Less is more: taking aim with a focused media distribution strategy

Developing an effective media distribution strategy is key to maximising exposure for your press release to build brand awareness and position your company as a market leader. And a targeted approach is the best way to reach your desired audience, rather than ‘spray and pray’.

It is therefore important to know the right media channels to achieve bang for your marketing buck, as well as be familiar with individual journalists and their areas of interest to ensure your content hits the sweet spot in the media.

Research media landscape

Typically, adopting a scattergun distribution strategy in the hope of maximising reach can have the opposite effect by turning off editors due to lack of relevance to their field of coverage, leading to higher rejection rates.

Conversely, investing time and energy in researching the media landscape to differentiate between niche and broad media can reap rewards through targeting the right publications. Less is more.

Similarly, building personal relationships with journalists and editors to better understand their preferences, motivations and challenges can give enhanced insight into relevant topics. This enables you to customise your pitch, formulate your message more effectively and ensure media coverage to reach your target audience.

Consistent content flow

At the same time, a consistent flow of appealing content is necessary in relation to market visibility and positioning, while balancing this with timeliness and relevance to avoid promotional overkill that can be misaligned with editorial objectivity.

Personalised outreach also makes it easier to follow up with individual editors post-publication that can generate further coverage through possible one-to-one interviews, thereby also strengthening media ties over the longer term. But avoid excessive follow-up as spamming can undermine the editorial relationship.

Tracking the stats

Finally, it is essential to map the success of distribution by monitoring the tally of page views for published content to determine the level of reader engagement. This can provide useful insights on actual coverage and readership interest to fine tune your distribution strategy for the future, as well as refine topic selection to increase hit rates.

Reaching the maritime industry – unlike say the mass-market technology or fashion sectors with their constantly shifting trends – requires strategic thinking with a focused plan for distribution based on strong media relationships to generate long-term payback.

With an extensive media network and in-depth industry knowledge, Blue-C is well-positioned to help you formulate an effective distribution strategy. Feel free to drop us a line at Blue-C, the leading maritime communications agency in the Nordics, and NME partner. Contact: kent@blue-c.no