Get Featured in The Commercial Appeal

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

People read a local publication because it is about their own streets, schools and businesses. The audience for The Commercial Appeal is that kind of reader in Tennessee: homeowners and renters, parents, shop and restaurant owners, professionals, civic and nonprofit leaders. These are the same people who choose a local doctor, lawyer, agent, contractor or place to eat.

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.

What local coverage in Tennessee does for you

Coverage in The Commercial Appeal reaches people who live and work in Tennessee, 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 Tennessee 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 Tennessee, and leaders of community organizations. Regional chains and out-of-state firms expanding into Tennessee 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

• 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.