Trade press is easier than national
Smaller teams, more space to fill, and readers who genuinely want operational detail. A specific, useful piece about how your sector works will place far more reliably than anything you could pitch to a national.
It is also better targeted. Trade readers are often the exact people who buy from you.
What they want
Numbers from inside the industry, practical process detail, and honest accounts of what did not work. Case studies with real figures place well. Thought leadership with no evidence does not.
Many trade titles accept contributed articles. Ask about their contributor guidelines rather than pitching a story.
The compounding benefit
Trade coverage is disproportionately valuable for AI visibility because those publications are topically focused, so a model reading them associates your brand tightly with your category rather than loosely with everything.