I couldn't figure out what media our audience consumed anymore. Media became highly politicized; it was tricky.

A Bit of Context

Contact Any Celebrity maintains an online database that helps fans, authors, entrepreneurs, the media, and nonprofits contact 59,000+ celebrities, influencers, and public figures worldwide. Their founder, Jordan McAuley, also wrote the book 'Celebrity Leverage: Insider Secrets to Getting Celebrity Endorsements' and publishes an annual directory, 'The Celebrity Black Book.'

Jordan's work means he's frequently tasked with identifying the media outlets, celebrities, and sources of influence that truly reach and resonate with an audience. SparkToro's audience research proved a perfect fit for this challenging problem.

The Challenge

We promote a conference (used to be live in NYC but is now virtual) that helps entrepreneurs, authors, nonprofits, etc. get national press. At Celebrity PR Summit you can pitch your project to national TV producers and journalists in person (this year via Zoom).

In the past, I could simply send out emails like 'get featured on CNN, Fox News, etc.' and that was fine. But during the Donald Trump years, people started writing back comments like 'I would never want to go on CNN!' or 'I would never want to go on Fox News!'

I couldn't figure out what media our audience consumed anymore. As we all know, media got really politicized and it was tricky. We have a lot of authors and nonprofits (who are usually liberal) but also a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, who I assumed watched Fox News and liked Trump. I wasn't sure what media to mention in our emails anymore, especially in subject lines.

How SparkToro Helped

My audience varies so widely. We have fans who want an autographed photo; authors who want a book endorsement, entrepreneurs who want a shout-out about their product; nonprofits who want a donation or signed memorabilia; media who want a quote or interview. SparkToro helps me see what media, podcasts, and websites to focus on. I had preconceived notions about the media some of my audience was paying attention to (entrepreneurs mostly), and turns out that was not the case.

I started using SparkToro's Press feature to see what media our visitors view most often.

Tada! Turns out the top are The New York Times, CNN, HuffPost, The Wall Street Journal, PR Daily, The Washington Post, Time, and People. Phew! (no Fox News on that list!)

Now I can confidently remove Fox News and other conservative media from my emails, and know that it won't really matter. And turn up the notch on CNN, etc. that I feel better about anyway.

We've started changing this copy in our emails, and so far, have not had anyone complain like they used to about us mentioning certain media!