EPISODE 47 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: HOW TO GET YOUR PR COVERAGE FOR YOUR BIZ
Sonya McIntyre:
Today, I'm joined by Elise from Shout PR. I put a call out a few weeks ago in my one roof community page. That was the co-working space that I was a part of in Melbourne, an amazing group of women. And Elise's name popped up time and time again, and we connected a few weeks ago and I thought she would be perfect to have on board the podcast to have a chat all things PR for small businesses and organizations. Hi, Elise, thank you so much for joining me.
Elise:
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Sonya McIntyre:
So I guess, first of all, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and how you got into business?
Elise:
Yeah, absolutely. So I've been running Shout Public Relations for a couple of years now. And as with many small businesses, it happened quite organically. So I've been working in public relations for the last 10 to 15 years. And I studied at the university, did a multitude of internships and worked at a number of agencies and it was after I'd left one of my agencies and I was sort of thinking about what I was going to do next. And I'd been wanting to start my own business for a long time and that sort of dabbled in other business ventures. So starting a small bar soap business and things that weren't really my passion. And I had a former client from a couple of agencies before who'd reach out and just say, "Hey, we're looking for some PR support again, are you available to help us?" and it just felt really fateful that the timing was perfect. And I just thought, "If I don't do it now, when am I going to do it?" So gave it a crack and it's just grown from there and it's been wonderful. I haven't looked back since.
Sonya McIntyre:
Amazing. All right. So in your own words, what do you see the difference between marketing and PR being?
Elise:
Yeah, so it's a great question. Especially since public relations has really been changing in the last 10 years with digital media advances. And I think the definition of PR has probably just broadened if anything, and it just fits into marketing. So I think there's a lot of overlap and there's a lot that you can do within PR, some of which folds into a marketing umbrella. And I think it's just having a holistic plan working together and having, if you're a business owner, you want to be looking at all the different options and looking at how they work together and testing different things and see what works best for your business. Because PR will be great for some businesses and probably not relevant for others, just like digital marketing would, social media advertising would be great for one business and not another.
Elise:
So yeah, but I mean, in terms of how PR I've seen it changing, it's just a lot more of the focus from people coming to me is wanting to grow their SEO and drive back links rather than featuring a print newspaper as much as we're seeing print and magazines dying. And there's still something magical I think about seeing your product on paper, and I think it still does have a huge impact. But I think a lot more people are looking to PR for a different role. And people are looking to PR as well for social media influences, biggest stunts as well that are going to get media attention. Yeah, things like that. I think I've explained it.
Sonya McIntyre:
Yeah, awesome. So if I am a small business or organization, where do you think that I would get the best return in terms of generating leads and inquiries if I was to look at PR? What kind of strategies do you think would work best for me.
Elise:
If you're a small business owner I think the most important thing is understanding where your customers are, you know? So the first thing is looking at what channels are going to reach your audience. And if public relations make sense, and it might not just be to grow the business. There might be other reasons that you want to go down the path of public relations, such as just credibility. So being able to have someone click on your website and have as seen in Forbes, the Sydney Morning Herald, having that extra layer of trust with a customer who's coming to your site, that might be a primary goal. But I think the first thing is work out who your customers are, where are your customers? What are they reading? What are they consuming? Where are they getting their news? Is it through Facebook? Is it through traditional print magazines? Is it a niche B2B business and your ideal customer's religiously rating the same newsletter that's just an industry trade publication? Just understanding where your customers are is the first starting point, yeah.
Sonya McIntyre:
Excellent. So if I did want to have some of those sort of social trust and proof icons on my websites that had been featured in these different publications, as a small business how do I go about that? What is sort of the process?
Elise:
Yeah. How I would start with with a client is looking at firstly what's their marketing plan. What have they got that's newsworthy that's coming up? And that's a huge thing is understanding what's newsworthy. Because what might be newsworthy to one business might not be at all newsworthy to an actual media outlet. So if somebody, like I think one example had someone saying that they were pointing a new CFO and unless you're a huge company, appointing a new CFO probably isn't going to be of interest if you're a small business to publication. So looking at, are you launching a new product range? Are you doing a collaboration with another business that's of interest? Looking at what are you doing that's newsworthy. And then also working backwards and putting yourself in the generalist shoes and going, "All right, if my customers are reading," I'm going to use an example that came up today, "Nourish Magazine, what are they writing about? What stories are they featuring and how can what I'm offering fit in with the content that they're already producing and delivering?"
