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Once you've made a commitment to finding work as a corporate or organizational media writer, you need to identify where that work is. Most people start locally in their quest for work, but in today's wired world, you needn't limit your thinking to the local area. Here are suggestions on where to start:
Identify corporations with headquarters or major facilities in your local geographic area. Most major cities, and even many smaller ones, serve as headquarters locations for large companies and organizations.
Identify the major financial institutions in the community. Granted, national and regional banks may only have branches in your city. But every community has local banking institutions, savings and loans or credit unions. Like the big guns, they, too, have training and communication needs.
Identify the major health care organizations in your area: hospitals, medical schools and major clinics. The medical and pharmaceutical market has historically been an important player in the private television and media market-because of the need for continuing physician education, patient education, and the constant introduction of new pharmaceuticals and medical techniques.
Identify the major colleges and universities in your locale. Many are engaged in distance learning. Additionally, professors teaching film, television and interactive media production courses are excellent sources of information about who's doing what in the local area.
Identify the key advertising and public relations agencies in your community. True, many of these folks have fulltime copywriters on staff. But sometimes, these writers are either on overload or do not possess the media writing skills to handle a complex interactive media assignment.
Find out who's producing video and media programming locally. Who are the small, boutique production companies (sometimes they're a one-man band) that are doing this kind of work?
Once you've compiled your list, go to the library or pick up the phone to find the names of these individuals:
· Vice President or Director of Corporate Communications
· Vice President or Director of Training & Development
· Vice President or Director of Sales & Marketing
Sure, there are lots of others who might prove sources of media writing services. But if you can establish a relationship and build credibility with any of those three functional areas, you'll be strategically positioned to bid on projects.
Earlier, I mentioned you needn't feel constrained to the local environment. Case in point: I just completed a video project for a major pharmaceutical company. The client was located in Italy. We never met face to face but, rather, did all our work via telephone and the Internet. Shoots took place in Florida, New Jersey and Germany. Non-linear editing was done in Columbus, Ohio. So today's media environment fosters widespread communication and collaboration.
So, does finding the work sound like a lot of work in itself? Granted, it takes time and effort. In the next column, I'll offer some suggestions for how to streamline your networking efforts with association memberships.
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