Get Featured in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Space in a local publication goes first to public affairs, emergencies, schools and sports. That leaves little room at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a business owner or professional who sends in a story idea cold, even when the story has a real local tie. A guaranteed placement removes that uncertainty: the piece is arranged with the publication in advance, you approve the draft, and it publishes on jsonline.com inside a written window, usually one to two weeks. It is a real article on the site that you can put in a proposal, a deck or a profile.

What Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covers

Readers in Wisconsin have plenty of national and international news to choose from. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does a different job. Local news publications concentrate on a defined area and report what is going on inside it, from civic affairs and the local economy to community events, schools, sports and the arts. The common thread is place: each story matters to someone nearby.

Stories about people are a natural fit for local news because readers may know the subject, or may walk past the storefront every week. A profile of an owner, a look at a new location, a firm’s anniversary, a fundraiser, a book by a local author: these are familiar formats for a community publication, and they work when they are specific about the place and the people.

Who reads Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A local audience is small compared with a national one, and far more relevant to a local business. Readers of a publication like Milwaukee Journal Sentinel live, work, shop and vote in the community it covers in Wisconsin. Many of them are deciding where to spend money, whom to hire and which organizations to support close to home.

If your customers are local, local news is the most direct press there is. Being featured in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel puts your name in front of people in your own market and gives you a news story to use in marketing, on your website and in conversations with prospects. For out-of-area companies, it signals a commitment to the community.

Why coverage in Wisconsin matters

For most companies, the people who matter most are within driving distance. A feature in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel speaks to that group directly, because its readers have a stake in what happens in Wisconsin. Coverage there can support word of mouth, give your sales conversations a local reference, and show up when someone in Wisconsin looks for information about you or your company.

Those who ask for coverage in Wisconsin are often professionals whose work depends on reputation in a defined area, such as attorneys, physicians, financial advisers, builders and agents. Event organizers, schools and hospitality venues are common as well, along with national brands that are launching a new location in Wisconsin.

Out-of-area companies and longtime locals face the same test: is there a reason for people in this community to care? For a newcomer, it may be jobs, a new location or a service not offered nearby. For an established name, it may be growth, history or community work. Either way, specifics carry the story.

The angles below are where we begin. One clear angle, backed by real details about your work in the community, makes a better local story than a list of everything you offer.

What weakens a pitch

• No local connection. If the story could run unchanged in any town, readers of a community publication have little reason to stop on it.
• Sales copy presented as news. Readers come for information about their community, so a list of offers and slogans reads as out of place.
• Vague claims. “Best in the area” and “top-rated” mean little without something a reader can verify, and everything we write must be true.
• Too many messages. One opening, one milestone or one person, told clearly, is stronger than a tour of every service you provide.