Get Featured in Detroit Metro Times

Local reporters have to choose from a long list of community stories every week, and a business announcement rarely tops that list. Getting Detroit Metro Times to cover your opening, milestone or project on your own usually means repeated pitching and a lot of waiting. With a guaranteed placement, the outlet is confirmed first, you approve every word, and the article publishes on metrotimes.com inside the window written into your scope, usually one to three days. It is a real article on the site that you can put in a proposal, a deck or a profile.

What Detroit Metro Times covers

Local news is the layer of journalism closest to where people live, and Detroit Metro Times works at that level for readers in Michigan. A publication of this kind typically follows town or city decisions, neighborhood changes, new businesses, schools, local sports, community events and the people behind them. National outlets rarely get to these stories, which is exactly why local publications exist.

The tone of local news is direct and practical. Readers want to know what is opening, what is changing, who is behind it and how it affects them. That makes room for stories about a business reaching a milestone, a professional bringing a new service to the area, a nonprofit meeting a need, an event worth attending, or a resident with an achievement the community would want to hear about.

Who reads Detroit Metro Times

For most organizations with a local customer base, the people who matter most live within driving distance. Those are the readers a publication like Detroit Metro Times serves in Michigan: 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 Michigan does for you

Coverage in Detroit Metro Times reaches people who live and work in Michigan, 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 Michigan 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 Michigan, and leaders of community organizations. Regional chains and out-of-state firms expanding into Michigan 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

• 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.