How to See PR Opportunities Coming

Do you have an Editorial Calendar for 2010? If not, consider creating one.

An editorial calendar is a listing of what will be featured in future issues of a magazine. All the food and wine magazines have an editorial calendar, and they (usually) post it onto their website for easy downloading. This means that you can see what the magazines are planning, all the way from January to December 2010.

What’s the advantage of this? When you know what they’re planning to write about, you’ll know the types of stories to propose to them. But the only way to know what stories to propose and when to propose them is by setting up a calendar of your own.

Your editorial calendar doesn’t require anything fancy; just something that you can put dates and story ideas into so that you know what to say and when to approach the media.

Occasions to Include:

• Holidays: Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.
• Events: Super Bowl, World Series, etc.
• Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
• “Special” events: For example, September 29th is National Coffee Day. June 6th is National Donut Day (really!).

When a specific date draws near, give thought to a food item or a wine that might go well with the occasion (romantic wines for Valentine’s Day, cool meals for the hot summer, etc.). Write up a release and send it to the media. It’s as simple as that.

By planning your stories around the dates that the media plans theirs, you’ll increase your chance of getting coverage. So take a moment and plan out your own editorial calendar. It’ll pay off in the long run.