Have you ever wondered how to get your products featured in magazines such as the Sunday Times, Ideal Home or Livingetc Magazine? It’s a lot easier than you might think, according to PR specialist Florine Lindner …
You don’t have to be a PR professional – it’s just about figuring out which publications your products will fit into, speaking to the right journalists, and giving them all the information and images that they need.
There are many different forms of PR but I will focus on the basics of getting your products and/or shop featured in publications with your name and website credited. Editorial comprises the free areas of writing in the magazines as opposed to adverts and advertorials, which are paid for. There is a broad variety of editorial opportunities for your products including shopping pages, gift guides, what’s new pages, giveaway competitions and more.
The most important part of PR is images. I can’t stress enough how vital it is to think about your image quality and what journalists want. Unfortunately, with budget cuts and journalists working across multiple magazines these days, the budget and time for shooting all the products internally is minimal, and if you want to be featured in a magazine, you absolutely need to provide journalists with good quality, high resolution product images of your products which they can replicate in their articles.
Your green velvet armchair might catch the journalist’s attention, but if the image does not match some basic criteria it will probably not be picked up. And no-one will run after you – there is just too much competition to get those editorial spots.
A high resolution image is basically a really big image file. You’ll often hear the term high res or low res – in a nutshell, print magazines want high res. Low res, which are small files of – usually – under 300kb, are suitable for online magazines and blogs only.
Journalists will want JPEG files, and a size of at least 1MB. Don’t send anything bigger than 8MB unless they’ve specifically asked for a huge file for a full page shot, as it will clog up their emails. Print magazines will require at least 10 x 10cm, and the file to be 300dpi. Though files can be smaller for online mags, they prefer larger files to work with as they often prefer to resize themselves.
If you don’t have editing software like Photoshop there are some great free tools out there, like the image editing tool GIMP. This way you can open the files, re-save as JPEGs and change the size.
When it comes to image style preferences, typically journalists will want either an individual product shot – which is either shot on a pure white background and/or has had a path cut out from its background – or a beautifully-styled shot, which is called a lifestyle image. If you picture the types of photos you see in magazines with really great lighting, these are the types of shots you will need. Unfortunately, anything with really dark lighting, strange angles or photos which have been cut off will very rarely be used.
“Your green velvet armchair might catch the journalist’s attention, but if the image does not match some basic criteria it will probably not be picked up”
The good news, though, is that if you have some photos which have been photographed well but maybe don’t have a nice white background, there are online services which cut images out from the background for you, or you can do this in Photoshop.
There are two options when it comes to obtaining images for your store – either your supplier will be able to provide them to you, or you have your own taken. Having the supplier provide you with images, if they have them available, really does make the most sense, and more often than not suppliers are happy to provide their stockists with a selection to work with. Unfortunately, there are always situations where suppliers don’t have high-res images or don’t want to give them out for various reasons, which is their right.
Building a journalist list to distribute your press material is obviously a crucial part when thinking about PR. There are different strategies to do this. One way is to purchase a journalist database online. This can be an expensive but useful source.
Of course, you can also build your database manually by collecting name and email addresses from magazines you would like to be featured in. This process will be one of your more time-consuming options.
Another possibility is to use a PR platform, which is an easy way to reach journalists. Find one that is relevant to your products – Press Loft, for example, specialises in furniture PR – and make use of their database, which will be always up to date, and a great time saver.
There are many different ways to tell journalists about your products. If you contact them via email I recommend sending different shots over they can select from. Set up a Dropbox or WeTransfer link to send over the images all together. This way it will be easy for journalists to download images online rather than having them all in their email inbox.
When you’re sending your images to journalists make sure to always include the following product information: RRP, product name, product description – materials, sizes, colours – stockist info (your website and phone number), and a link to the product’s web page. Also include the details of the PR contact so journalists know who to contact if they have further questions.
The easier you make it for journalists, the more likely your products will be featured. Having your products featured will lead to an increase in website hits, brand recognition and, of course, sales – and you’ll be able to share these features with your customers to increase your credibility and improve the way you are perceived by them �
Florine Lindner is a PR specialist working across Germany and the UK for Press Loft, an online network connecting home and gift journalists and bloggers with brands and PR agencies. Press Loft offers a free trial for brands seeking press coverage – just click here to read more. This article was featured in the February issue of Furniture News magazine.
