Get Featured in The Canberra Times

The Canberra Times is a local news publication, and local newsrooms tend to run on small staffs with more story tips than they can follow. Pitches from businesses usually lose out to public meetings, breaking news and school sports, however good the story is. With a guaranteed placement, the outlet is confirmed first, you approve every word, and the article publishes on canberratimes.com.au inside the window written into your scope, usually one week. It is a real article on the site that you can put in a proposal, a deck or a profile.

What The Canberra Times covers

What does a local news publication cover? Whatever matters to the people nearby. For The Canberra Times, that means news for readers in the Australian Capital Territory: the kind of reporting on local government, business, schools, roads, real estate, events, sports and community life that larger outlets leave alone. A story earns its place by being relevant to the area, not by being big. Its reporting is published at canberratimes.com.au.

Business and community stories sit comfortably beside civic news. A local publication is where readers expect to learn about a new restaurant, a practice adding a location, a contractor finishing a visible project, an artist’s exhibition or a company setting up in the area. The writing is plain and factual, the local connection is stated early, and the subject is someone or something readers can find nearby.

Who reads The Canberra Times

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

That matters for anyone whose work depends on local reputation. Real estate agents, advisers, physicians, attorneys, contractors and restaurateurs all win business through familiarity and word of mouth. A story in The Canberra Times adds to both, and it can be shared on your site, in your office, in proposals and across your social profiles.

Why visibility among readers in the Australian Capital Territory matters

Coverage in The Canberra Times reaches readers who live and work in the Australian Capital Territory, a market with its own media and its own expectations. Being covered there signals that your business is relevant to Australians. That helps with customers who prefer local names, with partners weighing whether to work with you, and with people who research a company before they make contact.

Coverage in the Australian Capital Territory is often sought by companies in mining services, agriculture, property, finance, health, education and tourism, and by professionals who compete for clients in the major cities. Overseas businesses entering the Australian market also request it, because they usually begin without local recognition.

Local news runs on specifics. A story that says a clinic opened on a named street, hired locally and offers a service the area lacked will hold a reader. A story that says a company is passionate about excellence will not. Before anything is written, the facts, the place and the timing need to be clear.

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.