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Episode 103: Crafting a PR Strategy
191 Plays4 years ago
Today’s guest is Dr. Tiffany Eurich, a PR expert who gives us an absolute master class on PR and how it has the potential to get $1,000,000 exposure for businesses of any size regardless of budget. I think PR is one of those areas that's worth exploring and investing in, because in addition to getting more exposure for your business, it has so many secondary benefits.
If you ever felt that PR was only for “big businesses” or don't even know where to start when it comes to crafting a PR strategy for your business, you're in luck because we chat about all that and more in this episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at daveyandkrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, including access to a “Press Kit in a Day” download from Dr. Tiffany.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-tiffany-eurich-episode-103/
Recommended
Transcript
Understanding Strategy in Marketing and PR
00:00:05
Speaker
What we fail sometimes to see is that there's this great big broad umbrella that is strategy. Some people will call that marketing, some people will call that public relations, but within that you have tactics. So your blog, your Facebook ads, those are all tactics and activities. When you can understand the bigger overarching goal, then you can more quickly and nimbly move through effective tactics to meet the goals.
Introducing Dr. Tiffany Urich and the Power of PR
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:44
Speaker
Today's guest is Dr. Tiffany Urich, a PR expert who gives us an absolute masterclass on PR and how it has the potential to get million dollar exposure for businesses of any size, regardless of budget. I think PR is one of those areas that's worth exploring and investing in because in addition to getting more exposure for your business, it has so many secondary benefits.
00:01:06
Speaker
If you ever felt that PR was only for the quote-unquote big businesses, or don't even know where to start when it comes to crafting a PR strategy for your business, you're in luck because we chat about all that and more in this episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, including access to a press kit in a day download from Dr. Tiffany,
00:01:28
Speaker
And I want to hear from you. Let me know what kind of content you'd like to see on The Brand's Life Book Podcast, especially as we tackle our next 100 episodes. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram, at DavieAndChrista. Now, onto the episode.
00:01:48
Speaker
All right, well, welcome back to another episode of the Brands of
Dr. Urich's Career Path and Media Experience
00:01:51
Speaker
Book Podcast. I'm here with Tiffany Urich, PR expert, a topic that I've been thinking about a lot lately. And Tiffany and I were just chatting before this episode started. I feel like it's a underutilized tool, but so important. The results can be so great. We've been actually looking into developing a PR strategy for Davey and Krista and for a few of the other businesses that I run. So Tiffany, I'm excited to chat with you about all of that today.
00:02:16
Speaker
Well, Davey, thank you so much for bringing me on the podcast. I've always really appreciated the high quality, no fluff content that you guys have. So it's really an honor for me to get to discuss one of my favorite topics and maybe share some information with your community that could help them see some new possibilities for growing their brands.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. Well, I appreciate that you're a listener. I want to dive into your backstory a little bit because we were just talking as well about kind of where you're from. You're out in, as you put it, the middle of nowhere in North Texas, and yet you're doing PR. So how did all of those things come together? Sure. Well, my start was a little less than auspicious. I was a straight A student, but
00:02:52
Speaker
The first time I got in front of a studio camera, I forgot my name and it was on the teleprompter. So it was not the greatest start to my career, but I learned a very valuable lesson that day about pushing through embarrassment and using it to get better. And I tell people, if I can have the career that I've had, you can have any career you want. It's like, if oats can become milk, you can do anything. I ended up...
Realizing the Potential of PR for Small Businesses
00:03:16
Speaker
A news producer, a news anchor, I've hosted two different television interview programs, produced lots of podcasts, and I hosted a travel show. And so I've done a lot in television and in radio and in podcasting. Those experiences made me much more aware of the small businesses and experts in the communities that often have hidden stories because they didn't know how to tell their story as effectively as they could. So if we fast forward a few years, I had worked in a variety of communication roles.
00:03:43
Speaker
In PR and in media, I ended up becoming a professor at a top-ranked university, and I taught over 1,000 marketers, PR professionals, journalists, producers, podcasters, speakers, and future business owners how to do the work of communications and media strategy and public relations. And one of the experiences in those years that really stands out to me is that there was this small business in town. It was an art business. And the owner was really struggling to get visibility and to market her business well.
00:04:11
Speaker
And she actually had a son in one of my classes and the class really looked at digital marketing and PR online. And so he asked if he could use her business as the source of his hands-on project he had to do for the semester. I said, sure. And it turned out so well that I started incorporating local businesses into the projects my students had to do.
00:04:31
Speaker
And it was win-win. The kids got these amazing experiences that were very unusual for them to have those kinds of opportunities at the college level, very hands-on. But businesses in town were getting the help they needed to grow. And eventually, we started having businesses and experts across a variety of industries, including a very famous international nonprofit that reached out and said, hey, can we work with you and your classroom to get strategy, PR strategy, media coverage, and publicity, and to help us create content. So that was really exciting.
00:04:59
Speaker
And for years, I'd been dreaming of my own business, but I still hadn't really connected the dots. I couldn't see that I had a skill set that would help small businesses. But what I was seeing was a lot of families that were struggling, moms and dads trying to make ends meet, struggling to get a business off the ground, to bring in new leads and new customers just to get more visibility, to make things a little easier so they could spend time with their kids and as a family. And when I saw it begin to affect people that I cared very deeply about, friends and family, I thought to myself, okay,
00:05:29
Speaker
I have a PhD in this. I research, I write, I publish about
From Academia to Broad Audience Outreach
00:05:33
Speaker
this. Surely I can do something. So at that point I'd been working for nine years to get tenure. And if your community isn't familiar with that, tenure is basically like permanent job security for a professor. Like you are signed on for life until you retire. So I got the letter on a Thursday that I'd received tenure. I'd been working for this for nine years of my life. I left for spring break after a lot of prayer and a lot of discussion
00:05:59
Speaker
I came back and a week later I resigned my tenure. So it's probably the shortest length of tenure in academic history, but that experience brought into clarity that while I loved my students and I loved teaching, I was really ready to take action and take this material and get it to a wider spread audience so that more people could benefit from it, not just the people that are going to go into the agencies and work there. So I had this sort of nebulous idea of marketing and PR strategy.
