EPISODE 19 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: WHY DO WE SEE WHAT WE SEE IN THE MEDIA AND HOW DO YOU GET YOUR BUSINESS FREE PR?
Sonya M:
Today, I am lucky enough to have Larissa Harris back on the podcast with me. You may remember her from our bushfire episode earlier this year. Now, I have been wanting to get Larry as I call her back on the podcast for a while now to talk about PR, which is public relations in business because she actually worked for one of Australia's largest PR companies and has had some fantastic firsthand experience with this. So welcome to the show, Larry.
Larissa H:
Thanks for having me, Sonya.
Sonya M:
So can you just tell me a little bit about, now you don't have to name the company name, but can you tell me a bit about the work that you were doing in PR and the kind of clients and campaigns that we you were working on?
Larissa H:
Yeah, no worries. So firstly, for some people maybe who don't know what PR is, it's a really hard thing to explain to somebody. I know at university, even in my second and third year of studying PR, we were still like, "What is the actual definition of this job?" which just makes it really hard to explain to people really. But I did a part of PR, more of a traditional kind of role, which is more media relations. So it's working with journalists, I think with influencers, things like that to get your brand, your campaign out there. PR basically comes off under a marketing umbrella that includes advertising, marketing, and public relations and public relations is that part where we're not paying outright for the coverage of our campaign or a brand or a new product. It's more about getting someone else to experience it or go to something and then they're writing about it from their point of view. And it's that extra level of credibility that the brand is not saying we're great. It's someone else that's saying we're great.
Sonya M:
Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic. So just touching on that point, when it comes to looking at a marketing funnel, for example, this is really sort of like the top end of the funnel. It's about that brand awareness and building that brand credibility, isn't it?
Larissa H:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Sonya M:
Awesome. So what was your role in PR? So what kind of campaigns were you working on? Walk me through a typical day.
Larissa H:
Oh my gosh. Typical day was I worked for technology and B2B businesses. My typical day started with doing a lot of searching what media coverage had happened overnight and the day before, pulling together reports for all your clients, about this is what people are saying about you, about your competitors, things like that. It was a lot of answering emails, composing emails. I got very good at writing and editing my own work through that way, sending massive, these massive things about all the coverage to CEOs of whole major companies and everything like that. So that's a bit nerve racking at 7:30 in the morning, but you get used to it. And I was just working, we'd work between like four and seven or eight clients at a time, it was very team led.
Larissa H:
So your team would have meetings with them, you'd come up with ideas, your client might come to you with their new products and say, "Okay, we want to do blah, blah, blah with that." I did some products, which was a lot of sending out products to journalists to influencers, things like that. And then they would use it and then they would either return it or keep it sometimes as a gift. And they might review it or include it in a gift guide or something like that. B2B was more kind of organizing events, so maybe journos to go to, or for potential customers to go to and things like that. So it was always very different, always very busy. So, yeah.
Sonya M:
Okay. So can we just touch on something quickly? So you were a part of a team. For one client, how many people could potentially be working on their account?
Larissa H:
So our teams basically range from probably two people. You often had a director but the director was more just there to help with the top line kind of things if maybe you were a smaller client. But the bigger clients could have teams of 10 plus people working on them. They also might come on and off a team depending on something that's happening. So if there's a major event or announcement, they might pull some more people in to just have more numbers whereas when it's a bit quieter, you can just go back to the normal amount really.
Larissa H:
But PR, I remember being in a big meeting with a client and they actually brought all of their agencies in. So there was the PR, there was the graphic designers, there was advertising, everyone and it was all about announcing what was kind of happening in the next year and trying to encourage people to work together, which was a really interesting situation to be in because you are kind of separated. But then in the consumer's eyes is that's all together. That's one message. Everything should be seamless, so that's kind of the challenge of working in a PR agency. And I think some companies though, some agencies, sorry, moving towards a more holistic approach where people are offering all those different communications under the same umbrella. So it's just only one kind of person to go to and they can coordinate a bit better.
Sonya M:
Absolutely. And that's definitely the model we're moving towards at Kiss Marketing where everything is looked up on sort of a holistic marketing strategy because we found exactly the same thing. It's so hard trying to coordinate a graphic designer or an advertising company or I don't know, all of these different components or even expect really good results by just using one avenue. It just doesn't necessarily work like that. Or if it does, it's very short term goal focused. But the point I really want to highlight here for a lot of the small businesses listening is that there are companies here in Australia that have PR agencies with 10 plus people working on their accounts to get them coverage in the Australian media all year round.
