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Who's Who of Magazine Departments

We did talk a lot about magazines. I do want to share a couple more things about how to build your media lists and who to actually contact, because if you've ever taken a look at the masthead of a magazine, there's, a ton of people in there are on it, and it could get really overwhelming to think about who I pitch out of these fifty people that are on this list, how do I know who to reach out to? So this is where we're going to be focusing on for the first part of this presentation. So the key here is to really pitch the right person, make sure that whoever you reaching out to you is the person that's most receptive to getting your pitch that is on topic. So one way to do that is to get a copy of the magazine's masthead. And for those of you who might not be familiar with what a masthead is, it's basically, I know this year is really small, but this is from one of the local magazines in denver and basically what they do, they list their editorial department, their art and photography p...

roduction and then advertising, marketing and so on, so as you can see there's, a lot of people on here and this is usually placed, maybe after this. Second or third flip of a page that you d'oh when you're looking at a magazine so as you're trying to get ready to pitch the key here is to look at this and on ly look at the editorial part of it sometimes this magazine in particular has it really nicely in and different departments that are at the magazine but sometimes you'll just see ah whole bunch of names here with their title so we're going to spend the morning here talking about who to pitch what does each person here dio so you know exactly who would be the best person for you because you do have to determine who the appropriate person is for your particular product or your particular pitch because if you're pitching your product you're going to be contact a thing a different person than if you're going to be pitching yourself as an entrepreneur so let's look break really break it down here and look at the different departments that are at a magazine so the editorial department is the department that's responsible for the content they are select they select products they write stories they really put all of the content of the magazine together the design department is responsible for the art and photography and the layout of the magazine so what's the page going to look like once the editors have chosen which products to feature on there and what to write about so design is all about design and get obviously that's an easy one to figure out then there's also production, so production puts everything together. They looked at the photos and the content, and they basically produce the magazine, so they're probably not a good department to be reaching out to if you're looking for content, the marketing department is all responsible for marketing they in charge of doing a lot of partnerships, or maybe events that the magazine might be involved in and again, probably not a good idea to contact someone in the marketing department because their job is to market the magazine. Their job is not to come up with content for the magazine there's, also the circulation department on, and they're responsible for dealing with subscribers growing their circulation base. But there's also there also listed on the masthead, so you're going to see them there as well, and their job is to send out renewal notices. And when someone subscribes to bring them into the database and everything that has to do with circulation, the advertising department is responsible for selling the ads. So if you decided that you wanted to take an ad in a magazine, the advertising department is who you would be talking tio at that magazine, and the administration is based. Quickly, everyone else it's the publisher it could be the publisher of the magazine. You could be the vice president. It could be the person answering the front desk and greeting people when they first come in. Basically, anyone behind the scenes that's not a part of any of these other departments. So as you are thinking about who should I contact at a magazine? This is an overview of the different departments, what they dio and where your content or your pitch is going to fit into here. So let's, look at who does what at a magazine, and I wanted to get really, really specific here because I know when I first started pitching and just looking at a mass hat, it really could get overwhelming and you don't really know often who you should be contacting. So this is just a quick overview off who does what you guys really know who to contact. So the editor in chief usually overseas the operations off the magazine. They're the top person at the magazine and a lot of times, and they had departments there, so a lot of times, they're not necessarily directly responsible for getting the content together. More for discovering product or actually writing some larger magazines haven't editor in chief that is on ly an editor in chief and some smaller magazines you'll see the editor in chief also does research and they also come up with products and they do some off the writing so if it's a smaller magazine sometimes it's okay to contact the editor in chief if there's no other editor there if it's a larger magazine, you definitely don't want to be going to the editor and chief directly because that's not their job their job is not tio find products and do research and get e mails from entrepreneurs looking together products featured the editorial director you might have seen also and they're responsible for establishing the vision over of the magazine and a lot of times if it's a larger company they'll oversee a couple of magazines not just one so again they're probably not the right person for you to be contacting had the magazine the executive director they're the ones who approve all of the copy so after the editors and the writers have written everything they look at the overall picture they approve what goes in what doesn't go in this is sometimes where things might get cut if it doesn't make sense for their pages or if something doesn't look right and a lot of times they also oversee hiring so if they need a new editor the executive editor will actually be in charge I was hiring a new editor the managing director is someone who oversees the actual production so they deal with the print house they deal with the editors they deal with the content they're basically the person responsible for putting it all together and getting it and print so again probably not a