00:06:25
Speaker
But one day, I was listening to a podcast about homesteading. Like you said, I live in the middle of nowhere, on a farm, on a vineyard. And on this podcast, I was talking about how he and some of his colleagues have this message of greater self-sufficiency, that they wanted to get to a large audience. They thought it was really important. And he said, it's like we're the biggest, best-kept secret, and we just don't know how to get the message out there. And I literally said out loud to the tomatoes, I know how to do that. And so I sent him a direct message on Instagram, and I said, hey,
00:06:55
Speaker
Being a best kept secret is a great compliment, but it is a terrible business model. If you have a few minutes, I'd love to just chat with you about some things that you could be doing to get your message out there. And instead he invited me on the podcast and that podcast interview, that single appearance increased my email list and my business by 1067%. And it told me, it told me a few things when I did have knowledge and a skill that people needed.
00:07:22
Speaker
But it also told me that there's so much glamour and smoke and mirrors around public relations and publicity. And that when you tell people that they can learn how to do it for their small business and that it will make a big difference in their bottom line, it really surprises them and intrigues them.
Building Brand Authority Through PR
00:07:38
Speaker
And that experience reinforced what I'd known and had proof of for decades, that publicity works and a PR strategy works really well.
00:07:47
Speaker
So I narrowed that focus to teaching people that bigger PR strategy in the context of a larger marketing strategy. And we've really been amazed to see what happens. So we offer some innovative approaches. We do have some brands and some experts and service providers who want kind of typical PR agency services where we are doing their media relations and we're training them for those interviews to really make impact. But what I really love is taking on
00:08:11
Speaker
clients that are a smaller business or maybe a one person band or a family business. And we've really helped them, even people who haven't settled into full-time entrepreneurship yet. And we help them to build effective, powerful PR campaigns and strategies. Basically, we help businesses rack up as seen in logos so they can get more leads, create more demand for their product and really create greater impact and authority in their industry.
00:08:34
Speaker
What's so interesting about your story is how practical it seems that it's been for so many small businesses that you've worked with. And something that we chatted about a little bit before we even started this episode was my perception is that a lot of small businesses think that this is a big business thing.
00:08:50
Speaker
So I'd love to chat a little bit more about specifically what PR is because my guess is that because as I hear you as I hear you talk I think that the positive benefits of PR stretch into so many different areas of business so it kind of reminds me of you know search engine optimization where if we were to try to do an episode just on SEO or try to
00:09:10
Speaker
cover SEO in a single podcast episode. We'd never be able to do it. So there's specific aspects of SEO that we chat about. Same thing with website design versus brand design versus print design. When you're talking about design, it's this whole world. So when we're talking about PR, I guess more specifically, how would you define it? And are there certain areas of PR that you're specializing in? Sure. And that's a great question. And it is, it's such a big question.
00:09:38
Speaker
So PR is a very broad topic. You will see people in the industry say that everything you say and do is public relations. So it's your copy, it's your content, it's your branding. Really, it's an extension of your brand strategy. It's the way you interact with your customers, the way you interact with your staff or your investors if you have them. It's the way you deal with crisis. It's the way you train your team to interact with clients and the public. It's the way you interact with and the way you're covered by the media.
00:10:05
Speaker
So public relations really is this very big, broad strategy. And what I sometimes see, especially in the digital and online marketing world, is we get a very fragmented view because lots of people have lots of specializations. And that's a great thing. You better help that way. But we tend to look at one thing and call that our strategy. So our Facebook ads are our strategy, or our Pinterest posts are our strategy.
00:10:28
Speaker
Our SEO is our strategy, which, by the way, a great publicity and PR strategy dramatically increases your SEO. It's fantastic. But what we fail sometimes to see is that there's this great big broad umbrella that is strategy.
Debunking PR Myths and Understanding Media Channels
00:10:42
Speaker
Some people will call that marketing. Some people will call that public relations. But within that, you have tactics. So your blog, your Facebook ads, those are all tactics and activities. When you can understand the bigger overarching goal, then you can
00:11:01
Speaker
the strategy includes those tactics. And I think sometimes we get this very fragmented idea of how to effectively market or what ineffective PR strategy looks like. But today what I think I see a lot of people really interested in and not utilizing well is publicity or media relations. And so I'd love to chat a little bit about that because it really is underutilized
00:11:24
Speaker
But you're right, there's such a misconception that you have to have a big brand or a big business to do PR, that you have to have a billion dollar budget to be able to get billion dollar exposure. And that's simply not the case at all. So right off the bat, though, I need to dispel a picture that some people may have in their mind. If you hear the word publicity and you get a picture of a Kardashian pulling a stunt to get higher ratings, that's not what we're talking about.
00:11:53
Speaker
What we're talking about is high quality visibility and credibility or social proof that lets you get an important message, an idea, a valuable service or product out to the people who need to know about it on an exponentially greater level. So if it's okay, I'd like to back up just a little bit and give you a really quick overview of sort of the public relations umbrella or marketing umbrella and then dive back into that aspect. Yeah, that'd be great.
