We cover what our community genuinely needs to know about.
This Is Raleigh has built its audience on honest, useful, community-driven content. That trust is everything — and it means we’re selective about what we cover, how we cover it, and whether a story is right for our readers before it’s right for a brand.
If you have a genuinely great story that fits our audience, we want to hear it. If you’re hoping a free glass of wine will get you a feature — this page will save us both some time.
What ‘free coverage’ actually costs us
We’re a small team creating content across a website with 110,000 monthly visitors, a newsletter with 12,000+ subscribers, and social platforms reaching 250,000+ people. Every piece of content involves real time, real expertise, and real expenses.
| What a typical feature actually involves | Time |
| Research and planning | 1–2 hours |
| Travel to and from location | 20–90 mins |
| Visit, experience, photography | 1–4 hours |
| Writing, editing, publishing | 3-4 hours |
| Social creation and scheduling | 1-3 hour3 |
| Total time investment | 6–13 hours |
A free glass of wine or a complimentary bagel doesn’t come close to covering that. We’d love to support every local business — but giving away 13 hours of professional work isn’t sustainable, and it isn’t fair to the businesses who do invest in working with us properly.
What makes a yes
Earned media works when there’s a real value exchange — not necessarily money, but something genuinely meaningful on both sides.
What Works
What Doesn’t
What genuine value exchange looks like
Product trade — Local teen consignment shop
A local teen consignment shop owner reached out with a $250 wardrobe voucher for Caroline’s teenage daughter — right as we were planning spring break. The timing was genuine, the value was real, it filled a need for us (aka saving, not costing us money), the business owner is someone we know and trust, and it opens up teen-focused content we’ve been wanting to create. That’s a value exchange that works for everyone.
Ongoing trade — Local hair salon
We have an ongoing trade arrangement with a local hair salon whose values, quality, and community spirit we genuinely admire. They provide services we’d be paying for anyway (i.e. a need saving us significant money). We provide coverage and content we’d be proud to create. No awkward transaction — just a relationship that makes sense.
Ongoing trade — Local Boutique
A local boutique provides a seasonal clothing stipend for Caroline to pick up a few pieces each season. There’s no expectation of coverage in return — because frankly, it doesn’t need to be said. Caroline is on camera constantly, speaks at conferences, and attends events around Raleigh and beyond. Her clothes show up in almost every piece of photo content we produce. And if you’ve ever been in a room with her or follow us online, you’ll know “where did you get that dress?” is basically a recurring theme.
The boutique owner understood the value of that long before any arrangement existed — Caroline was already a loyal customer and fan. Now the partnership simply makes it official. Caroline naturally weaves the boutique into relevant content across our platforms, the boutique gets ongoing organic visibility with a trusted local audience, and Caroline gets a wardrobe that works as hard as she does. Everyone wins.
We have several ongoing trade relationships like this as well as one-off trades. Honesty and integrity are important to us. We will always offer a fair value exchange in return – I like to sleep well at night!
Insider Wisdom
We’re constantly creating new content on this site and updating existing posts based on our own personal experiences — think “Best Italian in Raleigh,” “Best Patios in Raleigh,” that kind of thing. Those posts regularly generate thousands of engaged views within days of publishing. They live on our site permanently, rank in search engines, and get reshared to our social channels again and again to an audience that genuinely trusts our recommendations.
If we haven’t experienced your business, the chances of being featured are slim. It’s that simple.
Make it easy for us to experience what you do — at no cost to us — and you’re in the running. We can’t promise a feature, and we won’t pretend otherwise. That part comes down to quality. If the experience is great, it’ll show up in our content. That’s how this works.
How to pitch us properly
1. Use the pitch form
Please don’t DM us on Instagram or send a one-liner email. If you’re serious, take five minutes to fill out our form. It tells us you mean business — and gives us what we need to make a decision quickly.
2. Tell us the real story
Why does your business, product, or experience matter to the Raleigh community right now? The strongest pitches lead with the audience benefit, not the brand benefit.
3. Be clear about the value exchange
What are you offering? Be specific and realistic and provide all relevant details upfront. A genuinely thoughtful offer goes a long way — even if it’s not a large budget.
4. We’ll get back to you
If it’s a fit, we’ll respond within a week. If it’s not quite right, we may suggest a paid option that better suits your goals. Either way, you’ll hear from us.
Have a story that’s genuinely right for our audience? We’d love to hear it. Click the button to fill in the form. it enables us to keep proper records of your requests and avoids getting lost in our bursting-at-the-seams inbox.
One more thing worth knowing.
Earned media coverage is never guaranteed, and you don’t get to control it – messaging, timing, platform, content, style – even if we agree to explore a pitch. What we publish has to genuinely serve our community first. That’s what makes our coverage worth having.
If you need guaranteed coverage, placement control, or specific messaging — that’s what our paid partnership packages are for, and they’re genuinely excellent value with options to suit all budgets.
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