Press Landscape – Your Best Credibility Marketing Research Tool

The press landscape is a tool I use to create a map of exactly what the editorial community is covering. The idea is to conduct some basic research to map out what publications are writing about in relation to your product or industry. The key findings you are looking for include the following:

· What exactly are publications writing about similar products in the market? How are they being covered—the good and the bad?

· What are editors saying about the industry as a whole? This will give you hints as to what your messaging should be when approaching these editors.

· How are editors covering competitors? What are they saying about them? Are they believing your competitors’ messaging? (Review a competitor’s recent press release and then review the coverage it received.)

· Who are these editors using as press references? For example, who is being quoted in the article? This will assist you in identifying key influencers to pursue; if the editorial community is using them as a reference then they already have influence.

The press landscape is one of the most important research tools a marketer has at hand, but it is frequently forgotten. What better way to find the pulse of the market than through what the media are covering? The press landscape can also help you formulate your messages. The way an editor hears your story or the stories of your competitors and writes about that gives you a clue as to how he or she perceives you and the sector and what the editor perceives his or her audience will care about. Publications do a great deal of research on what their audiences want to read. Don’t reinvent the wheel and make assumptions about what customers are focusing on; use magazines and editors as barometers of industry trends to assist you in forming messaging and creating strategies and tactics that are relevant and will be embraced.