00:12:21
Speaker
Thank you. They're basically four channels that we talk about when we're looking at media and digital marketing. And those are paid, shared, owned, and earned. When we talk about paid media, we're talking about advertisements. And in a minute, if you like, we can talk about the differences between advertising and publicity, because there's a tremendous difference there. There's also shared media. Shared media is anything that you are distributing on a platform that you do not own, and you don't have a lot of control over how it's distributed. So this is Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook.
00:12:51
Speaker
We also have owned media and this is any media that you create and you either own the platform or you have a great deal of control over how it's distributed. So this is your blog your podcast your YouTube channel and then we have what's called earned media and earned media is different than the other three because the other three you can guarantee that yes I've paid for my ads I've posted my Instagram post and I've put out my podcast episode but earned media is where you get a third party to talk about your product.
Advertising vs. Publicity: Credibility of Earned Media
00:13:21
Speaker
And you can't always guarantee that that will happen. So earned media is media relations publicity. It is an editorial in a magazine about you. It's a roundup that it features your product. It's a feature story in Forbes about the work that you do or your expertise. It's an interview on a podcast or a TV segment. It's a guest contribution to your favorite online media outlet or blog. Even an influencer collaboration can fall into this category. And these distinctions matter because
00:13:50
Speaker
Anyone can publish a blog post, anyone can buy an ad, and audiences and customers know that. They're very savvy and they understand that there's no barrier of entry to that. However, because not everyone can get a media feature, even a big company doesn't get every media feature. It means that there's a third party that's vetted you that has said, you are credible. You have a good quality product. You are an expert in your field.
00:14:14
Speaker
And so there's a subconscious experience that happens when a client or customer sees you featured by a third-party media outlet that says, oh, they go to the top of the list. It elevates your brand immediately and gives you almost celebrity status in terms of the competitors and other people in your industry. Just to put some numbers to that, there are many different ways that you can measure ROI on your publicity or your PR efforts.
00:14:39
Speaker
But it's kind of hard because how do you measure like if someone hears a podcast episode two years later and then comes back or if someone's been paying attention to you for three years, every interview you've ever done, every feature and now when they've got the money to work with you, now they come on. So it's kind of hard to measure some of those things. But some professionals have tried to create a numbers game to estimate the value of PR or publicity. And so there's a generally accepted number that if you take the cost of an advertisement,
00:15:08
Speaker
in that same publication and you multiply it by four to seven times the amount of the ad spend, that's the value of that feature. So for instance, as of this morning, if you bought an ad in Forbes magazine, it's going to cost you $170,000 for one ad, right? If you get a feature, you can estimate that, you know, you can multiply that by four or seven times that value.
00:15:31
Speaker
But it's really not an accurate calculation, I don't think, because what we can't calculate is the psychological effect. That you aren't just another person who's bought an ad, you're a person who's gotten a stamp of approval from another professional and an expert. That kind of brings us into that difference between ads and publicity. Ads really are pay to play. And publicity is free. With ads, you have a guaranteed reach in placement, but once you run out of money,
00:16:00
Speaker
You run out of ads, and so they're very limited. Publicity is unlimited in reach. In fact, it's in the best interest of the media outlet for them to promote your content as much as possible to as many people and as many audience members and new audience members as possible. So you get to ride on the back of this tremendous collection of resources and money and effort of a giant team trying to get your content out there, and you don't have to pay for it.
00:16:27
Speaker
kind of like magic. I think that's why people think surely that doesn't work that way. And it actually does. When you have an ad, you're required to have a product or a service. Nobody puts out an ad that's just like, hey, I'm an expert, I'm a smart person. But with publicity, you don't have to have a product or service. You can actually begin to get featured on your expertise before you've ever locked in or really developed that final product or the product that you're working on. And that's one of the reasons I love working with people that really haven't even gone into full-time entrepreneurship yet.
00:16:57
Speaker
Much like I did, you can build your expertise out in the publicity aspect before you have a service. And while an ad will increase visibility, it makes you more visible, publicity will increase your visibility at an exponentially greater level, but it also gives you credibility. And so you're getting brand awareness. You're creating demand for your product or service. You're positioning your brand as a go-to in your industry.
00:17:21
Speaker
If you want to become a thought leader in your industry so that other people that do the same work you do are looking to you for your innovation, publicity can do that for you. And it gives you that all-important social proof to build the trust factor when you're looking at that, you know, like and trust factor. So basically, good PR, good publicity can get you in front of thousands, even millions of potential customers and in one fell swoop,
00:17:46
Speaker
can elevate your expertise and actually can position your brand for higher demand and higher prices. That's why I tell my clients advertising is fantastic. It plays a really important role in the process, but build out your social proof first. Get your testimonials and your media features before you start paying for advertising. You'll have a better idea of the kinds of audiences that are seeking you out so you know who to target your ads to, but then also when you do splash money out for ads, you're going to have instantaneous credibility because of that social proof.
Trust-Building and Conversion through PR
00:18:17
Speaker
you give people who now see you a reason to want to buy from you. Yeah, a few things. One, that teaching background, I can definitely see it for sure. And I just really appreciate how you broke all that down. So much great stuff in there to talk about. And I do want to talk about some practical steps that businesses can take here in a second. But just going back to this concept of trust that we're talking about, I mean, anytime I'm thinking about nurturing a lead, you know, really, I'm thinking about, okay, how can I bridge the trust gap, right?
00:18:43
Speaker
So they're obviously interested in my product or service on some level. How can I build enough trust for them to purchase from us? And I really think it comes down to two things, social proof and content. I think those are two of the most effective ways in order to build trust with people so that they trust you enough to purchase from you.
