Even if we only know two press people / bloggers / influencers that like talking about us, it’s time to make a press list. It’ll grow over time, but if we don’t have a garden, we have nowhere to put our bullshit.
It isn’t about having thousands of contacts…
it’s about keeping track of our helpful relationships.
We make a spreadsheet or an air table. Here are the headings…
- Real estate name of the periodical or whatever “New York Times”
- Website URL for easy ref
- Person Name the actual person we talk to. We might have multiple rows for multiple contacts at the same real estate
- Job Title It can be helpful to know if someone refers to themself as a journalist, editor, or whatever
- Story Type The journalist might write an entertainment column, or might only cover “weird” things or financial things. We don’t want to send press releases to the wrong people.
- Phone
- Special Submission instructions Some places only want you to submit news items thru their website
- Next Follow Up Date Stage/Next Steps doesn’t come in super handy usually, but it can be helpful when in the midst of a big press push
- Last Touch Usually not necessary if most stuff is thru email
- Last Published a date of last time they told people about us
- Published Links it’s easy to forget how many times someone published us and it’s also good to have the links there for easy access for other stuff
- Personal Conn. Could be like “I know her thru Jane Cregger”
- Notes whatever!
My press list just sits around
Most of the time, my press list gathers dust unless I’m in the middle of some big event or some new offering. I’m not looking at it or editing it. Then, when I have a press release or I just want to jot an email to a person, the list leaps into action.
When a google alert goes off and shows me a new article about my projects, that’s another moment I crack it open.
- Send a thank you note to the journalist / influencer
- Mark down any notes in the press list
- Update info and close it up
It’s really awesome to have even as a dust collector, because I know that I’m not going to sweat it when I want to make an announcement.