What are the best ways to start with Tin Shingle?

Tin Shingle aims to provide artists, makers and business owners with the latest ideas and news about buzz building. There are a number of ways we make this information accessible.

1. First way is via our free newsletter, so subscribe to that for when articles with tips and ideas are published.

2. Second way is via the training classes that you can access for free or via a membership subscription. Tin Shingle’s owner Katie hosts a webinar called a Training TuneUp that focuses on something super niche in marketing. Watching or listening to the live broadcast is free so get the schedule here, and then it’s recorded and made available for the subscription membership to stream at any time.

3. Third are tools we’ve designed to make your marketing outreach easier and more targeted. We have templates to help you know what to do when, as well as a database of Media Contacts to help make your research of who to contact easier, and Editorial Calendars for print magazines, which reveal the general theme of a magazine for each month. This helps you craft just the right pitch to just the right magazine at just the right time.

Is it 30-day Terms for Cancellation?

You may cancel at any time, but you will not be pro-rated. After you cancel, you will have access to your member account until the end of its billing cycle, at which point it will disconnect your membership and cease billing.

If I cancel mid-billing cycle, is my membership pro-rated?

No. If you want to cancel right away and finish out, but not forget that you wanted to cancel after one month (if you got the $150/month level), you could sign up and then cancel. But we think you’ll like it and want to stay! Why bother with that hassle of canceling and renewing all the time? LOL

What if a Media Outlet or Contact that I’m looking for isn’t in your list?

If you are joining for a quick Media Contact for 1, 2, or 3 outlets, and don’t find them, then you can email us a research request, and we will get on it. But honestly, that means that membership is not a fit for you. Tin Shingle is not a media list service. Tin Shingle is an education platform that provides resources to businesses doing a well-rounded approach to getting the word out.

We are always updating our database. There are some outlets we have missed, or are in mid-process. It’s a big world out there, and we want to make it easier for you to access it. If an outlet is not in our list - be it big mainstream or small - we do not give refunds for that reason. But our research team is happy to begin researching for you and the entire membership.

How does your Editorial Calendar Collection work?

Editorial Calendars are heavily sought after by experts in the PR world. What is not talked about, however, is that by the time they get their hands on them, most of the opportunities and themes have passed. We’re going to be straight up with you: you will never have the full year’s worth of topics from a magazine’s Editorial Calendar as presented in their Media Kit.

This is because magazines release their prettily designed Editorial Calendars in their Media Kits in January or February of each new year. This means you have just missed lots of opportunities for publishing cycles, if you’re relying on this one document alone.

What is super important for you, however, is publishing cycle dates. Tin Shingle trains businesses, artists and makers how to cold-pitch the media. Any time they want. Without relying on Editorial Calendars. What is the most useful is knowing what season a magazine is in at a given time. That will help you form a more timely pitch.

Tin Shingle’s Editorial Calendar Collection includes topics, and cycle dates, to help you be aware of when a magazine is working on a seasonal issue. For instance: The Thanksgiving Issue is usually being put together in July. Our Editorial Calendar Collection will help your awareness of this so that you can pitch what would obviously be in a seasonal issue, and not miss the timeing.

I’m a professional PR person. Can I join?

You can. But. Tin Shingle was designed for business owners, artists and makers who are pitching their businesses to many different outlets. Their subject matter stays the same - their business. You are searching for quick research for different clients in different industries and you’re under a lot of pressure from that client to deliver results really fast. That is fine. But all of our training and resources are geared towards people who are knee deep in their own business, who get to think of a myriad of story angles for one business only.

If you are in a rush, want 1 contact, and think that is all that there is to this membership, then you should use Cision. We do not grant refunds if the outlet or contact you were looking for is not there or outdated.

No media list service is 100% accurate - not Cision, not Meltwater, and not Tin Shingle. We want you to have realistic expectations when you activate your membership. Tin Shingle’s Media Lists are a source of ideas. A source of people and outlets one hadn’t thought of before. If you find our lists to not be perfect for exactly the outlet you had in mind, we will not grant you a refund for that reason. We will, however, research upon request, and encourage you to broaden your mind and pitch other outlets in addition to the big stars you are after. That’s what publicity is all about. Coverage in many places. Tin Shingle’s membership is designed to help you discover this. It’s not a one-and-done kind of place.

Tin Shingle works with business owners, artists and makers who are doing their own PR, learning the process, refining their ideas, and going for it. We train business owners, artists and communications directors to be on-point and kind in their pitching, as these get the best responses.

Do I need to apply for membership?

Yes. We want to be sure that a membership is right for you. We ask you some questions to gauge your level of understanding about how the media works.

BUSINESS OWNERS: Your membership application helps us know what you know or don’t know, and helps us communicate with you so that you know how to pitch the media. We also may be very honest with you. If your product is a very hard sell to the media, or if you want to get featured everywhere for every reason and you don’t understand that in order to get media coverage, you will need to think of clever angles for different media outlets, then we will let you know that up front.

COMMUNICATION DIRECTORS: Your membership application helps us get to know the business you work for. We also want to know who your boss is (the business owner) so that if you move to a different job, your boss or your replacement knows what Tin Shingle is when they get billed for it later.

PR PROFESSIONALS: We are screening you to make sure you are not joining for a quick fix of a Media Contact. If you want the latest Booking/Segment Producer at Good Morning America, for instance, and happen to join Tin Shingle before we updated it, and then you come back to us demanding a refund, this program is not a fit for you. Finding a Media Contact is really easy and you can do it for free. You just go to LinkedIn and do a search (and verify with their social handles to make sure LinkedIn is up to date). If you want to be part of a supportive community that values learning and fresh ideas, you will be welcome here. If you want to access a library of different Media Outlets that you hadn’t considered before, then you will be welcome here.

How do I cancel my membership?

Log into your Tin Shingle account, and hover over the MY ACCOUNT tab, and click on BILLING.

For your payment plan, click to Cancel your subscription. Your access to the website will remain active until the last day of your billing cycle. You will not be billed again. You are not pro-rated a refund if you cancel mid-cycle.

You can restart your membership at any time by logging in, visiting the MY ACCOUNT tab, clicking on BILLING, and then clicking on the membership level you want. If you canceled your subscription to membership and then changed your mind a few days or hours later, you can switch the subscription plan back to active, and will continue to be billed the following billing cycle.

I bought an Editorial Content Planner with lifetime access. How do I download the following year’s?

Yay you for planning your content! Let’s get you set up for a successful year.

1. Log into your Tin Shingle account.

2. Visit the Editorial Content Planner page on our website. Click here for direct access.

3. The file link on that page has the most current version. Click it, and the template will download to your computer.

4. Contact Us with any questions. We are happy to help.