00:19:00
Speaker
And I just think, especially as I hear you talk about PR, that outside of a referral from a close friend or family member, that PR is like the next best thing. It combines these things in such a cool way. Because a feature in Forbes, for instance, there's social proof, like you said, the stamp of approval from Forbes. But then also, typically, those articles are very content-based. You don't feel like you're being pitched
00:19:26
Speaker
Right. In the article, right? So it's just the best of so many different worlds. And then not to mention again, and why this has been so interesting to me, I think especially of late. And it's one of those things where 10 years into business, here I am finally thinking about PR. All right. So I admit that this is a little embarrassing for me anyways. Don't be embarrassed. You're not the only one.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, the SEO value that comes from some of these backlinks from different online publications that you might get featured in. I mean, there are just so many other benefits just when it comes to your overall marketing strategy. And I totally agree. I think that when we're sending people, I'm thinking about the Till Agency now and we're running
00:20:05
Speaker
Tons of traffic each day to various landing pages and the ones that always perform best are the are typically the ones that have you know good social proof on that page so somebody lands on the page and the hard work of selling is to a certain extent done from because they've been featured in cool places or they have great client testimonials that really show people how you know this product or service offers a transformation so
Goal-Driven PR Strategies
00:20:27
Speaker
So much great stuff in there. Looking, I guess, to small businesses, does a PR strategy vary across small businesses or is there really sort of the same set of things, steps that people need to take in order to start implementing a PR strategy in their business? All right, so that's a fantastic thing to bring up and to talk about. What I like to tell people is that, again, instead of looking at activities and tactics and moving backwards, your goals determine your strategy. Your strategy determines your tactics and your activities.
00:20:57
Speaker
And there's kind of an older method of public relations that involves writing lots and lots of press releases, sending them en masse to as many outlets and reporters as possible. We call that the spraying prey method. And while there are times that press release can be effective, we've now found that a more targeted and goal oriented approach means less time working and more impact in the back end. So what I like to do with my clients is sit down, and I do this in my program publicity for impact as well.
00:21:21
Speaker
we look at what your goals are and generally we can find one of four or five things that you're really trying to accomplish through your PR and through your publicity efforts. Once we know what those are, we create an overarching strategy that can look at the kinds of content you're creating, how you're using YouTube podcasts, blogs, how you're using social media, as well as that publicity aspect. So really take it in this holistic sense so that you're getting the most bang for your buck and you're getting the most return for the effort that you're putting into it.
00:21:51
Speaker
But in truth, once we figure out what your goals are, the steps are remarkably similar. So you may think, hey, I've got this amazing new health product. I need to be on Good Morning America, which everybody says, I want to be on Good Morning America or Oprah or Ellen or whatever. And actually, in many cases, you really don't. That's not the best place for you because you won't get return from that publication or that media outlet.
00:22:13
Speaker
But some people do have a product that we need to get to a great big huge international television outlet. Other people are very local, and they need to be in their local outlets working with local influencers. The process, though, is the same to get to both of those. And so we really look at the outcome, the goal that you have, and then work backwards to figure out which tactics to use.
Adaptable PR Techniques for All Business Sizes
00:22:35
Speaker
But the process itself is very, very similar. There's not a lot of variation on the how you do it once you know what you need to do. And that's what I think is really amazing
00:22:44
Speaker
you really only need to learn a very few sets of skills to make this work at whatever level you need it to work at. So a couple of great examples, one of them I love is Warby Parker, the Glass company. So before Warby Parker ever even had a live website, they took a very streamlined and precision approach to secure GQ and Vogue articles. The demand was so high that within 48 hours of launching their site from these two articles, they had to close down sales so they could catch up with orders.
00:23:13
Speaker
They hit their first year sales goal in three weeks and still had a 20,000 person long wait list, right? I mean, from two articles, but on the flip side, many of your, your community probably know Erin Benzakina Fleuret Flowers up in Washington state. She values small business, spode in local farms. She has a message about locally grown blooms and seasonal flower movements. And I've been watching Erin's work for years and Erin started with small local publications and began to slowly build out
00:23:40
Speaker
She's now got a new show on the Magnolia network that's going to be launching soon. And so for 10 years, yeah, for 10 years, she's been consistently landing media coverage. One of my clients is a really talented makeup artist and she does makeup artistry work, but obviously lately there's not been a lot of opportunity for that. Instead, she has shifted to the other side of her business, which is teaching other makeup artists how to grow their business.
00:24:05
Speaker
And so now all of a sudden she can shift her messaging because it's very nimble, very quick from in this publicity system that I teach. So now while she can't do a lot of makeup clients, she can focus on the publicity that's helping her sell her online teaching program. She's building that thought leadership, never even has to leave the house to do it. And so she's got some long time messaging about cleanliness and sanitation that suddenly getting a lot of action, a lot of notice, and that's helping her build out a different side of her business. And we were able to just switch in a matter of days.
00:24:35
Speaker
So it can be very effective and very nimble for any size business, no matter how big you want it to get or how small you want to keep it. But the strategies, the techniques really don't vary that much from business to business. Know your goal, know the techniques to get there and you're good.
00:24:51
Speaker
And so what sorts of techniques could we implement as small businesses in order to reach our goals? And I know there's various goals out there, so it might be, maybe it's too broad of a question to discuss on a podcast. I appreciate what you said about the, you know, spray and pray, you know, method within SEO, right? Building backlinks is probably pretty comparable to trying to get different press spots. And we've probably all have had our inboxes flooded by somebody saying,
00:25:19
Speaker
It's some canned email and it's like, I noticed this in this blog post on your blog. Would you mind linking back to this or linking back to my article, whatever. And you can tell it was sent to 100 billion people. It goes right into the trash bin, right? Yeah, that's right. So I assume that just emailing a bunch of different editors, some canned email probably goes just about as well. But what are some ways that people can start building publicity? What are some practical steps that they can take to start building publicity towards whatever goal that they've set for their business?