good person for you to be reaching out to because they don't deal with content at all they just responsible for putting it all together, the other a large some magazines have this and some don't, but it really depends they could be a contributing editor which is basically a part time editor that might be working there may be just on a specific project, but they're not there full time but sometimes they are their full time again. It just really depends on the size of the magazine how big is it? But usually they're not responsible for content, but sometimes they could be I know for some magazines the editor at large is sometimes in charge of putting the holiday gift guide together, so you're sort of going toe have to know who's working on a holiday gift guide to know if it's theater are large or maybe a different section editor or someone completely new altogether so all of those things you can I'll tell you how you can find out who was exactly is working on that but usually probably not a good person to reach out to, at least with your initial pitch there's also the copy editor and what they do a lot of times if they do spot check and grammar, they basically just look at the copy to make sure that it's correct it's spelled correctly, it sounds good, and again, they don't do any of the product research they don't do any of the writing. Usually they're the last person that you hear from before the magazine's goes to print, and I've had this a lot of times where the copy editor will call me or email me and said, we're going to feature your products in our january issue. Can I just check a couple of things with you? Is this you're right price? Is this your website? Is this the name of your company? So they are sort of the last step with the editorial process, but you might hear from them sometimes, but not always, and the copy chief is the head of the cop copy department. So again, this applies more to larger magazines and not necessarily smaller ones, but they oversee everything that's copy and that's written and that's editorial so, again, they're not the ones doing the research or not the ones out there looking for products, they sort of oversee it after everything has been done and written there's more people at a magazine so this is more in the editorial team and this is where you guys should probably be focusing on for the purposes of sending a pitch so the editorial assistant is usually an entry level person who's just starting out at the magazine and sometimes they do admin work and sometimes they also write article so aa lot of times I like to start out with the reaching directly to the editorial assistant because they're not getting as many e mails as maybe the senior editor might be getting or the associate editor so sometimes if you're not getting any response from any of the other editors the editorial assistant is a really great person to be in touch with and to get to know because aa lot of times they're the gatekeepers to the editors and they could really pass on the information that you guys it may have to share was the person that they're working for there's also an assistant editor on dh usually the assistant editor has a lot more editing inviting us responsibilities and they're next in line after the editorial assistant now again you're not going to see all of these people in every magazine but at a major magazine you're probably going to see all of these different editors and the assistant editor is another great person to be reaching out to because they're responsible for writing they could do editing they're looking for products and you're going to be having a much easier time getting in touch with the assistant editor that you might with maybe the associate editor or the senior editor, so you're sort of have to work your way up or work your way down, and this is what I mean to when when I say if you're pitch, doesn't work, just contact a different person at the same magazine, either with a different pitch or with the same pitch because they don't often share emails and you're not gonna, you know, sometimes that they do. I've had editors where I emailed them something, and they say, oh, I'm not working on this story, but I'm going to pass it on to my senior editor who I know was working on this, so sometimes they'll share information, and if they find something relevant that they think their readers would love, they'll pass it on, but often times, if they're not interested, that'll just delete your email, and they're not going to let you know that they're not interested in the products. The associate editor is again the next step up from the assistant editor and another great person to be reaching out to the pitcher products or to try a different pitch and the senior editor is the next step up after that? So they are a lot of them? Do you research a lot of them? Do you oversee the editorial department? And there are a great person? Sometimes I'd like to start out with the senior editor. Sometimes I like to start out with the associate editor or the assistant editor or the editorial assistant, but again, you can see how just even looking at this list that could get a little confusing and a little overwhelming, because it's hard to know who you want to actually contact. Yes, dan, did you have a question ask, do all of these editors talked to each other? So if you start maybe with editorial, don't hear anything back, would you didn't go to the assistant? He still don't hear anything? Do you keep moving up, or you have to kind of pick your battles and maybe not hammerman much? Yeah, I think they do sometimes talk to each other, especially when they have their weekly meetings, and again, every magazine is different sometimes, if they find a product that they really love that they know another editor would love, then they'll send the email or they'll talk to them, so sometimes they do talk to each other, but sometimes they don't, because they're already so busy that if a product's not a good fit for them, they're just going toe, delete your email and move on to what they're working on, so it really depends. Sometimes they do save emails and share them and meetings, sometimes they don't it's just really hard to know unless you know how the editor works it's kind of hard to know exactly what they're doing, but that's. Why it's, I think it's a good idea if you don't hear from someone, then try someone else again without stalking, without always emailing, but you have a lot of people to choose from, especially at a larger magazine with the smaller magazines, you're probably not going to see all of these with the smaller magazines usually just