Your article s focus needs to be on issues of pivotal consequence to readers issues such as productivity, safety, efficiency, innovation, dealing with competition, etc. You must offer information or ideas which can make a material difference to the reader s business. Ask the right questions. Clearly it would be absurd to try to answer all these questions in every article you write, but if your focus is on some of these areas, your article stands a better than average chance of being read and acted upon a fact which can only help the magazine in which it is published. Use customer experiences .
Few communications sell as effectively as customer testimonials.
It s also prudent to use an experienced outside writer to do these, since he or she can easily ask more probing questions than an employee and you can get far more insight from the answers. That insight can be valuable to your sales, support, product development, and quality efforts. The single best position any PR person can find himself or herself in with relation to working with magazine editors is to be considered such a valuable resource that the editor calls for suggestions when setting up the following year s Editorial Calendar. Orient everything you do for the magazine toward helping the editor fulfill the magazine s editorial objectives. Offer application-specific photography which helps illustrate the editorial.