How to get local press coverage for a small business

Most people assume local press is unreachable, expensive, or reserved for businesses that know someone. The reality is close to the opposite: local newsrooms are running on a fraction of the staff they once had, they have space to fill every day, and a story that arrives ready to use is genuinely welcome. The reason it feels closed is that almost everything sent to them is not a story.

Understand what you are actually offering

A local reporter needs to produce publishable copy today, with a picture, about something in the area. That is the job. You are not asking them a favour — you are offering to do a chunk of it for them.

Which means everything below is really one instruction: make it as close to finished as you can. The easier your email is to turn into an article, the more likely it becomes one.

What counts as a story, and what does not

Not a story: you exist. You have been trading five years. You have a new website. You are offering ten per cent off. None of these are interesting to anyone who does not already know you.

Actually a story, roughly in order of how reliably it works:

• A person, not a business. Somebody did something unusual, difficult, or generous. Local news is overwhelmingly about people.
• A local problem you are responding to. The closure, the flooding, the shortage, the thing everyone in town is already discussing.
• A first, or a genuine oddity. The only one of its kind in the county. The strange thing found during the work.
• Something at real risk or real cost. Taking on apprentices when nobody is. Reopening the shop everyone assumed was gone.
• A community tie with substance. Not a cheque photograph — an actual commitment with an outcome.
• Expertise on something topical. When a national story has a local angle you can speak to, offer yourself as the person who can explain it.

The test: could a reader who has never heard of you find it interesting? If the interest depends on already caring about your business, it is an advert.

How to send it

Email. Not a phone call, not a form, not a PDF.

1. Subject line is the headline. Write it as you would want to see it printed. "Ilkley baker delivering free bread to flooded homes" — not "Press release from Smith & Sons".
2. First paragraph is the whole story. Who, what, where, why it matters. Assume they read nothing else, because frequently they do not.
3. Then two or three short paragraphs of detail, in descending order of importance so it can be cut from the bottom.
4. Include a quote, from a named person, written as a person actually speaks. This is the single most useful thing you can supply, because chasing a quote is the slowest part of their job.
5. Attach a real photograph. High resolution, horizontal, a person in it, not a logo. A story without a usable picture frequently does not run at all.
6. Your name and mobile number at the bottom, and answer it.

Keep the whole thing under about three hundred words. Do not attach a formatted press release document; put the text in the email body where it can be copied.

Who to send it to

Find the actual person. Local titles publish reporter bylines — look at who covers your kind of story and email them directly, by name. A generic newsdesk address is a lottery; a named reporter who covers business or community news is a conversation.

Beyond the newspaper: local radio, the community Facebook page that everyone reads, the parish or town magazine, the county lifestyle title, and any local news website. The smaller ones are easier and their readers are more concentrated in your actual catchment.

Timing helps more than it should

Send it in the morning, early in the week. Avoid the days when everything is already busy. If your story is tied to a date, send it several days ahead — a reporter cannot cover an event they learn about the day after.

And if there is a big local story running, wait. Nothing else gets read that week.

What to do when they say yes

Be easy. Reply quickly, be available for a call, offer a better photograph, and let them write it their way. Do not ask to approve the copy — asking marks you as difficult and it is not how news works.

Accept that they will cut things and may not mention your website. Coverage is not an advert and trying to make it one is how businesses stop being called.

The part most people waste

The article runs, everyone shares it for a day, and that is the end of it. That is leaving most of the value behind.

• Put it on your website and keep it there. "As featured in" with a link is durable proof.
• Link to the article, and keep a screenshot in case the page disappears, as local news pages do.
• Use it in quotes and enquiries. A line about the coverage does quiet work at the moment someone is deciding.
• Stay in touch with the reporter. One useful contact who knows what you do is worth more than any single article, because next time they need a comment they will call you.

There is also a second-order benefit that has grown considerably. Local news sites are exactly the kind of independent source that search engines and AI assistants treat as corroboration — so a genuine mention keeps working in places you never see. Getting mentioned by AI assistants covers why that matters.

Realistic expectations

Most pitches get no reply, and that is normal rather than a verdict on you. Send one when you genuinely have something, not on a schedule. Two or three pieces of coverage a year is a good outcome for a small business and considerably more than most competitors will have.

What it will not do is produce a rush of enquiries the next morning. What it does is build the standing that makes everything else easier — the recognition, the corroboration, the reason someone picks you off a shortlist.

The bottom line

Local newsrooms need stories and most of what they are sent is advertising. Offer a person rather than a business, write the subject line as the headline and the first paragraph as the whole story, include a quote and a real photograph, and email a named reporter. Then keep the coverage working long after the day it ran. See also whether offline marketing still works.