Get Featured in Edmonton Journal

Most small newsrooms cannot answer every email, let alone report every story offered to them. A cold pitch to Edmonton Journal competes with everything else happening in the community that week, and many of those pitches never get a reply. 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 edmontonjournal.com within a window stated in writing, usually four to six weeks. It is a real article on the site that you can put in a proposal, a deck or a profile.

What Edmonton 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. Edmonton Journal is one such publication, serving readers in Alberta, and its coverage, published at edmontonjournal.com, is built around what is happening in its own area and who is involved.

Local publications favor concrete detail over big claims. Where is it, when does it open, who runs it, what does it mean for the neighborhood. A story that answers those questions plainly reads like news. That applies equally to a family business, a medical or legal practice, a charity, a festival or a company arriving from elsewhere, and it is the standard a feature should meet.

Who reads Edmonton 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 Edmonton Journal serves in Alberta: 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.

A story in a community publication does two jobs. It introduces you to readers who live in your service area, and it becomes a piece of proof you can point to afterward. Nonprofits use local coverage with donors and volunteers, founders with investors and new hires, and authors and artists with venues, bookstores and galleries.

Why a presence in Alberta is worth having

Trust in Alberta is often built through domestic sources. When Edmonton Journal covers a business, the story reaches readers who live, shop and invest in the country. That audience includes the customers you want, the partners you may need, and the people who will search your name before they agree to a meeting. A feature there lets all three groups see your business described in a Canadian context.

Demand comes from small and mid-sized Canadian businesses, from professional practices competing in major cities, and from hospitality and travel operators. A further share comes from companies headquartered in other countries that sell into Alberta and want coverage Canadian buyers will regard as their own.

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.

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

• 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.