Hard Pressed for Press

Every designer wants press. It’s exciting. I remember when I saw my first client’s editorial in Lucky Magazine. Yippiee…and ironically it was of a bathing suit she happened to name after me. However, even though it was a pretty big picture with her name and website as big as day, I don’t remember an influx of orders after that publication hit. Or really a difference at all.

Hmmm….what happened? Lucky is read by thousands and thousands of potential customers but it seemed like only about 5 had even taken the time to respond. One of which was the designers mother….but I digress.

So it made me wonder. Press is really great…but at the end of the day what does a feature in Elle or a product mention in Marie Claire really mean?

Financially that is....

Over the years I’ve learned that editorial mentions don't necessarily equal cash dividends. You have to make them work, and a big part of that work happens long before the magazine even hits the newsstand.

Here are a few tips on making editorial mentions work for you.....

Use Edits to Build Customer Relationships....

If you’re a designer instead of giving editorial credit to your website, why not give your biggest selling retailer a call??

Tell them you’d like to use their name or website address to send customers to their stores from an upcoming editorial piece. They'll be thrilled!!

On the short term you may have been able to make more money….if you sold the editorial piece at your retail price online. However if your core business is wholesale...you should nurture it. In the long term you’ve just built a bridge that could increase wholesale sales for seasons to come.

Lobby for an InterActive Edit......

If you are directing customers to your Ecommerce site, inquire with editors to see how you may become featured in interactive sections of their mag such as Lucky Magazine’s Lucky Breaks.

I’ve witnessed Lucky Breaks specifically, increase visitors and sales by incredible amounts.

Plus promos like this have the potential to add hundreds of new emails to a marketing database.

When customers have some type of incentive or action step affiliated with the edit you’re likely to receive a much higher response rate.

Don’t discount the .com counterpart...

Being featured in the .com version of a popular mag is typically easier to obtain and can lead to immediate click through’s hence immediate online sales. Make sure your PR person pursues online editors as serious as the offline ones.

So again, Yes…. press works, but only if you give it a running start.