Every app developer needs to contact the press.
To get started doing this, you need is a mailing list comprised of news outlets, blogs, review websites, and any media outlet with a connection to your audience. This is the list that you'll contact when you have updates, promotions, and other information about your app.
It's common sense to contact the press and let them know about their app, but it's usually the case that beginners do this by submitting something written on the spot to a zillion contact forms, instead of saving the addresses and taking the time to craft a quality email. I know, I was this person, desperately trying to get noticed. But there is a better way to do it.
Instead of contacting websites ad lib and writing them an email on the spot, make a list of the emails of small to medium websites you'd like to contact. Compile this list of emails and save it, enabling you to reach out to them again and again. You heard correctly - small and medium websites, not big websites like TechCrunch or VentureBeat. Why?
If you contact large websites:
- Audience is not as motivated to buy
- Audience is not targeted; you’re reaching the wrong people.
- Unless you’re targeting startup valley boys, you’re not likely to get sales
- Extremely difficult to get their attention
- More about prestige and pride than actual sales
However, if you contact more small-medium websites:
- Audiences are highly active; will share, comment, and engage with you
- Audience is focused, so you’re reaching the right people
- Easier to get the attention of, meaning you get coverage
- Can build a lasting relationship with.
So, where can you find these blogs and websites to add to your press list? It’s easy to list off big websites, but not as much to find smaller ones.
Don’t worry about contacting these websites now; we’re going to get all of their URLs and email addresses, and then spend some time on how to formulate the best email to make contact with the press depending on why you’re contacting them.
- Start with BuzzSumo. They indexed articles on the internet by tons of different metric, and can find you those targeted, impactful websites by searching your keywords on this website. When an article comes up, go to the website it’s from, and get their contact information onto your mailing list.
- Search your keywords on facebook and click on the best-looking results.
- Some of the pages won’t be connected to external websites, so take down their facebook email address as contact information. When you email that facebook email address, it sends a message to their facebook page for them to check.
- If they do have an external website, get the contact information from that external website. They’re more likely to check the website contact information more often than they will the facebook information.
- Do the same on twitter; unfortunately, if they have no external website, you have to send them a tweet asking how to get in contact with them for future reference. If/when they reply to you, take down their contact information then. If they have an external website link, get the contact information from that website.
You are not going to be able to find all small-medium websites in your niche today. Over time, you’ll find more and more of these websites as your app’s presence and success grows, and as you find them you will add them to your press list. At first, twenty or thirty websites on this list will do quite nicely. However, if you can get this list of good websites to over 100, you’ll start to see larger and larger returns on marketing promotions you run.
Takeaways:
- Build a permanent email list, so you don't have to do work over and over again
- Take time writing your emails
- Don't just spray-and-pray, choose your targets carefully