00:25:48
Speaker
After a few minutes of saying publicity a lot of times, I stumble over it. It's hard to say after a while. It might help if I talk about some of the big misconceptions and then the tips or the action steps that I would suggest to deal with those to get more publicity for your business. The first big misconception that I hear all the time is, if I'm good at what I do, people will find me.
00:26:12
Speaker
If I put up a website, customers will find me. The media will find me. If I beat the Instagram algorithm, people will find me. It's not the media's job or the customer's job to find you. That's kind of some tough love. It's not their job to find you. You have to be proactive. When you see other businesses passing you by, they didn't accidentally get covered by the media. When they suddenly have a corner on whatever your industry is, it wasn't on accident. They have a strategy. They have a system.
00:26:42
Speaker
and they're working it. And you can't help people if they don't know that you exist. Like I tell people all the time, being a best kept secret is a great compliment. It's a terrible business model. So you have to be proactive. The second thing that I see often is people say, my business isn't big enough for publicity or I have to hire an agency and there's no way I can afford it. So the best time
00:27:06
Speaker
To start, and this is my second tip for you, the best time to start getting publicity is really before you started your business. So if you're a dreamer, start pitching your expertise now, even if you don't have a service or a product to sell. The next best time is now. So if you have a service or a product, but maybe you're part-time or you're full-time, start pitching so that you can get to that full-time much faster or get to those next goals much faster.
00:27:29
Speaker
haven't come across to business yet that doesn't have at least one powerful story that can get media coverage and usually they have a lot more. With a clear system you can absolutely make it part of your strategy without having to hire an agency. I mean those monthly retainer fees are expensive. We're talking five thousand ten thousand twenty thousand dollars a month with a six month minimum in most cases. And so that makes people think that it's
00:27:55
Speaker
not in their ballpark. That's just not a game that they can play and I totally get that. But when you realize how simple the process is, you realize that you don't actually need an agency. I'm not sure everybody loves me saying that in my industry, but you can do it on your own.
Persistence in PR: Strategic Targeting
00:28:13
Speaker
That's one of the reasons why I work so hard to smash those smoke and mirrors around publicity so that more small businesses can have access. There are a lot of people doing really amazing work that don't have
00:28:26
Speaker
the knowledge, the know-how to get their voice on a major platform and they have a message that needs to be heard. And so I'm passionate about that, helping small businesses enter into that ring with the big brands. And it really can be very simple. The third thing that I sometimes hear is I got coverage once and it really didn't do anything for me. So I'm not going to try that again. And here's my big tip for you. You have to play the long game. PR is cumulative. It builds on itself.
00:28:53
Speaker
And you may or may not notice overnight success from the first few hits, but what happens is it gets easier and easier. And then eventually people start coming to you, but you still, even the big brands are actively pitching, actively getting their message out there. When someone comes to me and says, I got featured once, but nothing really happened. I asked them, where were you featured? Who was the audience? What message were you discussing and how did you leverage that publicity to make it work for you?
00:29:23
Speaker
And invariably, every single time, they've not been strategic, they've not been intentional. For instance, I was recently talking to someone who had been featured in one local Chamber of Commerce podcast and nothing really happened from it. Well, it was the Chamber of Commerce from a town that she doesn't even live in because a friend was running the podcast and asked her to come on. They needed content. And the audience that listens to it isn't anyone who needs her service.
00:29:49
Speaker
I wouldn't expect you to get much publicity or much action from that, many conversions from that. Another person I talked to recently, she'd been featured in a magazine years ago. It was a good feature, but she didn't know that there were specific things she could do to really get conversions from that feature. She had no way to track if people were coming to her from it. So she didn't really know if anyone had looked her up based on that feature. So there are some specific steps that you can take to leverage it. I mentioned it before, another misconception is I need to be on Good Morning America.
00:30:19
Speaker
Bigger's not always better. Focus on the goals of your campaign and match the outlets and the message to the goals.
Crafting Effective Media Pitches
00:30:26
Speaker
Here's just a big insider tip when it comes to publicity. Media coverage comes down to three things. Your channel, your message, and your timing. So you really need to educate yourself to master those elements. And if you can match the channel, the outlet that you're talking to, the message that you're sharing with them,
00:30:45
Speaker
And the timing and get that timing down, you'll be in good shape. Perfect example of this is Christmas gift roundups. I know people who have products and about October, November, they're like, Hey, I really want to get my Christmas or my product in this Christmas list for Southern living or real simple or whatever. I say that's great. And we'll do it next year because those, yeah, those Christmas lists were finalized back in July. And so understanding timing.
00:31:11
Speaker
is a huge help and I actually have a tool that will help your audience with that in the community to kind of nail down timing a little bit more. Another thing I hear, there's nothing interesting about me or my business. The media would never want to cover me. And that is not true, my friend.
00:31:28
Speaker
There are specific kinds of stories that the media goes crazy for, small businesses, big businesses. And this is my very favorite part of my work. I was doing this with students. I do this now with my consulting and my students and my business and the agency side. I love helping entrepreneurs deep dive into what I call the story gold mines that are hiding in their business. But to get you started, because there's lots of different places that we can look for amazing media-worthy content or what we call newsworthy content.
00:31:57
Speaker
But I tell people when they're just getting started to remember your lines. And so it's an acronym just to help them remember that. So the L is for local. Anything that has to do with your community, the place where you're located, that's a potential for you to get your brand covered, especially in local media. So your relationship with the community that you're in. Let's say that you make all natural candles and they're all made with local beeswax. And so all of your beeswax for your candle comes from a certain place.
