Get Featured in Vancouver Sun

Most small newsrooms cannot answer every email, let alone report every story offered to them. A cold pitch to Vancouver Sun competes with everything else happening in the community that week, and many of those pitches never get a reply. A guaranteed placement removes that uncertainty: the piece is arranged with the publication in advance, you approve the draft, and it publishes on vancouversun.com inside a written window, 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 Vancouver Sun covers

Local news is the layer of journalism closest to where people live, and Vancouver Sun works at that level for readers in British Columbia. 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 Vancouver 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 Vancouver Sun serves in British Columbia: 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.

Earning recognition among readers in British Columbia

Canadian readers have their own publications, and they notice which companies appear in them. Coverage in Vancouver Sun places your business in front of customers and partners in British Columbia through a source that belongs to their market. It also helps when a prospect in British Columbia looks you up, because a Canadian reference tends to carry more weight with them than one from elsewhere.

Typical clients include Canadian founders seeking investors, franchise owners opening new locations, and established firms that want a stronger national profile. Authors, speakers and nonprofit leaders ask for coverage as well. Companies based outside British Columbia use it when they launch a product or hire a team there.

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

• Nothing new. A local story needs a reason to run now, such as a date, a change, an event or a recent result.
• Missing details. Without a location, a description of what you do and a clear timeline, a feature reads as generic and local readers move on.
• Claims that cannot be supported. Local readers know the area and will notice exaggeration, and we only write what is accurate.
• A story with no people in it. Community news is about neighbors, so a feature needs an owner, a team or a client perspective.