How do YOU get featured on Magazine covers? – You know that kind of feeling you get when someone wows you with great feats? Out of curiosity, you’re quick to move close to the person to know how they got it so right. After all, you’ve always tried to achieve a similar feat with no success.
If your goal is to get featured on Magazine covers, then you should be glad you’re here. And why should you? I’d be drawing the curtain to unveil the secrets behind getting your Magazine covers. Apart from the fact that I’ve been featured in a number of magazines, I also own a magazine where I feature other brands, helping them get more exposure and credibility.
If, after reading this article, you felt the urge to step out of the crowd to get your message and mission out on a bigger platform, you can consider reaching out to me.
Let’s quickly dive in.
Let me quickly congratulate you on having your brand established. What’s next? Of course, you’d want to increase your brand exposure. To many brands, the most effective way to be seen and possibly get customers to their stores is through SEO marketing. They’re right – not totally, though. Beyond optimizing your content, another effective way to raise your brand’s profile and visibility is through Magazine covers.
Do you know that a feature could drive more leads to your website, yield more newsletter subscribers and social media followers, and lead to increased sales? This is no exaggeration. According to The New York Times, 42 percent of people below 30 and 50 percent of people above 30 read magazines. What does this tell you? Magazines constitute an ideal location to find your heterogeneous audience.
Oh! Your belief about getting featured in magazines is only exclusive to big brands with a huge budget. You’d be shocked to realize how possible your brand can get featured at no cost.
Here’s what magazine editors look for.
Magazines seek evergreen content and unique products that will keep increasing their readers.
If you can provide that, then you’re qualified to get featured. But does it come just like that? Of course, no! You’ve some roles to play. I’d be highlighting the most important ones.
Determine your choice of magazines
You don’t just sit back and expect that editors would find you. It’s not always the case. Sometimes, you’d have to get out of your comfort zone to make a list of magazines in which you’d like to feature. For this, you can use Amazon’s (www.amazon.com) magazine directory.
While drawing a list of your dream magazines, you’d want to be sure that they’ll be accepting your brand for submission. You don’t want to attempt featuring wedding-related products in magazines that target people who’re interested in acquiring entrepreneurial skills. What a great mismatch!
To this end, it’s important that you carefully identify the demographics of your dream magazines’ customer base, that is, the type of audience they reach and the kind of content they feature. Many magazines often provide users with data on their websites to help potential advertisers determine if such magazines fit their demographic profile. This helps you determine the section you can have your content featured in.
Assess the magazine’s editorial calendar
Magazines are a bit distinct from blogs in terms of publications. Every magazine has its schedule – while some run a monthly guide, some only publish on big holiday rolls. In fact, a magazine such as Oprah’s Favorite Things does a yearly capture.
To avoid posting the right article at the wrong time, you need to be sure of the time your content would be featured. Usually, most magazines prefer publishing holiday gifts during December, resolutions in January, and Valentine’s Day gifts in February, among others. This information is easily available on magazines’ websites as it’s a yearly release.
Pitch your story
The key to standing a chance to be featured on magazine covers is to tell a relatable and compelling story to your audience. It’s expected that you have a story that triggered your brand-building process. Editors want a brand story that connects with their audience emotionally and strikes some chords in them.
Let me give you a hint. Consider starting with a line that speaks about your company. Also, get connected with journalists and editors.
Put yourself in the position of a writer. If you’re looking for someone to feature in your publication, who would they be? Of course, you’d consider someone you know – not a stranger. Relationships matter a lot when you’re after being featured in a magazine. To start out, follow editors you admire on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Beyond this, like and pass thoughtful comments on their posts, retweet their posts, and tag them where necessary.
All of these will help you when you decide to reach out to them and pitch yourself. They may be willing to share with you stories they are currently working on while you offer how your business can be of help.
Send unique pitches
The fact that you have a long list of magazines you’d love to feature in doesn’t mean you should pitch the same release to them all. This is wrong! What suits Magazine A may not work out for Magazine B. This is because they have different editors and potential consumers. Remember, there are lots of magazines, with each of them striving to outdo one another. Magazine A won’t be satisfied seeing the same content on their competitor’s section.
If you don’t have the resources to create a personal press release for all of your lists, you may target only a few with a customized pitch.
Offer exclusive rights
In case you’re pitching to multiple magazines, you may want to offer an initial coverage of your story to a particular magazine. This implies that the first magazine to publish the story owns exclusive rights. This offer tends to increase your chances of getting your story accepted. This is a great strategy, especially when you’re targeting widely-read magazines.
Beyond having your story accepted and featured, other media outlets may be on the lookout for your stories. The more this happens, the more coverage you get. However, if you’re targeting smaller publications, you may adopt an embargo approach. This involves specifying a date before which no publication can publish the story.
So, how do you get the publicity you need after doing all of these?
By getting featured, you’d be credited appropriately. In other words, the magazine states your (business) name as well as a link to your website.
To say the truth, the publishing industry is highly competitive, making it difficult – not impossible – to get featured. While the popularity of print magazines may be waning, their covers still attract the public. Getting featured isn’t just about bringing your work to a larger audience. It’s also about knowing that there is a place out there for your idea to be treated with respect and value. By getting featured, you stand a good chance to increase your exposure, your sales, and your earnings.
I run Best Holistic Life Magazine, which features articles from health and wellness experts. If you’ve never been featured – or know a brand that seeks to be featured – in a magazine, you can all reach out to me anytime at info@janashort.com to submit an article pitch to me.
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