{"id":13997,"date":"2013-01-29T22:10:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T22:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/?p=13997"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:56:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:56:41","slug":"pros-and-cons-of-free-publicity-in-newspapers-magazines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/print-media\/pros-and-cons-of-free-publicity-in-newspapers-magazines\/","title":{"rendered":"Pros and cons of free publicity in newspapers, magazines"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/newspaperboy-285x300.jpg\" alt=\"newspaperboy\" class=\"wp-image-9946\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>This is the first in a three-part series on the advantages and disadvantages of print, broadcast and online publicity. Part II will be featured next and focus on broadcast publicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>* &nbsp; &nbsp; * &nbsp; &nbsp; * &nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it\u2019s time to launch your next promotion, and free publicity is an important component, know the pros and cons of print, broadcast and online publicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you know the advantages and disadvantages of each, long before the campaign begins, you\u2019ll be in a much better position to schedule your pitches in enough time for certain media to cover your story. You\u2019ll also be able to react quickly and know which media can cover you just a few hours after they learn about what you&#8217;re offering.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are the most important things you need to keep in mind for print publicity. This includes newspapers, magazines, industry publications, alumni magazines, business journals, print newsletters and niche publications like church bulletins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Advantages:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>You can take advantage of newspaper and magazine editorial calendars.<\/strong>\u00a0Larger publications create these for the benefit of advertisers who need to know which topics will be featured in which issues. Even if you don&#8217;t advertise, an editorial calendar can help you determine where your story might be the best fit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Readers clip articles and pass them along to friends.<\/strong> Or they pass along the entire issue. Consider what happens to magazines inside your doctor\u2019s office. Or on airplanes, where inflight magazines are stuffed into the seat pockets. Or in libraries, where a year\u2019s worth are bound in big volumes, and can be viewed by patrons years after they were printed.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">Magazines published every other month have the longest shelf life of all. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>You can target niches.<\/strong> Niche publications, like special interest magazines and newsletters, can have very loyal audiences and can let you target your message like a laser.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Daily newspapers have short lead times for news.<\/strong> If you\u2019re pitching to a daily newspaper on Monday, it might appear in the paper on Tuesday if it&#8217;s newsy.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>You can make reprints.<\/strong> Be very careful about this, however. Because the publication owns the copyright, you must ask permission to reprint. Some big newspapers and magazines have hefty fees for reprint rights. If you can&#8217;t afford the cost, buy as many copies of the publication as you can afford, as soon as it&#8217;s published. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/blog\/dont-assume-you-can-reprint-articles-written-about-you\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Don&#8217;t assume you can reprint articles written about you.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Disadvantages:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Circulation has been plummeting at most major daily newspapers.<\/strong> If your story makes it into the print version of a newspaper, but not onto the newspaper\u2019s website, it can be here today and gone tomorrow.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Many people under 40 don&#8217;t read newspapers.<\/strong> If people under 40 are a significant part of the target audience for your publicity campaign, you need to concentrate on online publicity. Most of those people read their news online. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Lead times for various types of print media can be very confusing.<\/strong> While your daily newspaper might need only 24 hours notice, the big national magazine you\u2019re dying to get into might want pitches a full six months before the issue is printed. Pitching a Christmas story? You\u2019d better be working the phones in July. Weekly newspapers, on the other hand, sometimes want their stories a few weeks in advance. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\"><strong>Errors appear in print forever.<\/strong> If a fact in your story is wrong, it\u2019s there for all the world to see for months and maybe even years. Even if you call the publication to correct an error in a front-page story, the correction might run on the bottom of Page 27 three days later.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s my list of pros and cons. Did I miss anything? Please add to them in the Comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the first in a three-part series on the advantages and disadvantages of print, broadcast and online publicity. Part II will be featured next and focus on broadcast publicity. * &nbsp; &nbsp; * &nbsp; &nbsp; * &nbsp; When it\u2019s time to launch your next promotion, and free publicity is an important component, know the\u2026&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/print-media\/pros-and-cons-of-free-publicity-in-newspapers-magazines\/\" class=\"rmlink\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":8,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[615],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-13997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-print-media","7":"tag-free-publicity","8":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13997"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43165,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13997\/revisions\/43165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}