Sunday's Are Perfect For...Magazine Reading...Here's How To Find The Perfect Media Contact

You can get into any one of these magazines. Be your business a local shop, or if you’re an expert in your field, or if you’ve developed the perfect toy. Inside the pages of these magazines - and their digital versions - are a myriad of reasons why your business would fit into a story. The key is to unlocking that 1 reason that makes your business a must-write about.

The Perfect Pitch

Sunday's are for being unplugged and dreaming your dreams. That means answering to no one, and listening to the ideas that enter your mind. Being that you're running a business, the ideas #dontstopwontstop. They make you happy! That is why you can use today to discover one special pitch.

Discover The Pitch

You want a feature in a magazine. Or a TV show. Sunday is the day you will pick up 1 magazine, or watch 1 TV show you want your business featured in. You will turn the pages. You will read the articles. You will discover "The Why" of why that writer might cover your business next time. You see how they covered one business, and an idea will click on why they might cover yours.

"Don't I Need To Wait For The Editorial Calendar To Tell Me When To Pitch?"

No. While Tin Shingle does give you instant access to over 100 editorial calendars (Yes, over 100 different publications and growing! Our researcher Yvonne has been busy!), it all comes down to the ideas. Planting the seed.

You can do this. You can plant that seed. You can send a writer an email about your business, just as an FYI, and walk away. You will want to be thinking of so many different story angles. Perfect ones for a particular writer at a particular brand (magazine, digital magazine, TV show). If you’re nervous or unsure about it, you can join Tin Shingle and talk to us in Tin Shingle’s Community using the Pitch Whisperer forum to get feedback.

How To Discover The Best Contact

In your Sunday Reading, here's how you're going to discover who is making the magic. In this video, Tin Shingle's owner and publisher Katie takes you through a little media monitoring of Sift Magazine, a publication that features bakers, bakeries, products, authors, recipes, and more. Another way to discover writers or publications you had no idea about is to tap into Tin Shingle’s Media Contact Library, also a perk of membership with Tin Shingle.

Chevy “Grilling” On The Cover Of bon appetit February 2019 “Healthyish” Issue - Whatever Works!

These magazines arrived in the mailbox today. Condé Nast Traveler and bon appetit. Can’t wait to read! Re the bon appetit cover of the enormous grill on the Chevy Silverado: whatever works, y’all! 😂 I’ll take that all American grill.

Haven’t seen the magazine out in the wild on the newsstands to see if this advertisement cover is also used on retail shelves. Variety magazine also sells their cover to advertisers, especially around Oscar time when Oscar campaigns from film studios are fierce for attention.

Starting Research on Sift Magazine, From King Aurthur Flour

Reading for the night...in preparation for our hopeful new series...Sunday Reading. Does it count that I’m starting on Monday?

This magazine, Sift, is from King Arthur Flour. Yeah. That’s right. Because companies see magazines as good for business. And this Holiday 2018 issue employed a fair amount of people, most of whom are full time freelance or work for King Arthur Flour. Right now, the magazine comes out 3 times a year: Spring (March), Fall (August) and Holiday (October). Each new issue becomes available on the last Tuesday of the month it publishes in.

There are great product recommendations in the pages as well. And a holiday gift guide! Future updating into Tin Shingle’s Media Contact Library we go. To make sure you know about these foodies. All Access Members of Tin Shingle get instant access to that idea 💡center of goodness.

“What Do You Do With Your Magazines? Can I Have Them?”

People have been seeing the magazines in our Instagram feed and blog. The print. The physical books. And they’ve been asking: “What do you do with your old magazines? Can I have them?”

Answer: I KEEP them! Proud magazine collector over here. How you gonna collage with no pages? You can’t collage your Instagram! Unless you print it. And that’s work. Where you gonna find the easy amazing pictures? What inspiration are you going to hang on your walls? Subscribe! Get them to your door! At this point, they are a dollar. an. issue.

Will this help the big magazine industry stay afloat? Will this help journalists, artists and production people stay in their jobs? Maybe. Probably not because corporate thinking at magazines - excuse me - “brands” - are behaving erratically and cutting off their arms by stopping printing magazines.  You know what? The indie magazines are going to do well (if they market right) while these corporate leaders at magazines like Glamour, Seventeen and Redbook get confused and cut their arms off.

Reading Inc. While Walking: Fitting As The Article Encouraged Moving

Some people read in the bathroom. I read while walking. Another reason to read in print - most people judge (and shouldn’t) people looking at or reading screen devices. But less so when it’s an actual book, magazine or newspaper! One just looks like a nerd. Who hopefully doesn’t trip while walking.

Anyway - the point is - great point presented by Thomas Goetz in Inc. for his Launch Pad column in Inc. Magazine. He asks: “Can your business pass The Donut Test?” The Donut tastes really good and people really want it, but should you make it for them? What are the consequences of what your business makes (no offense to our donut making friends who have built businesses on donut making shops and other treats!)

Thomas presents his example with with Facebook News Feed, which Greg Marra, then a Facebook product manager talking to Thomas when Thomas was at Wired magazine, likened to people just eating a bunch of donuts. Facebook thought to just give the people more donuts since that’s what they wanted. But if you talk to people, Greg said, they said “I actually want to eat fewer donuts and maybe have a kale smoothie.”