00:32:24
Speaker
That locality is now something newsworthy that people are going to want to cover. It will give you brand awareness. The eye is for impact. And this has a broad range. This can be the impact that your product has on people. It can be a small impact on a huge group of people, a big impact on a very small group of people. But it can also be the things that you're passionate about, the philanthropy that you're involved in. So if you are involved in your community or you are doing scholarships or nonprofit work, that's all an aspect of impact.
00:32:53
Speaker
if your proceeds go to some kind of cause, that's all an element of impact. The N in lines is for things that are new and innovative. So if you have something new that's happening or if you have discovered an innovative or disruptive way to do what you're doing, that's always going to be newsworthy. Now that might not be something that we're going to see on Good Morning America or your local newspaper, but for trade publications or regional publications, people that are talking to media outlets that talk to other people in that industry,
00:33:23
Speaker
There's phenomenal opportunities there for you to talk about the new innovative disruptive things that you're doing. The E in lines is for expertise and there's always room for stories about your expertise, how you can help people do things. Share your story, share your journey, what you've learned and the expertise that you have. This podcast interview would be considered one of those aspects. This is an expertise based media publication or media outlet.
00:33:49
Speaker
and publicity for me. And so when you have knowledge that you can share, that's a great opportunity for you to begin building publicity. And you don't have to be the leading expert in your industry to get that kind of coverage. If you are a few steps along the journey, further along from someone else, they're consuming content that they can use your expertise in. And so it's really just a matter of finding the right outlets to match. And then finally, the S in lines is seasonal.
00:34:18
Speaker
And this is any content that has to do with the time of year it is. So whether it's those Christmas roundups, whether it's talk like a pirate day and you sell pirate themed something, I pulled that one out of the thing. Um, but these are these kinds of seasonal elements are always an incredible opportunity, great fodder for you to get more brand awareness and to create more demand for your product. So.
00:34:42
Speaker
When you're just getting started, remember your lines, and that's a great place to start. From there, there's lots of other ways that you can get publicity, lots of other kinds of stories to look for, but those are some really good foundational ones.
00:34:53
Speaker
I really appreciate all of that, especially how practical it is. I think regardless of your goals, it's going to involve pitching some sort of publication, whether it be local or regional or bigger than that. What are your tips for actually making the ask and getting in front of people in a way that they'll listen? Just for the podcast, for instance.
00:35:16
Speaker
I get a bunch of emails every week people asking you know if I'd be interested in featuring on podcast or you know what not and I'd say that one I just don't have time to go through all of them fortunately I have a great assistant Emily who does a lot of research and background for me which is super helpful but a lot of them you know I can tell
00:35:35
Speaker
It's not that it's not genuine, but it's probably part of a canned email that was sent out to a bunch of different podcast hosts. I'm less inclined to respond to those or to open them and do the research. But there are a few that come in and they definitely catch my attention. So how can people become part of that crowd? Of course, not necessarily for this podcast, but just in general, whoever they're reaching out to. How can you catch somebody's attention in a genuine way? And even if the answer is no, be confident that, okay, well, they probably read my email.
00:36:06
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. I love that question. So again, some tough love. The first thing you need to understand is that the media does not care about your business. I mean, that's kind of harsh, but they don't care. It's not their job to promote your business or make you look good. And I would just like to say as a side note, I'm glad that my pitch caught your attention.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it was a good one. And I'm excited. So I'm excited to hear you answer this question, especially. And I also say too, I mean, just, I think that sometimes it's just a matter of, you know, time and place as well, you know, so I get a ton of I get quite a few pitches that I think are okay, these are interesting, but maybe it just doesn't fit with what's part of our marketing calendar, you know, so it doesn't it doesn't make sense. Maybe from that perspective, or maybe I just did an interview with somebody two episodes ago, that's gonna
00:36:58
Speaker
that I cover a lot of the same topics. And so, you know, again, it just doesn't make sense to say yes. So for people out there who are pitching, I think there's probably a little bit of that as well. But I definitely think there is a difference between a good pitch and a bad pitch. So I would love to hear. There's a huge difference. Yeah. So I would love to hear you kind of break that down for us. So first and foremost, understand what the media needs.
00:37:21
Speaker
Right now more than ever, we as humans are consuming more content globally than we probably ever have in history. And so there is a need for content. At the same time, we're seeing staff sizes go down. So fewer people are responsible for a whole lot more content. What the media cares about is a story or a product that serves their audience.
00:37:44
Speaker
So the more compelling you can make your case and the easier you can make it for them to say yes to you, the more often you're going to land high quality features. And you're right, sometimes your pitch was fantastic. It just wasn't the right time for them for a variety of reasons. You may get a note, you may not hear anything. And so part of it is just understanding that that's part of the game. I've heard people say that it's just a numbers game. The more pitches you send, the more features you'll get. I disagree with that.
00:38:11
Speaker
because you can send a thousand bad pitches and just get crickets in response and get a thousand no's. You can send 10 great pitches and get 10 great features. So some of the specific tips that I would suggest, first and foremost, do your research. Know about the media outlet that you're pitching to, know about what they cover, what they've covered recently, the kinds of experts and services they feature,
00:38:41
Speaker
So for instance, you might be listening to a podcast or you see a podcast and you think, Oh, Hey, it's a business related podcast. That would be great. Or it's a wedding podcast. I'd be great. And you send them kind of a generic pitch. If you haven't researched, if you don't pay attention to what they cover, you may not realize that they don't even take guests on their podcast. Like they don't do guest interviews. It's a solo show or a team show. And they don't, you know, they don't do interviews or you may say, Hey, I've got this great product.