Sonya M:
It's very, very hard to compete with that. And I think a lot of people go, "Oh, everything we read in the media is quite organic." But some of the stories that you've told me in the past, it makes me think that even 80% of what we read and see in the news besides tragic events and things that happen like that is coming from a PR agency. Would that be a fair summation?
Larissa H:
I think that before I've definitely worked in PR, I read a newspaper probably like most people. Like just, "Yep, okay these are the facts." kind of thing. And since I've worked in PR, I've more read it with a bit of a cynical edge, a bit of a bias of like who's actually pitched this story or anything like that. So once you do learn a bit about PR and how it works, you can actually pick out when a business is being involved in a story. Normally when it's positive or launch or something like that, you can pick when they've obviously paid for a photographer to come in and take photos because a lot of journalists and news agencies now, they don't have a massive budget for photo journalists. So a company who can spend money on that kind of stuff and then give it to the journos, like high quality photographs, that already bumps you up into like it's much easier to work for you.
Larissa H:
And journalists are really, really busy. They've got deadlines, like really small deadlines. They've got to fill a newspaper or fill a column or whatever they've got to do. So they want you to, you're basically that person to help them to do their job.
Sonya M:
Exactly right. So touching on that, and I think this is something that we all need to remember is the state of journalism at the moment. So they are operating, especially newspapers, they are operating on skeleton staff levels. So for them, you bringing them a fully completed story with high quality photographs that they can essentially just take your name away and put their name on is what they want because it saves them time and energy. So what is that called in the PR world and did you actually do that? Were you writing new stories and people were just changing the name on it?
Larissa H:
Well you have a lot of media releases, so media release is actually really formatted like a newspaper article usually. You've only got your one sentence paragraphs, you've got your whole upside down pyramid where the first sentence tells me everything I need to know. Whereas the less exciting stuff maybe is down the bottom. So the journo can literally take that media release and say, "I only have a little bit of room, I can't put the whole thing up and delete from the bottom up." And they've still got most of your story that you want them to have. You're doing a lot of that, putting quotes in, organizing interviews between your client and the journalist, or maybe sometimes like a customer that has a really good story. They're really good ones to pitch because that's what they want to hear about and it kind of takes the business out of the picture in a way. So it again, makes it more credible. And customers, I think people reading the news and everything, they trust that a lot more than an ad in the newspaper that's so blatantly obvious.
Sonya M:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So Papa Reid, he likes to read the Australian Financial Review cover to cover, every single day of the week, obsessed with it. I remember talking to him about your job when you first started and sort of telling some of these stories about you getting these articles into the Financial Review and the companies that you're working for on launches and companies going public and all of that. And he was very much of the opinion, "Oh no, that's ridiculous. This isn't coming from a PR company." Can you talk to that a little bit in about where the Australian Financial Review was sort of seen in terms of the tiers with credibility in Australian media?
Larissa H:
Yes. So when it comes to PR, while the people might think that that's maybe the number one thing that you want to be in, really it's all about like, where are your customers? Where are the people you are targeting? So given your business or your clients, what's the most appropriate? So for that one, my B2B clients, obviously they're going to really want to go into the Financial Review because that's their kind of thing, that's the people that they are targeting. Whereas if you are a small local business, maybe more your local media is actually a success. So it doesn't actually mean just because you're not in the Australian or the Financial Review or anything like that, that that's not a successful PR activity or anything like that. It's all about getting to the right place.
Sonya M:
Okay. But when you're working with these big companies, they're really looking for these publications, like the Financial Review, that sort of a really coveted publication to be in.
Larissa H:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely those big national newspapers and state newspapers are still really big. But I'm depending on what your thing is about basically. Sometimes clients would set goals for your campaign that were to get a story in the Financial Review, to get them in the Australian to get them in Sydney Morning Herald. But other times it was more, "We want it just everywhere." Or, "We want it more in small blogs." Or things like that but definitely the large B2B businesses, yeah they are looking at those classic, traditional newspapers that we know have a big name.
Sonya M:
That is super interesting, what you're saying about getting them on small blogs. So in my world, there's something called search engine optimization or SEO and part of that is building backlinks, which really means getting your website linked from another site that has credibility in Google's eyes. So if you're doing that, that service that you're providing there also plays into other aspects of marketing as well, which I find quite interesting. I want to know, do you think all publicity is good publicity?