Hard core anti-kale people will throw rotten tomatoes at this concept (I’m eating salted seaweed chips right now!), but you get it. If you keep feeding the people just donuts, the people will be angry, depressed, and probably illness ridden. So can the business switch it up? And is your business doing something to improve people’s lives. Help them move. Feel better with no crashes. Bring people together.

It was a good read.

This Week’s Cover of Variety: The Survivors

Sometimes Variety, the trade magazine for the film and television industry, will be bought, and an ad will be there, positioning a film to win an award. Nothing wrong with that - it’s what pays the bills and the writers and the designers and the editors and the entire departments that produce a magazine.

So when Variety doesn’t have an ad on the cover, you know they’ve devoted a deep dive into some great reporting and information presenting.

This editorial, this subject matter won’t stop. It won’t let up. It won’t become less trendy and cycle out of news cycles. A culture of acceptance and rudeness and entitlement and blindness is being fired right now. That’s why this is so hard. Pages in print and in digital are the weapons. Both sides use them, and readers need all of them to find the right answers.

Local Magazine Reaches Far and Wide for Small City - The Valley Table for Beacon in Mahopac

Enjoying the article on cream in the September-November 2018 issue of The Valley Table which devoted this issue to farmers (and the Pots de Creme in the recipe section).

I’m currently writing this blog post from a car dealership in Mahopac, which is about 35 minutiae from where I live in Beacon, NY (and I produce a blog from there). Several of the staff way out at this dealership love Beacon, NY simply because they read about it and the restaurants so often in The Valley Table.

As a side note, the ads are so well designed! I always enjoy reading the features and the ads. My philosophy is to support ads, to pursue purchasing them, as well as pitching magazines for organic, solid PR. While a true editorial feature can raise your brand’s profile as well as tap into a flood of sales, well placed advertising also educates your customer base and keeps your brand top of mind.

That and, without it, the magazine wouldn’t exist. So there’s that. Plain and simple. 

So support your local and national media sources! 

Deconstructing the Pitch: Designer of Animal Furniture Featured in Architectural Digest

As you're flipping through your favorite magazines, you are reading inspiring features about other people. In the back of your mind, you may be thinking: "Ah, one day, that will be me."

Reality Check: Today, that is you.

You Can Be Featured In The Magazine Too!

As you are trying to market your business, you're going to want PR. You're going to want to be mentioned in magazines, TV segments, blog posts, and interviewed on podcasts. It's a big job - all of this marketing - but somebody's got to do it, and that someone is you. Here's how you're going to hit the grand slam:

Step 1: Realize that you can be featured in a magazine like Architectural Digest. This is the "Give Yourself Permission" approach we preach in Tin Shingle Training TuneUps (all of which are free with an All Access Pass Level 4 of membership) and is the undercurrent in all of our articles.

Step 2: Find the "Why." Why would this magazine feature your business right now? What about your business is significant to that magazine's readers?

Step 3: Go for the pitch. This means you will write an email to an editor (or contributing writer) at a magazine, with some clever suggestion of why their readers would love to know about your company right now.

The Pitch Deconstructed

The pitch is the trickiest part. It's a simple email, but needs to be written to just the right person in just the right way. We have deconstructed this full page feature in Architectural Digest of the designer Porky Hefer. Tin Shingle Members at the Community Level 1 and above can log into their accounts and find the analysis right here in our Pitch Whisperer Workshop forum of the Community Boards.

Find out what may have appealed to editors at Architectural Digest that convinced them to give this designer a full page in the "back of the book" aka the back of the magazine where lots of people flip the back cover and see it, and how you can do it too.

The Pitch Whisperer Workshop forum is available to Community Members Level 1 and above to submit their pitches to the group and get feedback (and sometimes edits!) from our supportive community. No pitch is to far out for our eyes. Tin Shingle is all about helping you Think Big and Go Big for your business marketing.

PR HOMEWORK:
Read a Feature & Think Backwards

To help train your mind in pitching the media:
1. Read the magazine you want your business featured in.
2. You'll notice a feature of a business that could have been yours.
3. Think about what they featured about that business - all of the highlights and special points that was in the article.
4. These observations will help form your pitch.
5. Use Tin Shingle's Media Contact Database to help you find the right editor or writer to pitch to.
6. Use Tin Shingle's PR Planning & Tracking Template to log when you pitched to them, and when you'll follow up.

#Magazining: Who Are You Reading This Weekend?

Who are you reading this weekend? Pitching the media becomes so much easier when you know what they covered, who else covered it, how they covered it, and where your story angle fits in.

Easily fill up your PR Planning and Tracking Template with story angle ideas for the myriad of ways different media outlets could feature your business or product or service expertise.

Download the template from the Template section of this website. Free for All Access Pass Members of Tin Shingle!

PR Tip: Just because there are 10 different ways to feature your business, you wouldn’t include all 10 of those in your pitch. You would zero in on 1, and write the pitch around that. I go into more detail about this in Tin Shingle’s Commmunity Boards available to Community Level 1 Members. Join us! And start improving your pitches.