PR Update: What’s Changed in What Editors Want From You?
I recently met with 20 b-to-b magazine editors in four days this week at two different trade shows. It was quite a whirlwind, but as I reflect back on the meetings, I thought it was interesting that some things have changed in generating coverage for clients, and some things haven’t.
What hasn’t changed?
- We’ve always said that the harder it is to get covered in a magazine or website, the better read the magazine is. Still true. The best magazines have the highest standards and accept the very best technical content from us. No product stories, no ‘read-it-elsewhere’ content.
- Editors are looking for case histories, the hardest type of stories to produce. Clients are in a great position, their customers are the magazine’s readers, so if we can take their voice and package them as case histories for magazines, everybody wins.
- Trends and what’s new – that’s all they want to hear at a show. Tell me what my readers need to know, tell me what’s keeping them up at night, and I’ll be able to perform better as an editor. So, if we have meetings that help editors understand our customers/their readers, we’re a valuable resource to them.
What’s changed?
- They want video. They’re taping interviews at the booth visits on cameras and iphones and putting them up immediately on their sites. Editors value a great 2 minute video clip today as much as a good 2000 word article, maybe even more!
- They want content packaged differently. We even had an editor ask us for an infographic on one of our meeting topics.
- They want guest bloggers. They recognize that they can’t write everything themselves with the small staffs they have, so it’s a great opportunity for us to get blogger real estate on their sites. I’m surprised they haven’t started charging for this.
Final tip – sit down! When we do a stand-up briefing at the booth, it lasts 15 minutes. When we sit down for coffee down the aisle at a nearby concession stand, meetings always extend to 45 minutes or an hour. So if we’re in the business of building relationships with editors, get them off their feet!
Obviously, PR is not a ‘useless thing’ to cut out of your marketing. Read our ebook on the 9 useless things you SHOULD cut out of marketing to boost your program’s ROI.