Larissa H:
Oh, that's an interesting question.
Sonya M:
So let's tackle this from two angles. So you working in a PR agency, you've obviously got your reports and you report overall at the end of the month on how many exposures you had essentially.
Larissa H:
Yeah.
Sonya M:
That's doesn't really dive into whether or not it's good or bad. In terms of a brand though, what do you reckon?
Larissa H:
I think the thing with PR is that you're promoting the angle and the story that you want. So that's what I view publicity as maybe publicity in the view of any news about your business or company. Like a lot of the time, it might not be the thing that you want everyone to know or something might've been leaked or it's just not the angle that they're looking for, it's negative and things like that. And in that way, while the PR agency might not see that as a totally bad thing, I think clients on the whole usually see that as a negative. And what we did was a lot of the times, say if a negative story did come out about a client, you are reaching out to that journalist who you're trying to build a relationship with. You would have media meet, invite them to events. You get to know them, what they're like, how they like to work, things like that. And you're trying to repair that relationship.
Larissa H:
So maybe offering them something or trying to maybe giving them a tour of a business or a site that could build that relationship so that next time, maybe they even just come to you before they publish that negative story because we have freedom of the press and that it's, the journalists can say kind of what they want within reason. We don't have high censorship in Australia, unlike some other countries. So while you can't totally stop them from saying something, especially if it's true, you can definitely build that relationship. So maybe it's a bit of a softer landing.
Sonya M:
Yeah. And do you know what I actually think as well, if you have some negative press in any way, it's opened that conversation and started that conversation around your business or brand. And from there, you can sort of control the narrative that is happening. So I think a really good example of this and something that we touched on in our bushfire episode is how amazing Nick Kyrgios 's PR team has been recently. So he came out of the bushfires looking like the absolute golden child. And this is even to the point that I stumbled across a video on TikTok. My love, TikTok. Yep. The other day of Nick Kyrgios actually at the Australian open, and this had been televised footage in another country, so I think it was British commentators or something. So we did not see this televised on Australian news, but he left the court with two racquets, went into a back room where the cameras followed him through, which ours don't do in Australia, our televised sort of coverage.
Sonya M:
Followed him into the back room. He shut the door behind him. There was a glass window and the camera filmed him absolutely destroying two tennis rackets. He left them out there, then came back, I think he said to the umpire, "I need to go to the toilet." came back and then carried on like nothing had happened. So he actually removed himself from the situation to go and have his tanty, which I'm sure the PR people have been like, "Look, please don't give us any footage that we need to then go tackle." But I found it really interesting that we didn't see any of that in Australia and that was not mentioned anywhere. It's been very, very positive PR and commentary around him across the period of the Australian open. So PR and reputation management isn't just for businesses. It's for personal brands as well because for Nick Kyrgios , he is a brand and for him, he's probably going to make a shitload more money on sponsorship from companies like Nike than he is through his tennis career.
Larissa H:
Yeah, exactly. Those people, public figures, they're a business in themselves basically. So that's why they have publicists, people that specialize in people basically rather than brands and companies.
Sonya M:
It's interesting isn't it? I feel like the royal family and the Kardashians are the absolute champions of doing that. Okay. So you have obviously worked with a lot of massive companies, but you've already given us a few really great tips. One of them was sort of the concept of a pyramid media release. Can you tell me, if you're a small business trying to get into the media, where the heck do we start? Because I feel like you can spend so much time putting together media releases, spinning your wheels, trying to get maybe a story that no one's going to find interesting into the media. Can you just give us some basics?
Larissa H:
I think something like public relations, really that relations, relationship part, you're the person that's making the relationship with the client, with the customer, and with the media. So even just reaching out to a journalist maybe that you admire or that you think might like your brand, influencers who you think, "Oh, they could be relevant." Maybe even micro-influencers that are really popular at the moment, so using those people that have really high engagement and maybe they don't have the millions of followers, they're also usually easier to get onto and to work out something in negotiation. Maybe you're gifting them something and they're going to post about it rather than pay them thousands of dollars. So it's all about basically making those relationships with people so that you know who to go to for certain things. Even just reading and being very aware of the media. So when I read a newspaper now, I really pay attention to who wrote it, what kind of angle they've taken, you looking at which kind of way, are they your kind of left-leaning publication or right-leaning publication, that kind of stuff.
