If you plan digital PR placements, you need publishers with a relevant audience and a suitable route for your contribution. Digital PR splits into two jobs: pitching journalists, and earning placements that do not involve journalists at all. OppAlerts serves the second and not the first, so it is worth being clear which one you are doing before you start.
What this does and does not cover
Not covered: reporter profiles, beats, publication rosters and curated editorial contacts. OppAlerts has no journalist database. Use a media database when you need to pitch a named writer at a publication.
Covered: finding publications and placements by type, judging whether they are worth pursuing, and returning the contact route the site publishes about itself.
Many digital PR programs need both, and it is cheaper to accept that than to expect one tool to stretch.
The placements that need no journalist
A meaningful share of earned coverage does not involve pitching a reporter at all. These are searchable by type:
- Expert roundups, where publications collect comments from practitioners.
- Award programs, which are submissions against criteria and a deadline.
- Podcast guest opportunities, where shows state what they want from a guest.
- Publications accepting opinion pieces, with stated requirements.
- Speaking submissions for conferences and events.
- Industry directories and association listings.
- Resource pages that accept suggestions.
These have a stated mechanism, which makes them more tractable than a cold pitch. The mechanism also tells you exactly what is required.
Qualifying a publication
Four checks, in the order that eliminates unsuitable publications fastest.
Does it cover your subject with any regularity? A publication that covered your topic once two years ago is not a target. Searching its coverage by meaning rather than by keyword answers this better, because a publication may cover your subject in vocabulary you would not have searched for.
Does it name vendors? Some publications avoid naming commercial products as a matter of policy. A pitch to one of them fails regardless of quality, and you can tell within a minute of reading two articles.
Is it maintained? Check when it last published and whether the bylines belong to people who still work there. Month-by-month link measurements add the trend, which a current figure hides: a publication in a two-year decline is rarely worth the effort even when its present figures look acceptable.
What does it ask for? Contributor guidelines, submission windows, word counts, exclusivity, formats. Read them and answer honestly whether you can meet them.
Find the publication's contact instructions
Look at what the site publishes about how to reach it before searching for an individual. Publications accepting contributions usually say where to send them, and following the stated route reaches whoever handles it while demonstrating that you read the page.
Those details are returned as published and are not verified for deliverability. Where a named individual is required and the site names no route, that is the point to use an email verification service, which is a separate tool.
The two strongest starting points
Before pitching anyone cold, work these.
Publications that already mention you without linking. They have already decided you are worth naming. The request is small and the success rate is high.
Publications that cover your competitors. They demonstrably cover your subject and name vendors, which is most of the qualification done. Where several competitors appear on one page, find the condition they all met.
Both are more productive than a cold list, and both are derived from evidence rather than from a directory.
Building a reason before you pitch
Qualification tells you who to approach. It does not give you something to say.
The publications worth appearing in take contributions that carry something the writer could not produce themselves: original data, a position argued from experience, a specific technical explanation, or a story about work done.
Searching current coverage of your market for the questions being raised repeatedly is a reasonable way to find that. A question your market keeps asking, answered properly by someone who has done the work, is a pitch. A general offer to write about your subject area is not.
What to expect
Most pitches fail, including good ones, for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Qualification improves the ratio and does not transform it.
The submission-based placements listed above have better odds than cold pitches, because the publication has already stated that it accepts them. Weight the program accordingly rather than treating every target the same way.
Before making an approach, confirm the publication's requirements and your reason for contributing. That gives the placement research a practical use in your PR plan.
See digital PR research tools, how digital PR teams use OppAlerts, or assessing contact information.