How to create an Experts Directory to promote your experts

If you have numerous experts within your company, nonprofit, government agency, trade association or other group, are you making it easy for the media to find them within seconds?

For most of you, I’ll bet the answer is no.

Take a cue from colleges and universities, which publish annual “experts directories.”

The directory is an inexpensive, spiral bound book with a heavy-stock cover that includes contact information for all their experts, arranged by category, from archaeology to zoology.

When I worked as a reporter, I often kept these experts directories on my desk and referred to them on deadline when I was tracking down experts on a particular topic. Here are some tips for creating your own directory:

—Include all contact information, including cell phone numbers, beeper numbers and, if possible, home telephone numbers.

—Include email addresses

—Update the directory at least once every two years.

—Mail the directory to all your media contacts, and also post it at your website in your “media room.”

—Keep it simple. If you’re on a tight budget, forget the spiral binding and just staple the pages.

—Make sure every expert agrees to interview with the media. Experts who don’t know anything about interviewing or would make boring interviews should be media-trained.
After you send the directories, follow up with your media contacts. But don’t ask the tired question, “I’m just following up to see if you got our experts directory?” Instead, tell them you’re calling to pitch one or two story ideas and suggest names of contacts within the directory who reporters could interview. Following up with reporters requires brevity, patience, persistence and good timing. If your follow-ups are going nowhere and journalists seem to have just disappeared, you need to hear Jill Lublin’s secrets on how to get through to them. She was my guest during a teleseminar a few years ago called “Failproof Ways to Follow Up with Reporters After Sending a Press Release or Story Pitch.” Jill says you must follow seven times before giving up.