On my previous blog, I talked about why press still matters. Now, I want to tackle the word itself, because I think it’s the thing holding a lot of business owners back from ever pitching themselves anywhere.
Say the word “press” to most people and they think of something printed and folded, like a magazine or a newspaper, sitting on a shelf. And because that feels quite grand and quite hard to reach (although, spoiler alert, it’s a LOT easier than you think to get featured in the press!), a lot of brilliant business owners quietly decide press “isn’t for them” and never try.
Here’s the thing. That picture is too small in the world we live in today.
Press Is Bigger Than Print
If we broaden our focus, ‘press’, in real terms, covers a lot more ground than print. It includes:
- Digital publications and websites
- Podcasts (yours or somebody else’s)
- Other people’s social media channels
- Video content, wherever it lives
- Any form of public content that puts you in front of someone else’s audience
Any of these can very happily sit under the “press” umbrella, well, in my world anyway! In my course, Write and Send Your Press Release in Sixty Minutes, I focus mostly on printed media because that’s where the traditional press release format was born and where the etiquette is most established. But here’s what matters: the same rules apply, whatever you’re pitching for.
The Same Rules, A Much Bigger Field
Whether you’re aiming for a national newspaper or a niche podcast with three thousand devoted listeners, the mechanics don’t change. You’re either:
- Borrowing someone else’s audience, or
- Getting published through someone else’s platform
Either way, you’re stepping into a space that already has its own readers, listeners or followers, and you’re asking to be let in. That’s true whether it’s a printed magazine or a stranger’s YouTube channel. The format changes. The principle behind it doesn’t.
Every Touch Point Serves a Different Purpose
Each of these outlets talks to a different group of people, in a different way:
- A trade magazine speaks to people already bought into your industry.
- A podcast guest slot builds trust slowly, over the length of an episode, in someone’s ears while they’re walking the dog or driving.
- A feature on someone else’s social platform puts you in front of an audience who trusts that person’s recommendation.
- Traditional printed press still gives you that “rubber stamp” of credibility with readers who value the editing process behind it.
None of these are better or worse than another. They’re just different. The key is that the audience you want to get in front of has to align with you and what you’re trying to achieve.
Why This Matters for You
If you’ve been telling yourself that press “isn’t realistic” because you pictured only the biggest, glossiest magazines or you didn’t think the press would be interested in you, I want you to put those thoughts down. Press, properly understood, is any earned opportunity to stand in front of somebody else’s audience and borrow a bit of their trust.
That widens the field enormously. A well-aimed pitch to a podcast host or a niche website can be just as valuable, sometimes more so, than a paragraph in a national title, because the audience is smaller but far more targeted to exactly who you want to reach.
I’ve built my own visibility this way over the years, across TV, radio, and print, as well as podcasts and digital features, and every single one of those touch points has done a slightly different job for my business. None of them worked alone. Together, they built something much sturdier.
Ready to Write Your Own?
Once you understand that press covers this much ground, writing your pitch stops feeling like scaling a mountain and starts feeling like picking the right door to knock on. That’s exactly what I teach, step by step, in Write and Send Your Press Release in Sixty Minutes, so you can put together something you’re proud to send, whoever you’re sending it to.
Get Write and Send Your Press Release in Sixty Minutes here
And remember, this course also sits inside The Vault inside the membership of Small & Supercharged Mastermind, so if you’re already a member, go and dig it out. If you’re not, it’s one of the pieces waiting for you inside, alongside the community, the monthly trainings, and the live weekly coaching that keeps you moving instead of stuck staring at a blank page, and plenty more besides. Take a closer look.
