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Free GTM Skills / Search, AEO and PR

Trade press placement

Use this skill to get into the publications the ICP reads: pitch the trade magazine, a bylined article for, get the case study into the industry publication, the editorial calendar, who covers our space. Produces the outlet and reporter list with their editorial calendars, the pitch drafts (news, byline, customer story), the byline draft where accepted, and the placement tracker.

By Matt Santos, BOM Growth. Free under the MIT license.

Install

npx skills add BOM-Growth/b2b-gtm-skills --skill trade-press-placement

Run it in your project folder, then ask Claude Code for trade-press-placement by name or in your own words.

skills/trade-press-placement/SKILL.mdView on GitHub

This applies monthly, and around every release and customer story. It produces earned coverage in the outlets that reach the segment, which is where a narrow ICP actually reads.

Before you start

This skill works on its own. If the person has their own marketing brain (or any folder of context files about their company), read the files listed under reads in the header first and cite them for every fact. If they do not have one, do not look for one: ask for the two or three facts this play needs and go on. Never invent a fact; a blank is a question for the person.

Tools: this play speaks in verbs (check the CRM, pull the call, schedule the post). TOOLS.md at the root of this repo lists the tools recommended for each verb. The company’s own 1-context/stack.md wins when it exists. No tool is required; a spreadsheet and a mail client cover most of it.

The play

  1. Read the context (see Before you start). Build or refresh the outlet list for the segment: trade magazines, association publications, newsletters, podcasts, with each one’s editorial calendar and submission rules.
  2. Match stories to the calendar: a themed issue on the problem the product solves, an awards issue, an event preview. Trade editors plan months ahead; the calendar is the pitch timing.
  3. Pitch types: news (from press-release), a bylined article from the founder or an expert customer (through founder-content-rhythm for the point of view), a customer story (from case-study, with the customer’s permission to be pitched, through permission-check).
  4. Draft each pitch in three paragraphs: why this reader, the story in two sentences, what you can provide by when. One outlet per exclusive; others get the standard version after.
  5. Where a byline is accepted, draft it to the outlet’s length and style; the point of view comes from the founder, the proof from the tracker.
  6. Track every pitch: outlet, reporter, date, story, status, follow-up date. Follow up once, a week later; twice is the limit.
  7. When a piece runs: capture the link in the proof tracker, hand to social-post and customer-update-email, and add to the leave-behind and the next event deck.

What good looks like

  • The best operator knows each outlet’s editorial calendar and pitches the themed issue three months out.
  • The mediocre version blasts the same release to forty addresses the day it goes live.
  • Good output is a tracker with a handful of live conversations and one placement a month in an outlet the ICP reads.

Rules

  • MUST get the customer’s permission to be pitched before a story goes to an outlet.
  • MUST respect each outlet’s exclusive and embargo rules.
  • NEVER send a pitch; the human sends.
  • NEVER follow up more than twice.

Find out if we’re a fit.

In a 30-minute discovery call, you’ll get honest, no-strings advice you can act on right away, and a clear picture of what working together would look like.

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