Larissa H:
So you'd kind of start analyzing the news rather than just reading it. You have a look at what your competitors are doing and who they're talking to. And even just if you're a small local business, getting in touch with your local journalists. I'm sure they'd always love to hear from people doing really cool stuff in your area. Reach out to the local radio station and the prime news or [inaudible 00:18:58] or whatever it is in your country town that you have. And if you've got an event, try and think of the things that make you newsworthy. So newsworthy refers to things in proximity, so if it's that communities that you're a part of and it's your local news, they're going to care about that, whereas maybe a city one's not going to care about it.
Larissa H:
It's all about who's involved in it and is there something to photograph or video or something or is it are you just announcing something? If you're announcing something, you need maybe a signage to promote your brand. Try and think what would those journalists, what do they find interesting? What do they think the people that are watching, while they're eating dinner are going to find interesting. Things like that.
Sonya M:
So it's almost a little bit, you need something a bit click baity to draw people in. Why is this relevant to the publication that you're going after when you're actually pitching these journalists and perhaps having that relationship built with them before you're asking something from them?
Larissa H:
Yeah, exactly. That's a really good point. It's [inaudible 00:20:03] saying, "I want this, I want this." You need to more like, maybe they've never heard of your brand before and you want to introduce them to this new thing that they might like or even going to an event. Maybe you give them a free ticket or something like that. So it's getting them on side. They don't really know who you are yet, so you need to sell yourself basically, like an elevator pitch.
Sonya M:
Yes, and hey guys, this is the exact same thing that you need to be doing with social media and your Facebook ads. I'm going to throw a couple of curve balls at you that I haven't worded you up on, but it's just come to mind. So I'm going to throw you under the bus a little bit here. What is your opinion on Sweaty Betty and Roxy Jacenko?
Larissa H:
I think she's a very, very [crosstalk 00:20:52] woman. I think-
Sonya M:
Sorry. You just dropped out there for a second. A what woman?
Larissa H:
Oh sorry. I said she's a very, very clever business woman. She managed to create this business and she actually didn't even have a degree in public relations, which I often have felt like maybe a degree in it, it's not one of those things that you really need a degree in, if that makes sense. I feel like it's a more of you could really achieve in a cadetship or if you're very interested, I guess your university can teach how to write very well.
Sonya M:
I'm a big believer of this. I think unless you're going to be a lawyer or a doctor of some form, you'd actually probably don't need a degree for a lot of things. But hey, I digress. Keep going. Continue.
Larissa H:
However, a lot of employers, that's the first thing on their thing, in their job description, isn't it?
Sonya M:
It is. Exactly that. The story behind Roxy, just for those who don't know and go have a look up, Sweaty Betty. Again, if you've been living under a rock, she was basically working for another PR agency, wasn't she? Or working for a company where she was doing PR and she's basically looked around and just went, I can do this better. And so she quit when she was like 22, 23 years old, started rocking up at her competitive events and stealing clients essentially. So super, super ballsy. I have a lot of respect for her. That said though, there's also a lot of bad that comes with the good with her isn't there?
Larissa H:
Yeah, I think she's very decisive. People either love her or hate her, kind of thing. The kind of PR she does is very luxury consumer goods and things like that, which probably wasn't an area that was really of interest to me, but that works really well. So the thing with PR agencies is not everyone does everything. They specialize. And depending on what you're specializing in, kind of different tactics and strategies are going to be really different because you're aiming to achieve different things. You're aiming to reach different niche markets or maybe you are trying to get the mass market, I'm not sure. So I think what the area that she works in was just very, very different to the area that I worked in. So it's kind of like having doctors in whole different kind of specialties. It's actually really, really different.
Sonya M:
Absolutely. And I think that goes for all marketing agencies. You find yourself falling into a bit of a niche no matter what area it is. Now one final question, do you think PR is beneficial for all businesses and how the heck do we actually measure the effectiveness of campaigns?
Larissa H:
Okay. Is it beneficial? I would say definitely yes. I guess I only ever studied PR and in PR, we actually do journalism as well to find out what journalists actually want from you. But I look at advertising and I'm like, "It's so obvious, it's just right there." And whereas PR is more subtle, people more believe you. It's a bit more like word of mouth, kind of like if you or someone, one of my friends or close family member will recommend something to me, like that is going to make me want to do that or buy that or listen to it or watch it or whatever more than if I read an ad for it. But then you also do need the advertising to get the awareness out there of what this thing is. You need to get that first ball rolling and it kind of goes from there. So I think PR is definitely useful for small businesses.
