Get Featured in The Gainesville Sun

Ask any owner who has emailed a local newsroom about a grand opening: a reply is far from certain. The Gainesville Sun 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 gainesville.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 The Gainesville Sun 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. The Gainesville Sun is one such publication, serving readers in Florida, and its coverage, published at gainesville.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 The Gainesville Sun

For most organizations with a local customer base, the people who matter most live within driving distance. Those are the readers a publication like The Gainesville Sun serves in Florida: 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.

Reaching readers and customers in Florida

Coverage in The Gainesville Sun reaches people who live and work in Florida, 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 Florida 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 Florida, and leaders of community organizations. Regional chains and out-of-state firms expanding into Florida also seek local coverage so that their arrival is explained in a publication residents already read.

Stories in a community publication work best when they sound like news about a neighbor. That means a clear subject, a location, a timeline and a human being readers can picture. Owners and professionals who can say what changed, when, and who benefits locally are already most of the way to a strong feature.

We start by choosing one of the angles below. Most businesses and practices have two or three that would work, and the best choice is usually the one with the clearest local connection and timing.

What weakens a pitch

• A national message with a town name added. Local readers can tell when a story was not written with their community in mind.
• Jargon. Industry terms that work in a trade magazine lose a general local audience, so plain language serves the story better.
• Overstated community ties. If the connection to the area is thin, say what is true and build the story on something else.
• Everything at once. A feature that tries to cover history, services, awards and future plans together leaves readers without a clear takeaway.