Media Contacts

What Is Media Contacts?

Media Contacts is a lightweight CRM for tracking journalists, editors, and media contacts relevant to your industry. Contacts are discovered automatically through PR Intelligence scans (competitor backlinks, brand mentions, newsjacking) or added manually. Over time, your contact list grows into a valuable network for link building and media coverage.

URL: /pr/contacts/

Available on: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise plans.

How Contacts Are Discovered

Automatic Discovery

Contacts are added to your CRM automatically when:

• Media Intelligence scans extract journalist/author information from competitor backlink sources
• Newsjacking Radar identifies journalists covering trending stories in your industry
• Brand Mention scans find authors who mentioned your brand

Manual Addition

Add contacts manually by clicking "Add Contact" and entering:

• Name
• Email
• Publication
• Topics they cover
• Notes

Contact Details

Each media contact tracks:

| Field | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| Name | Journalist or editor name |
| Email | Contact email |
| Publication | Where they write |
| Topics | Subject areas they cover |
| Relationship Status | Cold, Warm, Hot, or Connected |
| Outreach History | Previous emails sent and their outcomes |
| Source | How the contact was discovered |
| Notes | Your private notes about the contact |

Relationship Status

Track how well you know each contact:

| Status | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| Cold | No prior interaction. Discovered through scans. |
| Warm | You've reached out at least once. |
| Hot | Active conversation or recent response. |
| Connected | Established relationship. They know you. |

Update status manually as your relationship evolves.

Using Media Contacts with Outreach

When generating outreach drafts from any PR Intelligence module, ILLIXIS checks your Media Contacts CRM:

• If you already have a contact at the target publication, the outreach references your relationship
• Contact outreach history prevents duplicate emails
• Warm/Hot contacts can receive more direct pitches

Best Practices

Do:

• Update relationship status after interactions
• Add notes about what topics interest each journalist
• Review your contact list periodically for stale entries
• Use the CRM to track all outreach (not just ILLIXIS-generated emails)

Don't:

• Email contacts too frequently (respect their time)
• Store contacts outside ILLIXIS (centralize for consistency)
• Ignore relationship building (the CRM works best as relationships grow)

Searching and Filtering

The Media Contacts page supports:

• Search by name, email, or publication
• Filter by relationship status (Cold, Warm, Hot, Connected)
• Filter by publication
• Sort by name, publication, or last contact date

Troubleshooting

No Contacts Appearing

• Contacts are added through scans. Run a Media Intelligence or Newsjacking scan first.
• Not all scans discover contacts (depends on extractable information)
• Add high-priority contacts manually while the automatic list builds

Duplicate Contacts

• ILLIXIS de-duplicates by email address
• If duplicates appear with different email addresses, merge them manually by keeping the preferred entry and deleting the other

Related Features

• PR Intelligence Hub - Overview of all PR features
• Media Intelligence - Competitor backlink analysis (discovers contacts)
• Newsjacking Radar - Trending stories (discovers contacts)
• Authority Builder - Journalist query response

Need help? Contact support or check the ILLIXIS Help Center.