Learn the secrets of successful pitch strategies and increase your chances of being featured in top publications like Forbes and skyrocket your career.
You probably know that being featured in a reputable online magazine has many benefits: it gives your brand the publicity it needs to position yourself as a reputable provider. Moreover, it also presents you as an industry figure or thought leader to watch.
These benefits make these top publications crucial to your online marketing and PR strategy.
The five major publications like, Inc., Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Business Insider, get over 500 million unique monthly visitors. This is some mind-blowing traffic! Getting featured in such publications can help almost every part of your business.
Writing for and getting featured in such publications has helped me to gain major visibility in my business. I have also helped many of my clients get featured and boost their online visibility and industry leadership.
However, I often get asked a lot about how one can get featured in such publications. The short answer is, it is quite easy, and the long answer is, well… it is not that easy.
To help you start your career-boosting journey, I have prepared a comprehensive guide you can follow to get featured in top magazines.
Understanding the “Why”: Benefits of Getting Featured in Top Publications
Forbes Magazine Screenshot
Why do you want to get featured in such publications?
This process requires significant resources, including your precious time to get it done. So, what makes it that important?
Here are some of the benefits of getting featured in top publications like Forbes:
1. Reputation and Brand Awareness
Thanks to popular culture and globalization, almost everyone has heard about prestigious magazines like Forbes. Such magazines are often associated with billionaires, serious businesses, and big corporations.
Getting even a small feature on such a platform can greatly impact your perceived value and open more windows to expand your exposure in a positive direction.
2. Build Credibility
Building a credible brand is the foundation of long-term success. Clients want to work and listen to credible brands or individuals.
Getting featured in such publications skyrockets your credibility score, and instead of chasing after clients and deals, you may even get overwhelmed by how much they chase after you.
3. New Opportunities
Top publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the likes are hugely popular among business folks. This makes them an almost daily read for top-level business managers, C-level executives, influencers, investors, and other important decision-makers.
This group of people is usually a little challenging to reach via traditional advertising.
Being presented to such a clientele by a reputable media outlet can easily grab their attention. This means you are more likely to get better engagements and priceless solid relationships through such features.
4. Potential Sales
Although getting featured in major publications does not guarantee a spike in your sales, it often leads to increased revenue. For instance, I have had many clients that reported huge spikes in their sales after getting featured in various top online publications.
Nevertheless, it is still important to focus on other digital marketing strategies to ensure a solid online brand that supports your elevated reputation.
5. Improve your position
By getting featured in top publications, you can access the minds of the readers knowing about you or your brand for the first time or those with vague knowledge about your services.
With a positive outreach, you can generate a newer audience, resonate better with them, and get them more interested in knowing you.
There are many other reasons why you should strive to get featured in such top online magazines, but these five should give you a nudge to get started.
Speaking of getting started, let’s look at some strategies you can employ to get featured in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and Fast Company, among other top publications.
Understanding the ‘How’: Step-by-step Guide on Getting Featured in Major Online Magazines
Bloomberg Screenshot
Why do you want to get featured in such publications?
This process requires significant resources, including your precious time to get it done. So, what makes it that important?
Here are some of the benefits of getting featured in top publications like Forbes:
1. Identify the Best Publications to Pitch
The first step would be to identify the publications that resonate best with your audience and (or) industry. If you are starting without any prior online publication, targeting low to medium-tier publications may be wiser.
This is mainly because the acceptance rate to top-tier publications like Forbes and Entrepreneur is quite low, meaning you may require someone solid online presence before getting featured. This means you should start from lower-ranking publications — that still get significant (and relevant) traffic.
Spend time on these publications to see if their central topics align with your industry. You can also find out more about their feature writers and see if your industry fits the magazine.
2. Understand Their Writing Style
Every publication has its unique writing style, including tone and the language used. Once you have confirmed that the magazine is relevant to your industry, you need to ensure that your content aligns with their voice.
Going through some of their features enables you to understand more about their writing style, including the themes they feature. This will make it easier for you to come up with a topic based on the direction they take in terms of their content.
3. Prepare Your Website
Before reaching out to the publications, ensure you have a well-designed website. You should be able to make a good and lasting impression with your website when editors want to check your facts.
Your website should look professional and with information that resonates well with what your readers/ target audience find useful.
Remember that most top online publications will only want to associate their brands with reputable individuals, so you must show them that you are one.
