The size of the US media market, much like the size of the US market in general, can be difficult for some businesses to grasp.

The magazine industry alone includes hundreds of publications for nearly every audience. I am consistently amused and amazed at how specific even traditional publications have become, not even taking into account the myriads of blogs that can be segmented down to an extremely well defined audience.

Niche magazines—magazines targeting very particular interests—have been on the rise in recent years, building a network of loyal, interested followers. Within each of these magazines there are often sections which further segment that niche that you have defined out of an industry segment, down to a particular buyer, and then down even further to their interests and motivations.

Having your story placed in a related, but unmotivated niche segment can mean the difference between traffic and sales.

An example of this is the enterprise technology buyer. Ziff Davis Media is just one of several publishing groups aimed at this audience. Ziff Davis divides their magazines aimed at enterprise technology into five buying audiences, each with a verified print circulation of several hundred thousand readers (online numbers greatly exceed this): technical, business, strategic, system implementation and influencers.Within each of these buying audience magazines is a range of topics (cloud, mobile, app dev, applications..), article types (tests, instruction, trends). Although your solution may seem relevant to several buying audiences and several sections within the magazine, putting resources to the one which yields the best results doesn’t have to be guess work.

Who is your primary audience? And what are their motivators? Getting more specific can help you target your PR on the audience who is ready and able to purchase now.