Get Featured in Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Ask any owner who has emailed a local newsroom about a grand opening: a reply is far from certain. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal has a whole community to cover with a finite staff, and a pitch from a stranger is easy to set aside. A guaranteed placement works differently: it is arranged with the publication before any writing starts, you sign off on the draft, and it goes live on lubbockonline.com within a window stated in writing, 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 Lubbock Avalanche-Journal covers

Every community has stories that never reach a national outlet: a new clinic, a restaurant changing hands, a nonprofit campaign, a planning decision, a team’s season. Local news publications exist to report them. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal is one such publication, serving readers in Texas, and its coverage, published at lubbockonline.com, is built around what is happening in its own area and who is involved.

Because the audience is nearby, usefulness counts. Coverage that tells readers something they can act on, such as a service now available, an event to attend, a cause to support or a business to try, fits local news well. So do stories of local people: owners, practitioners, organizers, authors and artists whose work has a clear tie to the community and a reason to be told now.

Who reads Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

For most organizations with a local customer base, the people who matter most live within driving distance. Those are the readers a publication like Lubbock Avalanche-Journal serves in Texas: residents, families, professionals, owners and community groups who follow local news to stay informed about the place they call home and the businesses and people in it.

Recognition close to home is often worth more than attention far away. A feature in a local publication gives an owner, a professional or an organizer something concrete to share with customers, donors, members and referral sources. It also gives people who look up your name a news story from your own market to find.

What local coverage in Texas does for you

Coverage in Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reaches people who live and work in Texas, which is where most local buying decisions are made. Readers tend to give more weight to a business they have seen in a publication from their own area. When a customer, landlord or potential partner in Texas looks up your name, a local feature gives them something familiar and credible to find.

Typical clients include owners of family businesses, founders of growing local companies, authors and speakers with roots in Texas, and leaders of community organizations. Regional chains and out-of-state firms expanding into Texas also seek local coverage so that their arrival is explained in a publication residents already read.

A local publication writes for neighbors, so a feature earns attention when it answers a neighbor’s questions: who you are, where you are, what is new and why it matters to the area. The strongest stories name the town or neighborhood, give dates and details, and show a connection to the community beyond the sale.

Before drafting, we identify the strongest of the angles below. Owners often overlook the story behind the business, such as why they started or whom they serve, and it is frequently the one readers remember.

What weakens a pitch

• Nothing new. A local story needs a reason to run now, such as a date, a change, an event or a recent result.
• Missing details. Without a location, a description of what you do and a clear timeline, a feature reads as generic and local readers move on.
• Claims that cannot be supported. Local readers know the area and will notice exaggeration, and we only write what is accurate.
• A story with no people in it. Community news is about neighbors, so a feature needs an owner, a team or a client perspective.