4. Write a Few Relevant and Published Pieces
If you do not have any published pieces online, you should strive to get them ready. In most cases, editors of reputable magazines may not accept you as a feature writer if you do not have a few written samples to share with them.
Have at least 3 to 5 relevant pieces published online. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on other third-party sites, as you can also use your own website or blog to publish the content.
The main reason to have such published samples is to show the editors that you are articulate, knowledgeable, and have an original voice.
5. The Hunt Begins — Follow the Right People
For most low to medium-tier publications, you can submit a request via a form or provided email address. Most of these media outlets have various requirements you must follow before submitting a request — so ensure you abide by them.
However, the acceptance rate for most higher-tier publications is often low. This means you must employ other methods to get featured, including following the right people.
Conduct your search to know the relevant decision-makers in your target online media outlets. In most cases, you may want to target editors or the owners of the websites.
Although you can contact them directly via email or their social media handles, you can use another slower — but an almost sure method.
- The first phase requires you to follow them on social media and start commenting on their posts. You can also share their posts. Soon enough, they may start to notice and will remember you when you finally reach out to them as a potential contributor on their platform.
- You should put an alert or regularly monitor their websites for any new content that they publish. You should start commenting on their posts to get noticed.
- After going through their latest posts, you can email them about it, adding some notable things you liked. Editors are busy people, so always keep your emails short and to the point.
Do this once or twice, and you can also start recommending a few more topics that you think may resonate well with their audience. This is where you introduce the idea of having you write on these topics.
This slower method often has a higher chance of getting accepted to write for various online publications.
Once you’re accepted to write for a major publications, strive to become a regular contributor. Most publications are not looking for one-time writers. They are more likely to accept you if they trust that you will submit content regularly.
Be ready to commit to submitting content at least once a month. Eventually, this builds up your online portfolio.
Building your online writer’s portfolio is usually the first step to getting a feature on top publications like Forbes.
So, that is basically how to get featured in top publications.
If you are now thinking, ‘wait, is it that simple?’ Yes, it really is that simple, and anyone can do it.
However, it would be prudent to note that as you try to pitch to bigger publications like Entrepreneur, Inc., etc., it can be more challenging to get the editors’ attention. Such publications also have more stringent filter methods to ensure that only the top brass make it to their features.
This is where people like myself come into action.
I help industry leaders, coaches, managers, founders, and influencers get the publicity they need to boost their businesses by getting them featured in top publications.
How I Can Help You Get Featured In Top Publications
I have vast experience assisting brands and individuals to become contributors and get featured on renowned media outlets.
Here’s how I can also help you get a feature:
Bridging the gap
The acceptance rate to get featured in top publications is quite low. I help you to bridge the gap between you and well-known brands or individuals that can easily get featured in such publications.
Building your online portfolio
You must become a ‘somebody’ to increase your chances of being featured on renowned media outlets. For most of these publications to accept you, they must be able to determine that you are a leader in your industry, and that’s exactly what I do by solidifying your online portfolio.
Leveraging a wide network of editors
I have been in the industry long enough, creating and cementing robust relationships with top-tier magazine editors. You don’t have to spend weeks of toiling to connect to an editor, as I can leverage my network of editors to get you started on your journey as a thought leader.
Develop your authority on the audience
If you plan to make it big, I can help you to pave your path so that you don’t need to reach the audience, but they become attracted to you and your offerings. A perfect example of the phrase, ‘make them come to you.’
Guaranteed exposure
PR is all about getting the right exposure. It means having more people know about your offerings and have them trust you as the go-to person in case they require solutions that you provide.
My goal is not just getting you featured in top publications, but I focus more on what you stand to gain from such. This is why I ensure you get the right exposure to significantly boost your brand.
Let’s Get You Featured
Getting featured in top media outlets is not as difficult as people often perceive, and neither is it straightforward. You have to invest a lot of time and other resources to get a feature, which eventually pays off.
You can easily go solo and get your brand featured by using the tips above. However, it is important to note that this may take months or even years to succeed. Alternatively, you can hire a PR agency or an in-house team to get the job done, which in most cases, costs an arm and a leg.
From the above, you can now understand the importance of media coverage for your brand. So, why wait?
Delaying further means more time and better opportunities for your peers to cloud your brand. Level up your game, take your brand to the next level, and command the authority you deserve in your industry today by getting in touch with me and observe your story transform into global news, without breaking the bank.
