Marketing Buzz 08/04

Good Timing

Scott Testa loves August. "It's generally the slowest news month," says the 38-year-old COO and co-founder of Mindbridge Software Inc. in Norristown, Pennsylvania. "We plan product releases for the July/August time frame, and we're not competing [for publicity] with the larger companies, which are waiting until September through the beginning of the year."

Tom Ciesielka, president of Chicago PR firm TC Public Relations, thinks taking advantage of slow news times to break through the monumental clutter that editors face is a good idea. Ciesielka applied that very strategy to one of his clients, pitching a seasonally themed story for the not-so-newsy July 4th holiday. It worked, even garnering coverage in the Chicago Tribune. A more popular holiday tie-in might not have yielded the same results.

While slow-news-day coverage may yield you slightly less readership, it can be a good move strategically. "When you're building your media portfolio, you're looking for that credit to say that you were in the Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution," Ciesielka says. "Most people are impressed by that, and it may help you break into trade or national publications. No one is going to look at the date that you were in it, just that you were in it."

Gwen Moran is a consultant and writer specializing in marketing. Reach her at .