Real estate journalists are often open to newsworthy story submissions from businesses in the real estate industry. This is your opportunity to have your company promoted, often for free.

If you have a newsworthy story directly related to your brand, you can reach out to a reporter who covers real estate in your local area, or perhaps even works for a national publication.

For example, your company conducted a survey or research and you possess unique data that may interest the audience. Reach out to a few real estate reporters with a press release about your findings.

They may publish an article or interview you to tell their readers, viewers, or listeners about your work. Your brand name will be mentioned in the news which will help you strengthen your business image in the eyes of your potential clients and partners.

Moreover, if you get a mention, and even better — a link to your website, on a reputable real estate-related online resource, this will also contribute to improving your ranking positions in Google and other online search engines.

You can reach out to news sites and other media outlets via various ways. The most standard one is through a press release sent online. A press release is a short summary of a newsworthy story you want a reporter to cover in the news.

There are no officially established standards for writing a press release, but a quick online research will offer you outlines created according to the best practices. As a general rule, a press release must clearly and quickly show the reporter why your story is newsworthy and what to do next to turn it into a published news material.

A press release must provide the reporter with all necessary information allowing them to reach out to the right person for more details or write an article based on the press release and additional materials that come with it.

If the reporter finds your story newsworthy enough, they will reach out to the specified person or cover the story in their next article. If you haven’t received a response, it sometimes helps to send a follow-up or two (maximum) with a few days between the messages.

Some reporters make their phones or physical addresses available, so you can use them as well. Always look for an indication of how they prefer to be contacted and use their preferred way if there is any.

When pitching a real estate journalist, follow these simple and basic rules:

1) Don’t address the reporter in a generic way such as “Dear sir or Madam”. Use their first name. Otherwise, it will be visible that your message was sent to many people at once. Normally such messages appear to be spam. You don’t want yours to look like one and be ignored.

2) Despite what you might have read in other articles, don’t make an introduction saying you are a long-time reader of theirs. Every spammer writes this, and you don’t want to look like one.

3) Follow their submission guidelines if they have any.

4) In the subject line, clearly and concisely indicate what your story is about exactly, trying to choose a phrasing showing its newsworthiness.

5) Keep your pitch short but provide enough details to show why the reporter’s media outlet’s audience will be interested in your story.

6) Format your pitch in an easy to read way. Divide the message into paragraphs (as short as possible).