Building a media outreach list is one of the most important aspects of a digital PR campaign. If done incorrectly, it can stop your campaign from getting any traction. On the other hand, if done well, a strong outreach list can boost your campaign to new heights. So how do you build a media outreach list?
To build a media outreach list, create a spreadsheet with all of the information that you’ll need, like the name, email, and website of the contact. You’ll then need to find contacts through media databases or manually search for related articles and find the writer’s contact information to reach out to.
Read on to find out more about how to build a detailed media outreach list to effectively target relevant blogs, websites, and journalists.
What Are Media Outreach Lists?
A media outreach list is a list of journalists, blogs, and websites that you want to target with your digital PR outreach. This usually consists of websites, email addresses, names, and any other relevant information that you want to include in your outreach, such as links to their recent content on the same topic.
Creating a list like this ensures that you’re able to easily reach relevant people who might be interested in your campaign. It can be one of the most important aspects of a PR campaign because without getting it in front of the right people, you’re unlikely to gain any traction.
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How Do You Create a Media Outreach List?
There are a few steps that you’ll need to follow to create an effective media outreach list. This ranges from setting up a spreadsheet that fits your needs to actually finding relevant contacts.
Media Outreach List Spreadsheet
To create a spreadsheet for your media outreach list, you’ll need to consider all of the information that you’ll need when you’re sending your emails. This can vary depending on the level of detail you want to include.
What Should a Media List Include?
The main columns that you’ll always want to include are:
- First name
- Last name
- Email address
- Website / URL
You can also include other information such as a link to a recent blog on the same topic as yours, job titles, or extra notes about why they might be interested in your campaign so that you can personalise the email later.
You should also consider any email outreach platforms that you plan to use. With platforms like Prowly you can upload your spreadsheet directly so that it automatically imports your contacts instead of having to enter them manually. Take a look at what information your chosen platform can import to see if it’s worth adding to your spreadsheet.
Finding Contacts
To fill out your media outreach list, you’ll need to find relevant journalists, blogs, and websites that might be interested in your campaign. One of the most effective strategies for this is to do manual research.
This involves searching for your topic and finding people that are posting about a similar topic. This ensures that you’re reaching people that are actively interested in posting about the same niche. Once you’ve found someone who fits the bill, you can click on their author profile, search for them online, or visit their social media profiles to find out their contact information. Sometimes they won’t have anything publicly available, but you can also use the contact form on the website.
Media List Building Tools
Another option for finding contacts is to use media databases. Most PR outreach software includes a database of media contacts across a variety of niches. This can be a much quicker way to get hold of contact details, however, they are generally less targeted. Ideally, you should use both strategies to find a detailed list.
Here is an example of some of the most popular media databases around:
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Your Media Outreach List
When you find new contacts, you can add them to your outreach list. For contacts found through databases, you can export these from the database platform and add them to your list to keep everything in one place.
Make your list easy to use by adding tickbox columns so that you can track what stage of the process you’re at. This can include things like:
- When they’re ready to send
- When you’ve contacted that person
- Dates to send a follow-up
- When the follow-up has been sent
- If you’ve received a response
- If you’ve received coverage
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can You Buy a Media Outreach List?
You are able to purchase media lists online, as well as pay for access to media databases. This can be a good strategy to get a lot of contacts in a short space of time. However, you should be aware that these contacts will often not be as relevant as the ones that you find yourself, so you should use a mixture of strategies to ensure that you cover all bases.
What Else Is a Media List Called?
There are a variety of names for a media outreach list that are often used interchangeably. These can include:
- Press list
- Media list
- Media contact list
- Media outreach list
- Outreach list
How To Import a Media List Into Prowly
Once you’ve created your media contact list, you can import this into sites like Prowly which can easily send all of your emails for you.
To do this, sign into Prowly and go to Contacts > My Contacts. In the top right, click Add Contact and choose Import Contacts From Spreadsheet from the dropdown list. Here you can choose a list to add them to as well as add any tags you want. Click upload and choose your CSV file. Once uploaded, you can select each column of your spreadsheet and assign it to a particular token that can be used when writing your email to automatically pull in the information from your spreadsheet.
Jamie Stowe
Senior SEO Account Manager
