Everyone wants media coverage and gets frustrated when they don’t get it. Reporters and editors aren’t ignoring your news releases – they’re just doing their job. If you help them do their job, they will help you do yours.

The media get bombarded with releases every day. Think about some of the recent releases you’ve written. Your business celebrates 25 years. You won an industry award. Important to you? You bet.

But remember, a journalist’s job is to report news that matters to his or her audience.

When you write a release, ask yourself a simple question: “So what?” And answer it honestly. Why would this matter to someone outside your organization? If the answer is that it wouldn’t, you need to find a way to make it relevant to them.

For example, let’s say you own an art store and are offering a pottery class. By itself, that’s not all that newsworthy, except perhaps in the community listings.

What if you did some research and found that 43 percent of all American adults claim that one of their hobbies is some form of art? You dig a little deeper and find some statistics about art therapy and stress reduction. Now you have something to offer. Your class listings can be a part of a bigger story about reducing stress through art therapy or how art is the nation’s fastest-growing hobby.

One of the basic rules of writing marketing pieces is: remember your audience. In the case of an effective news release, you need to double that effort. Not only do you need to remember the reporter, but you also need to think about the reporter’s audience and what matters to them.

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and the author of “99.3 Random Acts of Marketing.” He can be reached at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com.