Get Featured in Ventura County Star

Being local does not make Ventura County Star easy to get into. A community newsroom has limited reporters and limited hours, so stories about businesses, practices and organizations often wait behind news that has to run today. A guaranteed placement removes that uncertainty: the piece is arranged with the publication in advance, you approve the draft, and it publishes on vcstar.com inside a written window, 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 Ventura County Star covers

What does a local news publication cover? Whatever matters to the people nearby. For Ventura County Star, that means news for readers in California: 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 vcstar.com.

Local reporting treats a community as a set of people and places with names. In that setting, an opening, an expansion, an award, a new hire, a charity drive or a new service is news, provided it is told with facts. Owners, professionals, nonprofits, event organizers and creative people with a local tie are all familiar subjects of this kind of coverage.

Who reads Ventura County Star

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

If your customers are local, local news is the most direct press there is. Being featured in Ventura County Star puts your name in front of people in your own market and gives you a news story to use in marketing, on your website and in conversations with prospects. For out-of-area companies, it signals a commitment to the community.

Why coverage in California matters

For most companies, the people who matter most are within driving distance. A feature in Ventura County Star speaks to that group directly, because its readers have a stake in what happens in California. Coverage there can support word of mouth, give your sales conversations a local reference, and show up when someone in California looks for information about you or your company.

Those who ask for coverage in California are often professionals whose work depends on reputation in a defined area, such as attorneys, physicians, financial advisers, builders and agents. Event organizers, schools and hospitality venues are common as well, along with national brands that are launching a new location in California.

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.

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.