sarayonker-blog

[sarayonker-blog]

Should you pay for a media list?

The short answer is no.

Whether you’re a business or nonprofit that wants to reach out to try to get media coverage or an independent consultant like I am, I can tell you that a manufactured media list isn’t worth the money. They’re either insanely high - thousands of dollars of an annual membership - or contain basic information that you can get with a little bit of effort yourself. 

This isn’t normal, but every time I’ve started work for a new client or event back when I worked at in-house public relations jobs, I’ve done so with absolutely no media list. 

That’s not technically true. I took over as Communications Director for a branch of Texas A&M and because the position had been vacant for awhile, I was left with random files pulled off my predecessor’s computer. Her media list consisted of four email addresses, all to the generic address anyone could find on a website. So, I had that. But it didn’t do me much good.

Back then, I didn’t need one. I had been part of the media a few months before and knew everyone I needed to know.

Fast forward to our move to Houston in 2014. I got a great client within a few months of being in town, and my contacts were pretty sparse. Even having a list of the generic email addresses would have been more than I had. 

I paid for a random media list that was suspiciously cheap. I think 2/3 of every email blast I sent bounced. 

Instead, I ended up building a media list the old fashioned way. I looked at every media outlet I’d want to get attention from and I went through their staff lists and figured out their email addresses. Sometimes email addresses are readily available, sometimes you have to do a little investigation into the company’s standard format.

With social media, this is even easier. There are many journalists now who prefer to be contacted via Facebook or Twitter. Start following them and pay attention to the types of stories they cover to know if they’d be interested in your story.

The benefit of this is that turnover can be high in media companies. You need to stay up to date on who is covering what and that’s something that often, media lists have incorrect. 

And while occasionally, I’d say its OK to call reporters about a story, it’s almost always better to send an email first.