| MediaCalendars FAQ |
- How are media calendars useful to me?
A publication's media calendar lists its planned editorial features, issue by issue.
If you contact an editor with news or a story idea that is related to their upcoming feature,
you increase the likelihood of having your news picked up.
PR professionals use media calendars not only to find features exactly matching their
company or product, but also to find related subjects they can link their news to.
- Do media calendars change during the year?
Yes, they very often do, and for a wide variety of reasons, from changes in readership
interests to editorial repositioning by top management. That's why Cision's media research
continually collects media calendar data from the publishers, instead of only once a year.
In addition, publications often make only a portion of their media calendar available
because they anticipate changes will be made during the year. Of course, there is also
substantial change from year to year.
- What's the major benefit to me of using MediaCalendars.com?
MediaCalendars.com represents a fundamental change in how editorial calendars are used.
Instead of calling publishers individually, requesting a media kit, building a file of
calendars, and reviewing them one by one, you have access to a database of more than
3,500 media calendars which can be searched simultaneously within seconds.
In addition, your searches can alert you to related upcoming features in publications
you might normally have overlooked or not considered for research at all.
The bottom line? You can save a substantial amount of time while you learn about new
placement opportunities.
- Is there other information in MediaCalendars.com I should use?
Media profiles: each media calendar includes a description of its publication's editorial focus, readership and subject coverage. Reviewing the profiles of the publications on your search results can help you decide whether they are an appropriate outlet or not for your news.
Lead times: to help you plan your activities, each publication listing includes the editorial deadline for feature articles and closing dates for advertising. All lead times are based on the cover date of the publication, and vary from publication to publication, due to such factors as type of publication (trade versus general interest), publication frequency and regular issue features.
Subjects: there are more than 500 editorial subject terms listed in the scrolling index, related to the editorial calendars in the database. These subject terms are dictated by the publications themselves and topics of interest to our client base.
Keywords: you can use single or multiple keywords for full-text searching of the media calendars. Use this feature when you don't find the topic you want in the Subject index. When you use more than 1 keyword, separate them by a comma.
Issue date: this is the date or month appearing on the publication cover.
Editor: when your search results are displayed, an editorial contact for the subject/topic listed will be displayed. The contact provided is the editor the publication has specified as covering that topic. When there is not a specific editor listed, a more general editor is provided.
Ad rate: the ad rate shown for Magazines is for a full-page, one-time, black & white ad. The ad rate for daily newspapers is the Daily (Mon-Fri) open rate of one Standard Advertising Unit (SAU) - one column inch.
- What information is included when I download a list of search results?
For each search result listing, your list will include each publication's name, address, city/state/ZIP, issue, issue date, lead date, story topic, editor name and title, phone, fax and e-mail.
- Once I download my list, how can I use it?
Depending on what software you have on your computer, you can print out your list, create mailing labels, imprint envelopes, use mail/merge functions to do personalized releases or cover letters, or use with your broadcast fax or e-mail features.
- How can I contact Customer Support?
You can reach them at 800-588-3827, Monday through Friday, between 7AM and 7PM CST,
or via email at MediaCalendars.us@Cision.com.
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