How to Get Your Business Into the Facilities Management Press

If you run a facilities management business, you already know that contracts are rarely won on price alone. Buyers want reassurance. They want to see that you are established, credible and going places. And one of the strongest signals of all three is your name appearing in the publications they read.

The FM trade press is read by exactly the people you want to reach: heads of estates, procurement managers, workplace directors and the FM providers you might partner with or supply. Coverage there does a job that no advert can, because it carries the implied endorsement of an editor who chose to run your story.

So how do you actually get in? Here is what we have learned from placing stories in the FM press month after month.

Know the titles and what each one wants

The facilities management media is small enough to know personally and varied enough that a scattergun approach fails. The core titles each have a distinct character. Some lean towards workplace strategy and the changing role of the office. Others are procurement led and want contract wins, mobilisations and performance data. Some serve specific corners of the industry, from cleaning and security to catering and hard services.

Sending the same press release to all of them is the most common mistake we see. An editor can spot a mail merge instantly, and it tells them you do not read their publication. Before you pitch anything, read three recent issues of the title you are targeting and ask yourself honestly whether your story would fit alongside what they publish.

Understand what counts as a story

This is where most FM businesses come unstuck. A new website is not a story. A rebrand is not a story. Even a new appointment is only a story if the person or the role says something bigger about where the market is heading.

What FM editors consistently want:

• Contract wins and renewals, especially with a named client, a value or scale indicator, and a line on why you won it

• Data and insight, such as what your service desk figures reveal about workplace occupancy, or what your tenders tell you about buyer priorities

• Opinion with an edge, meaning a genuine argument about the industry, not a thinly disguised sales pitch

• People stories with substance, such as apprenticeships, retention initiatives and routes into the industry, because recruitment is one of FM's biggest ongoing challenges

• Case studies with numbers, showing the problem, what you did, and the measurable result

If you can attach a number, a named client or a strong opinion to your news, your chances of coverage multiply.

Make the editor's job easy

FM editorial teams are small. Some titles run on two or three people producing a monthly magazine, a website and a newsletter. The pitches that get used are the ones that require the least work.

That means a short email with the story in the first two lines, a press release that can be published with minimal editing, quotes that sound like a human being rather than a brochure, and high resolution photography that is not a group of people in hi-vis pointing at a building. If you can offer the story as an exclusive to one title, say so, because exclusivity is currency.

Put your senior people forward

Editors want voices, not logos. A managing director who will give a straight answer on margin pressure, TUPE, the living wage or the state of the market becomes someone editors return to again and again. That is how you go from chasing coverage to being asked for comment.

This takes some preparation. Your spokespeople need a clear position on the issues that matter in FM right now, and the confidence to express it without a committee sanding it down to nothing. We spend a lot of our time helping clients work out what they actually think, then saying it clearly.

Be consistent, not occasional

One piece of coverage is a nice moment. A presence in the FM press is a business asset. The companies that buyers perceive as market leaders are usually not the biggest, they are the most visible. That comes from a steady rhythm of contract news, comment, features and case studies over months, not a single burst of activity before a big tender.

It also compounds. Editors start to know your name. Award judges recognise you. Prospects who look you up find pages of credible third party coverage rather than just your own website. That is reputation management doing its job.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a PR agency to get into the FM press? No, but you need time, media knowledge and a steady supply of well-crafted stories. Most FM businesses have the stories and lack the time and contacts. That is the gap an agency fills.

How long does it take to get coverage? A strong contract win story can land within days. Building a consistent presence, where editors know you and coverage appears every month, typically takes three to six months of sustained work.

What does FM PR cost? Less than most businesses expect, and considerably less than the advertising spend needed to achieve similar visibility. Programmes scale to your ambitions, from a monthly press office retainer to full campaigns around a launch or bid.

Does trade press coverage actually win contracts? Coverage rarely wins a contract on its own. What it does is remove doubt. When a procurement team shortlists you, they check you out, and a visible, credible media presence answers questions before they are asked.

Susa Comms is a specialist PR and reputation management agency working with facilities management, B2B food and hospitality businesses. If you want your business in front of the people who read the FM press, get in touch.