Elise:
So my first piece of advice would probably be, if you figured out that your customers are reading Gluten-Free Life, or if you've got a food company like [inaudible 00:07:05] grown that is targeting plant-based diets and things like that. Look at all those publications, look at what they're writing about. Look at their style, look at the style of each individual publication. Do they write regular listicles? Do they write long form in-depth articles? Look at the style and think about what you can offer them and what you can offer their readers. So I think the biggest thing with PR is just understanding that media aren't there to help your business, that's advertising, you know? If you're going to pay for it, that's fine. But if you're offering them something editorial, it has to be of value to their readers. So they're trying to get clicks through, they're trying to sell papers, they're trying to sell magazines. What can you offer them that's going to help them in that mission?
Sonya McIntyre:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think sitting down as the business owner and working out, or with a PR company and working out what is newsworthy, and what's going to be picked up. Because I think a lot of people go, "I want PR," and they've got really nothing of note to actually talk about. What makes you different from say your competitors, what makes this new product different? And why do people care essentially?
Elise:
A 100%. Your unique selling points have to be 100% identified and worked out. And also working out how that fits with the media's schedules as well. You know, what days are coming up? Is it World Bacon Day that you could tie it into? Is there a conversation happening in the news already that you have a unique perspective on and then you can offer some fresh insights on? Thinking about it a little bit backwards I find always helps. Just trying to put yourself in the journalist shoes always, and trying to make their life easier.
Elise:
And I think that probably leads into the next thing that I would do, which is get all of your assets together so that you've got everything ready to go. So that if a journalist contacts you and says, "Do you have high res images of this new product that you've launched?" If you turn around and say, "Oh, I don't, but I'll get them to you in a week." It just looks really unprofessional, so. Before you start reaching out to anyone, making sure you've got a background or written, you've got a bio or bios for the spokespeople in your company, you've got high res images and good quality ones at that. Yeah, just being prepared.
Sonya McIntyre:
So once we've got our, I guess, unique selling point or our newsworthy item, we've got our assets together. What does the process of actually reaching out to publications look like?
Elise:
Yeah, so I would do my research first, and especially if you're a small business and if you've got a quite niche product, you might be dealing with the same journalist for years and years. So getting off on the right foot is really important. So researching what are the key publications in that industry? So if it's food, what are the top food publications, and then who are the main writers? What have they been writing about? Have they been writing about products similar to yours and you can set up a quick Google alert. That's probably the first thing I would do is set up a Google alert for a few search terms around your business name, competitors' business names, and also just key terms that would come up in your industry. Having a look at what they're writing about and how regularly and how you might be able to fit in with that.
Elise:
And then when you're actually ready to reach out to them, having a good story. It could be a press release. You don't always need a press release. I think that's something that I hear a lot of people saying, "Press releases are dead." I definitely don't think they're dead. I think they have a place, but if something's not an announcement, it might not need such a, what's the word, such a structured format. It might just be a quick email to let someone know, "Hey, we've launched this new product. We've got these great images. Here's why it's newsworthy to you." And approaching the journalist on a very personal basis saying, "I've seen that you've written this recent article on a similar product, so I thought it might be of interest to you. If not, here are some other topics we can write about."
Elise:
Just keeping it really polite and not demanding anything, not expecting anything, because at the end of the day, if they do run it, they're doing it as a favor. You're not paying for, it's not advertising. So yeah, just being really polite and thinking about what you can offer them and how you can do it in the most personalized way possible.
Sonya McIntyre:
Amazing. All right. So just to rake up the sort of three key steps here. Number one, coming up with your newsworthy item. Number two, making sure that all your assets are in order, so the bios, the high res images. And number three, doing your research into the journalists or publications to reach out to, looking at what they've written previously. And then approaching them in a really polite, respectful way and perhaps drawing on some previous content that they've written could be a good way to go about things.