00:39:09
Speaker
And I want to get it into Real Simple Magazine for one of their summer roundups or back-to-school roundups. And so you reach out to the first name and email address that you find for a reporter or an editor at Real Simple only to discover that they don't cover the back-to-school roundup. That's not their beat. That's not what they cover. And so they probably aren't going to respond. They're probably just going to ignore it. So do some research.
00:39:38
Speaker
And similarly, look and see what they've covered before, what they've covered recently. So if you find a media pro and you say, okay, this is the person that covers the kind of content that I'm suggesting or the product that I'm suggesting, look and see what they've covered very recently. And is there a way to dovetail your message as an extension or a controversy? You know, you have a different approach to it or you have an extension of that approach. I think in the pitch that I sent you, one of the things I noticed was that
00:40:08
Speaker
You'd been speaking with Vanessa Kynes and you guys had been talking about being that best kept secret and how to get more material out there. And I heard that and I said, well, that's, I mean, that's huge because that's my message. And so I pitched you and I said, Hey, you guys talked about this idea of being a best kept secret. What my tagline for my business is, is that being a best kept secret is a great compliment. It's a terrible business model. Let's talk about how you can put visibility on steroids.
00:40:35
Speaker
by getting your message out into the media, using the media to piggyback as a giant megaphone for you to get your message out there. So do that research. Then when you pitch, and this is so important, be personal and be specific. When you send out a generic, hey, I'd love to talk about PR and what we can do and what we can share with your audience, get in touch with me. That does not inspire confidence in any way, shape or form.
00:41:00
Speaker
And you don't want to make it the responsibility of a media professional to have to come up with the ideas for you. You need to come with a couple of ideas, bring them to the table, and say, hey, what if we talked about this or this? Here's how I think it would benefit your audience. Here's what you're going to get out of this. And then show that you know them, that you pay attention to their work. People appreciate knowing that you pay attention and you listen.
00:41:25
Speaker
You are a podcast that I listened to and I have for a long time. And so that was a little easier for me because I already know what you guys are talking about and what you value. But when I'm pitching an outlet that maybe I'm not as familiar with, I never pitch before I've taken the time to get myself familiar with the person that I'm talking to. So never just put together that generic hand response and then just send it out to anybody. And like I said, be personal and show a little bit of your personality. Someone told me once that I had sent them the very best pitch
00:41:54
Speaker
that they had ever heard. And it was to an outdoor, like an outdoor adventure marketing company. And I sent them a pitch about talking about PR and they said, yes. But what was funny about it was that the guy is a big fisherman. He does, you know, fly fishing and his podcast talks a lot about that. And I, in my pitch started with, I do not know how to fish. In fact, my only experience with fishing was a stick, a piece of string and a paperclip.
00:42:24
Speaker
And I couldn't figure out why the fish didn't bite, but what I do know is marketing. And so, you know, and it kind of talked about what I could bring to the table for his particular audience. I was real honest about the fact that, Hey, the fishing side of this, it's not my jam, but I understand business and I understand marketing. And so I can help your audience because the techniques are very similar. And so you can be personal. Don't be gimmicky at all, but be personal.
00:42:51
Speaker
And then make sure that you provide value. That's the big thing. Always make sure that you're providing value for the audience as well as for that reporter. Make it easy for them to say yes. And so you need to have a few things in place, some assets that are ready to go, some messaging that's ready to go before you ever pitch.
00:43:10
Speaker
And that's actually something that I wanted to make sure that your community knows and understands how to do to get their message out there. And so I have something that's called Before You Pitch. It's a press kit in a day, a training, and it's like 20 minutes. It will walk you through everything you need to have in place before you start pitching the media. You can literally listen to it, put all of it together in one day or take a couple of afternoons or a weekend, pull it all together and you'll have that professional appearance that you need
00:43:39
Speaker
so that the media professional can say, oh, they're legitimate. They've got the photographs or the assets that I need. Here's some social proof. And we can say yes and move on. And so you've made it a one-stop shop for them to make it very easy to do their work.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yeah, super practical. And I'll say that just thinking through some of the pitches that I get, I mean, the ones that I pay attention to, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's very easy to see right off the bat, whether somebody kind of gets it, you know, or gets the gist of the show or doesn't.
00:44:11
Speaker
you know i've course had people on the show that don't listen to it but i would say that anybody who has been on the show they have a general understanding of the audience and what the show is about so doing your research is key i also get. A ton of emails to the wrong email address it's actually you know i think i'm hooked up somewhere with a.
00:44:31
Speaker
It's probably through iTunes, it's hooked up to a personal email address or something like that. But there's directions on our website on how to go about pitch and what email that should be sent to and so on.
Essential PR Skills for Business Success
00:44:41
Speaker
Just directions for going about that. Really so I say organize. The ones that go the wrong email address, they're completely ignored. I don't look at them, I archive them right away. So I think all of that is super important and I know just for me,
00:44:56
Speaker
And I feel bad when I started, I would respond to everybody who applied. And now, we just don't have time to do that, which I do feel conflicted about for sure. But the pitches that I feel like are done well. I am much more inclined, or as a team, we are much more inclined to send them an email and let them know what's going on, whether it might be
00:45:20
Speaker
you know, bad timing or hey, we just don't feel like this topic is something that we're willing to explore right now, you know, whatever it might be. So I really appreciate all that. And my follow-up question was going to be about, you know, putting together these assets. So I will absolutely link to that press kit in a day resource in the show notes. So head on over to the show notes if you want access to that. And I think that's something that, you know, we'll be digging into ourselves in the coming weeks. For people who are like, you know, and I know you said, hey, you don't need an agency.
