Guest article: Matt Baldwin, Coast Communications
PRs love to deliver national media coverage – it’s top of the tree and everyone gets excited.
And for good reason. The reach can be vast. MailOnline claims to reach some 17 million people every day. The Times online is close behind, reaching some 12 million.
But is it just a numbers game? Should audience and fit trump reach?
Don’t get me wrong. We love the nationals, the broadcasters and the newswires. They are a fantastic place to be. That’s why PRs call them ‘tier one’ titles.
However, most of their readers are unlikely to ever be clients.
Bluntly, who reads a title should matter more than how many.
There are solid reasons for chasing the smaller, often micro, audiences found in the trade media.
Trade media readers are clients, referrers and intermediaries. They read on purpose, not just a passing flick or swipe at the breakfast table or on the way to work. Social Housing magazine is, for example, a tier one title for social housing FDs despite its modest 6,000 readers. PM magazine, which we edit, is the home for professional services marketers, yet has just 3,000 readers.
Unlike the nationals, where a comment might be buried on paragraph 12 on page 13, trade media give firms room to say something. There is the space to show thinking, expertise and leadership.
Trade media also has a longer shelf life. It better feeds the marketing and BD team with posts to LinkedIn, support for directory submissions and pitches and tenders.
And then there is the ladder effect. Big national stories often have their genesis in the trade media (Computer Weekly broke the Post Office Horizon scandal well before the nationals would touch it). So too the careers of journalists. Today’s trade journalist is tomorrow’s national reporter. Relationships forged early in careers are often carried forward.
Sometimes, the nationals are exactly the right place to be. Here, private wealth advisers, divorce and personal injury lawyers can speak directly to the reader. And sometimes, a line in a national is the key to unlocking greater partner engagement.
So, does size matter? Not always. But fit should everytime.
Matt Baldwin is the joint managing director of Coast, a media relations agency