Elise:
Yep, exactly. And I will add to that as well. Not being discouraged if you don't immediately get a bunch of replies. A lot of people expect that they'll just send an email to a couple of people and instantly feature everywhere. And it's just not that easy. It takes time and it takes following up. And a lot of journalists won't see something the first time you send it. So on average I think most PR people would send something out two or three, sometimes even four times, before saying, "We've sent it to this person enough times. If they haven't responded now, they haven't seen it or they're not interested." But just not being discouraged, being persistent and not just being persistent in pushing the same thing. But if that's not working for someone, what else can you offer them?
Sonya McIntyre:
I love that. All right, you made it sound so simple. And I think it just comes down to having the processes in place and maybe a bit of trial and error with your approach and your emails to the journalist as well, and building the relationships with them and being persistent in following up. And I think that's where a lot of us as business owners, we get busy and let ourselves down that we've done all that ground work, but we haven't followed up afterwards, so.
Elise:
Absolutely. And I think also sometimes people get intimidated. So I was working, I've started working with this company and one of their first questions was, "Should we even reach out to X publication because they're so big. Would it even be worth it?" And absolutely. Absolutely, why not, you know? [inaudible 00:13:58] that they're not going to feature you because you're a small business. Having the confidence to just put yourself out there so important.
Sonya McIntyre:
Can you talk to me a little bit around the benefits of working with a PR agency versus trying to hack it and DIY it yourself?
Elise:
Yeah, absolutely. Time.
Sonya McIntyre:
Yes.
Elise:
The biggest reason people-
Sonya McIntyre:
Confidence.
Elise:
Yeah. Time, confidence, but people, so I've been running some DIY PR workshops for people, and I think it's good for two things. It's good for people who want to learn how to do it themselves, but also maybe people who just want to get a better understanding of how public relations works before they work with an agency. And so what I've been finding is a lot of the people who are doing these DIY workshops with me finish the workshop, they'll maybe spend a month trying to do their own PR. And then they'll say, "Okay, this is actually quite time consuming. There is an art form to it. I would like some extra help."
Elise:
So yeah, it's quite a time consuming job. It's not rocket science. It's you can't do it yourself if you've got the time, absolutely. And I would encourage everyone to try and do their own PR at some point anyway, so that you understand how that process looks and what the feedback is, what the responses are from journalists, navigating those relationships. It's a great place to start.
Elise:
But yeah, bigger. As you grow, you don't want to be doing all of the marketing roles yourself. You want to be working on other things, building relationships, whatnot. I think having a PR agency to step in is really helpful. And another thing also is that having a PR agency that's working across a number of different clients can lead to some really obscure opportunities I guess. Like I might be speaking with a journalist from a retail publication about one client and it might just spark something in my mind about another client. So I find that there's a bit more crossover and you've got someone who's regularly looking for call-outs and getting call-outs from journalists as well, and just has access to a lot more industry opportunities.
Sonya McIntyre:
Yeah, I love that. So would you say then, would you tell people to go and search for an agency that specializes in a particular niche? Or you should be open to agencies who's worked with a variety of clients for that reason?
Elise:
Rather than looking at niche, I think looking at their results, looking at their proven track record and asking some good questions when you are looking to engage an agency, look for a few agencies and ask them, "What should I expect when working with you? What are the sort of results that we can get?" And PR is very hard to guarantee results, but some agencies will say, "Look, we're going to get at least this many placements or reach at least this many people. You know, you obviously can't say which publications and when and where it doesn't work like that. But going in, looking at what they've done for other clients. And yeah, look then I think if you are in a niche industry, like if you're in beauty, definitely look for a beauty publicist because they will have built really strong relationships with those journalists. So yeah.
Sonya McIntyre:
I love that. Fantastic. All right, Elise, where can we learn a little bit more about you, these workshops in particular sound very interesting. How can people sign up and get on board?
Elise:
Great question. I'm still working on the website, meant to be live this week, so hopefully by Friday it will be up. But it would just be a page on my normal website, which is www.shoutpr.com.au.
Sonya McIntyre:
Amazing. And are you on Instagram and Facebook?
Elise:
I am. And there were links to them from my website, but my Instagram is shoutpraus. And Facebook is just Shout PR.
Sonya McIntyre:
Fantastic. Oh, thank you so much for your time, Elise.
Elise:
Thank you. I hope there was some helpful tips in there.
Sonya McIntyre:
Definitely.