How to Get Featured in Forbes Australia

Most people searching for this want one of two things. Either they want the Forbes name on their website, or they want Australian buyers to take them seriously. Those are different goals, and only one of them is well served by Forbes Australia.

If you want the badge, almost any Forbes edition will do. If you want Australian customers, partners or investors to change their mind about you, the local edition is worth considerably more than the American one, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the logo.

Forbes Australia is a separate publication

This trips people up constantly. Forbes Australia is not forbes.com with a local section. It is a licensed edition launched in 2021 with its own editorial team, its own print magazine, its own website and its own lists.

That has two consequences worth understanding before you spend anything.

The first is that getting into the US edition does not get you into the Australian one, and vice versa. They are separate newsrooms making separate decisions.

The second is that Forbes Australia covers Australian business. Its readers are here, its subject matter is here, and its editorial interest sits with companies and founders operating in this market. A US software founder with no Australian presence is a harder fit than a Melbourne manufacturer nobody outside the industry has heard of.

Why the local edition beats the American one for Australian buyers

There is a version of this argument that sounds like agency spin, so let me make the concrete case instead.

When an Australian prospect searches your name, Google weights results toward their location. A Forbes Australia piece is far more likely to surface for an Australian searcher than a US Forbes piece about the same person. You are buying visibility where your buyers actually are.

Then there is recognition. Australian business readers know Forbes Australia as something they can subscribe to and pick up. That familiarity does real work in a sales conversation. "We were in Forbes" invites a follow-up question. "We were in Forbes Australia" tends not to, because the person you are talking to knows exactly what you mean.

And there is relevance. A feature that mentions your Australian operations, your local customers and the market conditions you actually work in reads as a story about a real business. A generic thought-leadership piece written for an American audience reads as filler no matter which masthead carries it.

The routes that exist

There are three, and they are not equivalent.

Newsroom coverage

A Forbes Australia journalist decides your company is worth writing about and writes about it. This is the version everybody wants and the version nobody can sell you.

It happens when you have something genuinely newsworthy: a raise, an acquisition, unusual growth, a founder story with a real hook, or a position on something the newsroom is already covering. It is unpredictable, it cannot be scheduled, and no amount of money moves it.

If a provider tells you they can guarantee this, they are either lying or describing something else. Ask which.

Lists and awards

Forbes editions run ranked lists, and appearing on one carries genuine weight because there is a selection process behind it. These have entry windows, eligibility criteria and judging. You can apply. You cannot buy your way on.

Worth watching if you qualify. Not a strategy you can rely on to a deadline.

A written feature placed through a partner

This is the route most agencies, including us, actually sell. A feature is written to your brief, you approve it before anything happens, and it is placed through the publication's commercial channels.

It is predictable. It runs when you need it to. It stays online and indexed. What it is not is a journalist independently deciding you are interesting, and any provider who blurs that line is doing you a disservice.

We place features in Forbes Australia through this route. We say so plainly because the alternative, letting a client assume they bought newsroom coverage, ends badly for everyone.

What a feature is genuinely worth

Be honest with yourself about what you are buying, because the value is real but specific.

A Forbes Australia feature gives you a credible, permanently indexed article on a masthead Australian buyers recognise, which appears when they search you, which you can reference in proposals and pitches, and which shifts how a stranger reads your company before you have said a word.

It does not give you a wave of inbound enquiries. Press almost never does that on its own. What it does is remove doubt from conversations you were already going to have, and that is worth more than most people expect once they see it working.

If someone promises you leads from a single feature, be careful. That is not how any of this works.

The question to ask before you pay anyone

One question separates the honest providers from the rest.

"Is this newsroom coverage or a placed feature?"

A straight answer is a good sign, whichever way it goes. Hedging is not. If you hear "our editorial relationships" or "we work directly with their team" without a clear answer to the actual question, ask again.

You should also ask what happens if it does not run, whether you approve the copy before publication, and how long the article stays live. Any provider who cannot answer those in one sentence each is not one you want.

Who Forbes Australia suits

It works well for founders and executives whose credibility is part of the sale, for companies raising or hiring in Australia, for professional services firms where trust is the whole product, and for anyone whose customers check them online before making contact.

It works less well if your buyers are overseas, if you sell something nobody researches before purchasing, or if you are hoping a single article does the work of a marketing function.

Where it fits alongside everything else

Forbes Australia is one title. It is a strong one, but a single feature on a single masthead is a thin foundation.

The businesses that get the most out of press treat it as a layer. A recognisable national title for credibility, a trade publication their actual buyers read, and enough coverage that a search for their name returns something substantial rather than one article and a LinkedIn profile.

Australia happens to be well suited to that approach. Beyond Forbes Australia there is a deep professional-services press that is unusually well read inside its own industries, and for a lot of businesses that layer converts better than any national title.

We cover the full picture in our Australia PR guide, including the titles that are worth more than their traffic numbers suggest.

The short version

Forbes Australia is a real publication with a real newsroom, and it is worth more to an Australian business than the US edition. Newsroom coverage cannot be bought and should not be sold to you as though it can. A placed feature is predictable, permanent and useful, provided you know that is what you are buying.

Ask which one you are being quoted for. The answer tells you most of what you need to know about who you are dealing with.

If you want to see what a Forbes Australia feature involves, our Forbes Australia page sets out the process, and you can talk to us about whether it fits what you are trying to do.