seem maybe an editor in chief, a senior editor and a managing editor or something like that. So in that case, it's totally fine to go to the editor in chief because they're responsible for all the content, since no one else is doing content for the magazine. But this is more for the larger magazines where you look at the masthead and you think, how am I supposed to know who to contact? So this is just a really good overview of what everyone does there, so you have a good idea of who to reach out still. There's also at fashion magazines there's what's known as a market editor and what they do is they go out to markets, they go out to trade shows they're looking for trends and they're looking for things that are going on right now in the industry that they could write about and there's a ton of fashion markets I know aa lot of these air based in new york because there's a ton of showrooms and markets and things that are always going on in new york so they're always out there outside of their office looking talking in person, which is why I think sometimes if you want to get into magazines it's a good idea to do trade shows because the's market editors they're always at trade shows they're looking for products and that's one case where they can come to you and you don't have to go to them but you do have to put yourself out there and go to the trade show so trade shows are a good way to not only get wholesale accounts but it's also a good way to get publicity if you have the budget for it, I know sometimes straight shows could get quite expensive thousands of dollars and just the booth alone khun b two to five thousand dollars and there's travel and people you might have to pay to help you because you don't want to be the only one there working at your booth so market editor a great person to be in touch with if you're doing trade shows because you can invite them to a trade show I've seen a lot of designers especially if let's say they're doing the near gift show they'll reach out to fashion editors on and market editors and invite them to come to their trade show and stop by there. Booth so it's a great way tio instead of sending a pitch via email you're inviting them to uneven that you're doing so they couldn't really see your products they contest them maybe they can try them out to see if they really like them. So it's again sort of an indirect way about going too be working with an editor but you do have your products right in front of them and you can get feedback right away because they might say, oh that's not going to work because x y z or oh this is going to work perfectly so all of that feedback even the negative feedback is going to be great and getting it to understand how other people perceive your brand so you know how to position yourself maybe they have some has it has something where they're hesitant about carrying your product they might tell you that so in your marketing you can go ahead and address that so you could help people overcome those obstacles that they might be thinking their product is an obstacle itself that's what the market editor is really great for, and the research editor is also responsible for verifying all of the facts. So a lot of times I do get calls from our e mails from research editors as well because they want to check to make sure everything is okay, that the information that they have and that they're going to go to print with is the correct information, so probably not a good person to be contacting, even though it sounds like they're the person that's doing the research, right? I feel first, when I first started, I thought, what better person to contact than the person who is doing all of the research for the magazine on lee to find out that the title is a little bit misleading? It's more like a fact checker rather than a research editor? So there's also a couple more people that I want you guys to start thinking about? There is the staff writer, and their main responsibility is to write. So this is a great person again to be reaching out to because they're they're actually doing all the copy there, looking at the stories they're creating the stories, and they're really great to have the contact information for if you can get in touch with anyone else, the special features editor. They usually work on special projects, so it could be a project like maybe an event that they're in charge of coordinating. I know a lot of magazines to events all the time. They might even be responsible for something like a holiday gift guy, where they have to round up a ton of different gift and a ton of different things for their holiday gift guide. Or they could be doing something else. That's totally not even related to the editorial content, but their job is to work on special project as they come up, and sometimes a special feature editor is also their permanent, or they could be just part time at a magazine. Now we have all of those different editors. We also probably have seen different departments at a magazine, especially the larger magazine. So there's, a fashion department there's a beauty department. There might be a food department or maybe a home department health lifestyle again, depending on one magazine, your act, every one of these departments is going to have its own senior editor, assistant editor, editor, associate editor, so it can just get really crazy. I mean, the list here could get really, really long of who he might contact, but the great thing is that you have a lot of people out here this puzzle and it's, not just one person, that you're emailing over and over again, you have you khun b e mailing them every single month and be e mailing twelve different people for an entire year and pitching to twelve different people at the same magazine. So that's, the great thing about the larger magazines. The smaller magazines don't always have all of these departments as well. They just have one editor who oversees everything and no specific department. So is that giving you guys a good idea of who you need to go to for your types of products? Maybe if you have jewelry, maybe they're the fashion department. Sometimes they even have an accessories department. S o for jewelry. Della probably be a good fit. And for you, dorothy as well for you. Maybe sometimes they have a travel or a lifestyle department. I think lifestyle would probably be a good one for you and for you probably be fashion or even lifestyle as well. Um, so say, I hope that gives you guys a good idea of who you need to contact. I know there's a lot of information with all of these, but I think this is going to put it all in perspective for you.