Sonya M:
I think that is a really good point and something that I keep piping on about is that you can't just pick one channel and expect to get amazing results for your business. Marketing is a multi-channel approach and I think it comes down to who your target market is and what are your immediate goals because if you don't need to generate cashflow instantly, PR might not be the way to do that straight away.
Larissa H:
Saying that, it's also kind of a cheaper way of going about marketing in a way. If you're going to do it yourself, it's really costing you your time and maybe efforts and things like that, but it's not actually costing you money like advertising and it's not starting in a really high rate like some advertising on TV and things does.
Sonya M:
Yeah. Fantastic point there. How do you measure it? What does a successful campaign look like?
Larissa H:
Great question. I asked my lecturer that in my first semester of university and he said that is a great PhD topic.
Sonya M:
I love it.
Larissa H:
The thing with PR is that you can't really, there's no specific thing like how you can with social media marketing and things like that, that can draw like, "Okay so that gave us 10 leads." Or something like that, it's just not that clear cut, which is why some businesses don't see the value in it because they can't give a quantitative value really. But it's more like you can see an increase maybe in sales or something like that, or maybe more people are Googling your products or your brands and things like that. But it's very hard to say that's 100% from publicity and from PR. So that is a bit of a challenge of the industry really. But saying that, I think it's only growing. So obviously, people are saying that it's worthwhile.
Sonya M:
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to tell you a little bit of my favorite PR story ever that has made me an absolute, I would say brand advocate for life. And as you know Larissa, I am a prosecco drinker and I'm a little bit of a soft spot when it comes to the prosecco that I like to drink. So I remember being on a Virgin flight. Oh my God, it would have been like six years ago. And they have their in-flight magazine and there was this fantastic article, which at the time I actually didn't realize, but obviously was done by a PR agency about Dal Zotto, which, so Larry and I are both from [Wodonga 00:00:27:12], so the Dal Zotto winery is not too far from our home town. So I already had some sort of familiarity with the brand. At the time, I really feel like prosecco was just sort of starting to take hold of the market.
Sonya M:
So I mean prior to that we had the big rush of cider maybe 10 years ago and [inaudible 00:27:32] say sort of happen with alcohol and then there was the rose phase and yeah, so anyway, this article came out and it was all about how Dal Zotto had been the first one, grandfather Dal Zotto had been the first one to legally import this specific vine that was used for creating prosecco. And other people in the region or even in Australia had been doing it illegally previously so they couldn't sell it on the market legally. And then it was talking about how the Dal Zotto prosecco is really traditional Italian prosecco, it's really dry. Whereas other companies, and I don't even think it named it, but they were talking about Brown Brothers clearly have adopted prosecco, their version of prosecco, which I personally don't like to be sweeter, which is more in line with the Australian taste. So for me I was like, "Oh well I want the authentic stuff." I totally bought into the brand's story and to this day, Dal Zotto prosecco is still my favorite prosecco on the market.
Larissa H:
That was a great choice of media for them though as well. Can you imagine, everyone's on a plane, you just want to read about entertaining, you're either going on holidays or unfortunately you flying for work or something like that. And that's why there's so many holiday destinations and things in that. So it's such a clever place to place that and maybe they only did that with one. Maybe that was the only place that they gave that story too. But it mattered because it was the right one. It didn't necessarily have to go to everybody to be effective.
Sonya M:
Exactly. And it has stuck with me for six years and it's funny, I find myself telling people this like, "Oh, look at me. I'm such a big secco connoisseur." I've taken ownership of this story and I think you can do something like that with your brand. That is so powerful because people-
Larissa H:
And you're the example of PR. You read something, it was really good. You have become the word of mouth marketer to me and everyone else is listening.
Sonya M:
Exactly. And it's something that makes me feel like I sound smart and know what I'm talking about. I've got no idea what I'm talking about, but I read this one-
Larissa H:
All customers want to sound smart.
Sonya M:
Exactly, and I think that's something that we all need to remember when it comes to sort of any form of marketing or telling your brand story, really. All right Larry, thank you so much for coming in and having a chat to me about all things PR. I will let you get back to your weekend.
Larissa H:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.