waste the editor-in-chief’s time.

A key part of your sales lead campaign should be to help us develop customized pitches on your behalf.  These can be based on your client’s benefits with your products,  development news, new product announcements and partnership successes. Editors will appreciate receiving custom pitch story ideas and will realize that a similar story won’t appear in other publications.  Each publication wants the competitive edge over other publications.  Julia Hidy Marketing can put a solid media strategy in place that will ensure that your company receives coverage while building and maintaining good, long-term relationships with the media.

Then Julia Hidy can develop pitches for the other publications that will make them want to cover your company as well, without crossing the line with the first editor.  Julia Hidy makes sure that when she commits a story and/or press release exclusively to an editor and her publication, that that story will only appear there.  For press releases, she will give the editor a one to two week advance lead time and then release nationally.  This way, all parties will be happy with the resulting coverage.

 

Media Etiquette

Many people don’t think of the media as being approachable.  But they are:  it’s a matter of knowing when, where, why, how and what – ironically, the key concepts that editors work with to create every article.

There are certain who in communications for big companies who don’t treat publishers and/or editors very well.  They’re perceived as demanding and not very much fun to work with.  I’ve had a number of trade publishers tell me about the type of so-called PR pro’s who have behaved in less than ideal ways; it’s not an isolated issue.  The key is to never push a corporation’s agenda on editors.  Julia Hidy knows how to work well with editors and always respects their editorial perspectives, objectivity and professionalism .

Most editors work on very tight deadlines.  Julia Hidy provides editors with useful content, fact sheets, and pre-interview backgrounders to make it faster for them to write and increase the accuracy of the final article.  Her efforts have also increased the likelihood that editors will work with her on future stories.

If you’ve had people pitching your media who didn’t fully know the proper editorial etiquette, don’t know exactly what kind of story the editor will most likely cover, and then complain if the facts in an article are wrong, believe me you are negatively impacting your company’s reputation with editorial pros.

Julia Hidy makes a point to do all the right things, has the right attitude, be helpful, respectful, and professional, which helps increase the chances more articles will find their way into print and online.  Each link from an online article is another valuable backlink to your company’s website.  And more importantly, each new article can reach, educate and motivate your prospects via the high profile editorial you’ve received.  magazine content – and gain even more respect for what you do.