Media List Examples: 4 Ways to Manage Your Contacts

Is your media contact list overflowing? When you want media coverage, can you find relevant journalists quickly and easily? Or is your list the digital equivalent of a bunch of names and contact details scribbled on scraps of paper and shoved in a drawer?

It's time to take control.

You can keep your media contacts in many different places, depending on your budget and the type of media you're pitching.

So, let's get your media contact list sorted once and for all.

PR Software

PR software includes various tools to help you manage media contacts, send press releases, track coverage, and measure the success of PR campaigns more efficiently. If PR teams want to keep a tidy, easily accessed press list with all the bells and whistles (and have a decent budget), this kind of software could be the way to go.

Examples include:

Muck Rack

Muck Rack is a comprehensive public relations (PR) and media management platform designed to help PR professionals, marketers, and media relations teams stay organized and efficient when managing their media outreach.

It includes a vast, up-to-date database of journalists and media outlets. These include traditional media like newspapers, journals, magazines, radio and television and modern media such as blogs, online news platforms, podcasts and research groups. This makes it easy to find relevant journalists when you want to send a media pitch or press release.

Not only will you see a journalist's name, you'll also see their biography and portfolio, which lets you assess whether they are a good fit for your PR message. Having so many journalists in one tool dramatically decreases the time you spend searching for relevant media contacts.

Muck Rack's contact details tool has room to include all the relevant contact info for each media contact, sorted by type and relevance to your organization.

When you set up a free account you'll get access to the search tools and the website's Help and Resources section. To use all the other CRM tools, including the media contacts list, you'll need to upgrade to a paid version.

Muck Rack doesn't advertise its rates, but word on the street suggests it's reasonably pricey. Book a discovery tour to learn more.

Prowly

Prowly is an AI-powered PR and media relations software platform that offers tools for creating and maintaining a media list and contact details.

Like Muck Rack, it includes a media database with over one million contacts, which you can filter by country, media type etc. They include bloggers, influencers, podcasters and traditional media journalists.

It also has a Press Release tool to help you create effective press releases and a media pitching tool.

Prowly doesn't have a permanently free option, but each tier offers a free 7-day trial and a personal tour of the platform with a Prowly representative.

At the time of writing, Prowly's two tiers are Basic at $258 and Pro at $416 per month (when billed annually.)

Rephonic

Rephonic isn't strictly PR software, but it is ideal when you want a media list targeting podcasts.

Podcasts are thriving, and more and more PR pros are reaching out to podcasters to secure guest interviews and update them on industry news.

Rephonic is the most comprehensive database for podcast media contacts. Even though you can find podcasters on CRMs and PR platforms, they lack the information that only we amalgamate on each podcast info page.

Rephonic provides detailed insights into podcast performance, contact details, social media accounts and more to help you identify and contact the most suitable podcasts for your PR outreach or collaboration efforts.

You can build a media list right on the platform. Select a podcast and hit "add to list."

CRM software

Customer Relations Management software helps businesses manage customer relationships by organizing contacts, tracking interactions, and improving sales and customer service. So, if you already have CRM software, it can make sense to add all your media contacts there.

If you're using any of the software tools above, you can export your media list and upload it to your CRM.

Examples include:

HubSpot

HubSpot is an AI-powered customer platform built from the ground up so that everything you need is in one place.

The platform offers many free tools and resources to try, but you'll need to pay to take advantage of everything HubSpot has to offer.

Zoho

Zoho has created a suite of cloud-based software with more than 70 apps to help businesses at all stages and sizes.

They even generously offer a fully-featured free version of Zoho CRM for up to three users - ideal if you're a solopreneur or have a small team.

"Zoho offers a fully-featured free edition of its flagship CRM software. That's right–robust features for sales and marketing, powerful integrations, and secure cloud storage, all for free. Why? Because a CRM tool is an absolute necessity for businesses of all sizes–providing basic customer experience shouldn't be expensive.

Spreadsheets

Now, it may be that you don't have CRM software and can't afford to use any of the tools above.

No worries! You can still stay organized.

There's no reason why you can't go old school and create your own media lists in Google Sheets or Excel.

Researching media contacts may take a little longer, but you can use the free media list tools in Muck Rack and Prowly to help. You can also include local media, people interested in your organization and newsletter creators.

If podcasts appeal, use Rephonic to find podcast hosts. (You might even use our pitch email tools to create media pitches.)

Decide what information you need for each contact and set up your columns accordingly.

Once you've entered the details, there are several ways to search for relevant contacts or even a specific publication or journalist.

1. Use the 'find tool' — Ctrl + F (or Cmd + F on a Mac) and type the name you want in the search box.
2. Use filters

• Select the entire row of column headers.
• Click on the "Data" menu and choose "Create a filter."
• You can now click on the filter icon in the header of each column to filter your data based on specific criteria. This way, you can display only the rows that match your search criteria.

3.  Use the QUERY function to create a separate view or sheet that displays only the contacts matching certain criteria. E.g., =QUERY(Sheet1!A1:E, "SELECT * WHERE B = 'Tech Journalist'")

Project management tools

Perhaps it might suit you better to manage your media contact list in a project management tool, especially if it's the tool you use most often.

Here are a couple of examples.

Trello

Trello is a web-based project management tool. Its boards, lists, and cards are flexible, easily moved or changed and great for people who prefer a visual tool.  You can sign up for a free version or choose one of three annual plans—Standard (US$5 per month), Premium ($10) and Enterprise ($17.50.)

Trello is easily adapted to store your media contacts. Here's how you do it.

• Create a board. You can use one board for a small media list or create a new board for each category if you have many contacts.
• Build lists as categories.
• Add cards to the list. Each card represents a contact. Click the card to expand it and add details and notes in the description.
• Attach relevant files (like press releases or past correspondence) to the card and add social media links if needed.
• Search across boards and filter cards based on labels, due dates or other criteria.

Asana

Asana is an AI-based work management platform designed to help teams organize, track, and manage their work. Download the app or work online to create projects, assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress. The platform has a forever free version for individuals and affordable monthly paid options—Starter and Advanced—for teams and businesses.

It's relatively straightforward to build a media list in Asana.

• Create a project and name it something like "Media Contacts"
• Use project sections as your categories. For example, have one for "Journalists," another for "Bloggers," a third for "Influencers," and so on.
• Use tasks for each person's contact details and notes. For new contacts, just add more tasks.
• As with Trello, you can attach relevant files and add social media links.
• Use Asana’s search and filter functions to find specific contacts or groups based on tags, custom fields, or other criteria.

Final thoughts

Whether you're a PR professional or you've simply been put in charge of your tiny team's PR efforts, building a media list is a vital component in getting media attention when you want it.

And deciding where to keep your media list and what information to store is equally important.

There's no point in simply noting media contacts in your diary...or address book...or sticking them on post-it notes and hoping. You need an effective media list so that finding contacts when you need them is easy and efficient.

It's a good idea to use something where you can easily export the data and where you can quickly find the journalists you want when you have a great story pitch and want to catch their attention.

Each example we've highlighted will do the job. Try each one out and decide on the tool that works best for you.