00:45:50
Speaker
But for people who are like, I really don't want to do this on my own, you know, maybe it's just a matter of this is something that they feel like they should outsource. Is that something that they would be able to outsource through your business or are you not really taking on one on one work? What does that look like for you? Yeah, absolutely. So we divide things up kind of in DIY. So do it yourself, do it with you and do it for you.
00:46:11
Speaker
And so we have a program called publicity for impact and I love it. We had the beta group go through it and they went crazy for it. They loved it. And it was basically the whole process start to finish to teach you how to DIY your PR strategy. Like I said, top down, teach you a flow down system that uses what you're pitching for the media, the work that you're doing to come up with the pitches to create all the rest of the content for your business.
00:46:38
Speaker
from podcasts to YouTube channels to blogs to social media to whatever it is, we use that system and it creates the beautiful byproduct of creating high quality, unusual, innovative pitches for the media is that all of the rest of your content is now high quality, unusual, innovative content for your audience. And so we teach you that whole process. We actually talk a lot about what to do.
00:47:02
Speaker
when you don't like to be the center of attention because you don't have to be the center of attention. You can really make your business the star or your case studies the star. So what to do if you feel that sense of imposter syndrome or you don't love being the center of attention. So we talk about that. And I walk my audiences and my students through that whole process because of my teaching background. I don't really enjoy sort of teaching to a vacuum. And so
00:47:25
Speaker
It's not just like a canned class that you get in and you take. It's very interactive. We do a lot of live work, hot seats, that kind of thing. So everyone that's in there has that chance to actually talk with me and get feedback on pitches and get my brain on the strategy side of things to help them design that. And so I really love that. That's kind of our signature program we walk people through. With the done with you, we'll sometimes have students that want or clients that want a little more hands-on help and they really want the one-to-one experience.
00:47:54
Speaker
We do that in a couple of ways. We do our 90-minute coaching calls where you can come in with your pitch or with your strategy or with your press kit or whatever the problem is. Or maybe you're about to get an interview and you really want to dig in and get some practice and some help on how to create an interview that converts. There are tricks and tips and techniques to that. We can do all of that. And then we also do some more long-term coaching where we can help you create your own launch campaign or your own thought leadership campaign.
00:48:22
Speaker
And so we'll sit down with you, do the work to help you find the market research, the people that you need to be pitching to, the messages you need to be developing, give you the tools that you need so that you can go do that actual activity yourself. Way more affordable than perhaps the agency service where you're paying a monthly retainer for us to do all the work for you. But we work with people in that variety of different ways to meet their needs and their budget and to really make it fun. I mean, I think it's a lot of fun.
00:48:50
Speaker
and doable and just a streamlined and simple process. It isn't always easy. Like I hate nose and I even hate more when I don't get an answer back, but you learn how to make your pitches better and fine tune your PR efforts to make it better. And so we really try to make it very fun, very simple for people to land that kind of coverage. And we see some really incredible success with it.
00:49:14
Speaker
Yeah, so Kristin and I are getting ready to record a podcast episode on different business skills that we think, you know, if you are starting from scratch, these are the skills that we would recommend the actual owner knowing, even if they're going to
PR Accessibility for Small Businesses
00:49:29
Speaker
outsource parts of it. And I really think PR needs to be on that list. You know, other ones, you know, includes things like copywriting, where I just think, even if, for instance, you're not going to write all of the copy for your website or, you know, for your different brand materials or whatever,
00:49:42
Speaker
just having an understanding of good copywriting, like good conversion copywriting has so many benefits beyond it. I feel like PR is the same way. There's just so many. I mean, as you talk, there's just my mind's wandering into all of the different rabbit holes of benefits that you could go down. So really appreciate all of this. Is there anything that we should mention that we haven't mentioned so far? So I would just say that
00:50:06
Speaker
I don't want people to be overwhelmed to think, I can't do this. I don't have a big enough business. I don't like being the center of attention. Those are all, frankly, in some cases, excuses, although there's some valid concerns there. But those are all things that we can address. Those are all things that we can deal with and overcome and work with to actually make the process better and to make your PR better. I take an approach to PR that is service before celebrity.
00:50:34
Speaker
I'm not that concerned with making you the next Kardashian. There are publicists. There are PR people who will do that for you. That's not what I do. I am concerned with the small business owner that has a product or a service or expertise that they want to make the world better, whether it's the whole world or their corner of it. And they know that if they could just find a platform and a venue to get their message out so that it brings people to the table, brings people to their website, whatever it might be.
00:51:00
Speaker
Those are the people that I want to help because, again, I know how to do that. I can help you. I'm like the girl sitting in the front seat raising her hand going, I know the answer. I know the answer. I can help you do that. But there are lots of people who can help you do that. But we want to help the service providers and the brands and the products and the experts that really want to make good stuff popular, great stuff popular. And they want to create that demand for really great stuff and really great content.
00:51:28
Speaker
There's never been a time where there's been more room at the table for people to get their message out there where there's been more of a need for content from every single corner of every kind of business and industry. I don't want anyone to be discouraged by the thought that it's too big. It's too much. I don't like being in limelight because those are all things that we can work with and we can get your message out there so that it really can make a difference.
00:51:53
Speaker
Well, Tiffany, we really appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise with us today. And I would encourage everybody, especially if PR is something that maybe has, you know, sort of scared you or overwhelmed you before to go to the show notes, click the link for the press kit in a day and check out that resource. And Tiffany will of course link to all of the other places that people can find you in the show notes as well. But thank you so much for spending time with us today. My pleasure. Thank you so much for the invitation.
00:52:24
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.