How do You Get Hundreds of PR Placements? Is PR the Right Way to Scale Your Business?

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Welcome to today's episode.

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Our guest today is Heather.

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She is a public relations guru.

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She runs her own agency.

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Welcome to the show.

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I'm so excited to be here and really help people understand how to scale your business with public relations.

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You can do it yourself, you can hire an agency and I've seen so many miracles happen from getting in the media.

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So exciting.

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Miracles.

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That's amazing.

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We can't have enough miracles in marketing.

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So why don't you talk just for a minute or two, just so people have a little bit of context?

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Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

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Yeah, so I am the founder of Publicity for Good.

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I started it eight years ago, I've been a publicist for more than 12 years and I want to do PR till I'm 110.

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I love publicity.

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I used to dream of working for nonprofits and volunteering or going into lobbying.

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And then I saw, wow, like one TV segment can have such an impact and reach millions and millions of people.

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I'm like fell in love with PR and there's just so many miracles happen.

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So for publicity for good, we work with mission driven and purpose driven brands and people to get their message really into the world.

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That's great.

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It's the opposite of publicity for evil, right?

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Sorry, I didn't bring the best jokes for the start of the episode.

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Those come later.

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So why don't you tell us a story about some of the best marketing and PR that you've done, that you're most proud of?

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Absolutely Everything really starts with connecting your story and business to what's happening in the news and trending topics.

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Right, you need relevancy and the media want to know.

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They want to know why does it matter?

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So your company or your story has to be a solution.

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But we took a brand that just had an e-commerce website.

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It was a popcorn brand.

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They weren't in the media before much and in 16 months time they were in the media more than 300 times and literally when you looked at them and all their competitors, they were ranked number four for most amount of publicity.

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And what was really cool is we did this amazing campaign.

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We had 19 days to execute.

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It was for National Popcorn Day.

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We had our highest day of sales on their website.

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We ranked on Google.

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We probably secured about 50 backlit.

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We did about three to four TV segments.

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We had National Fox and Friends taste test on air and the benefits were building a community ranking on Google, having the highest day of sales and really telling their story, their heart, and that the majority of their employees self-identify as having a disability.

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So it's popcorn with a purpose.

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Not only is it the best for me popcorn, but the employee people that have disability.

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So that was really the heart of the story and yeah, it was fun, it was exciting, it was fast-paced.

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Popcorn with a purpose.

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I love it.

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Popcorn always has a purpose with me, but I love popcorn with a purpose even better.

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How did you do it?

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How did you get those great results for them?

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What was it that you did that was able to drive that sort of great result?

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So it was really bridging the gap between the product and the message and what was going on in the world.

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So we always look for trending topics in the news and awareness days.

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So that was our first step.

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We then made sure we really told the brand story and we love with the brand story first, followed by the product, because I think pitches a lot of times people will pitch the media and it's to sales date, right.

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The third piece is we made sure that everything was aligned from a marketing and messaging and a PR perspective right, like what promotion can we run?

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What's the call to action for all the press and all of those things.

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So we included a promotion so consumers could buy and would want to buy because that there was a promotion.

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And then we also made sure that we added the right links into all of our pitches and then, lastly, that we had all the assets organized for all the media members.

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So they used the right messaging, the right photos and we made it as easy as possible.

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And then it was a lot of nurturing and following up and calling and texting and just doing what we needed to do to get them booked.

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But then at the very beginning, setting goals.

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We want to secure this many TV interviews, we want this many placements or blog reviews.

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So we had those black and white goals in the very beginning, and then it was just execution, and then at the end, celebrating and looking at the stats.

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And then we did it another year and we like quadrupled our results.

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So we had a baseline of where we were, and then we set a goal to increase it by a certain percent and we crushed it.

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So it was exciting.

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What was the hardest part about doing that?

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It's just the follow through, because sometimes people will say they're interested in doing a story.

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So a lot of times getting working with a media member is a lot of touches, like calling and emailing until it's booked Right.

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I'd say that would be probably the hardest process Now.

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From experience, though, sometimes it's really hard with brands where companies and they're like we only want national media and that makes it really hard because national media won't even interview you until you have examples of coverage and you don't want to be a one-hit wonder, meaning that if they Google you and there's no press and then you're just on Good Morning America.

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It doesn't look authentic and it looks like you bought that segment.

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That's hard when people are not committed to doing the work right.

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Like I've been in the media 700 plus times but I mean it took years until I was in Business Insider or Fox News and a lot of it's timing and your story evolves over time.

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Like when I first was in the media it was when I was talking about why you need to have purpose in your business and how to add a four-year component to your business.

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Then it was when I was Miss Ohio and I talked about that and giving back.

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Then it was running a company from an Airstream and scaling a six-figure company.

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Now it's really running a seven-figure company, a team of 30, almost having three kids under three building a homestead.

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Your story evolves over time but it's really hard when people are not willing.

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They're not.

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They're so focused on that.

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One thing, like I want Good Morning America, I want Business Insider, but there's so many extra benefits.

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Like when you pitch the media website, you get more website traffic, you get more backlink, you can utilize all the media logos in your marketing and really grow your community.

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All the media logos in your marketing and really grow your community.

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I've always had this sense that PR is a little bit like sales and you have to have a pursuit of getting each placement.

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But it's not salesy in the sense that people don't want to just do puff pieces on companies or their products.

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They want to cover news.

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So you have to tie it into something that is trending, like you were saying.

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Is that right?

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It is, I would say yes, it's a sales perspective and I view it's a numbers game and I view that it's cumulative in the compound.

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So when we partner with you, we have a monthly goal of media members that say they want to interview you or review your product.

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If I look at a year and we do the follow upup and each month we get new interest.

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It's going to be the compound.

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So you can't allow yourself to be complacent.

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When you get a potential producer and that's yeah, I want to do a segment because things change and everything.

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I definitely agree with the sales component of it, but it's really based on relationships too.

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Yep, that makes sense and I think a key part of it you were saying a lot of companies only want to be in the national media.

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Of course, every CEO that I've worked with has said things like I want you to give me on the cover of Forbes and I want an exclusive in TechCrunch, and I think a big part of it is managing expectations, like you're saying, having goals in the beginning and agreeing on those goals and managing expectations for what's possible and what's realistic.

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Oh for sure it's definitely expectations being transparent.

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There are things happen in the world that cause areas of opportunity for brands or people or national media right away, but I would say most national media typically takes six months and literally they ask you where you've been featured or do you have any clips of you and on you on TV before, because the media is not going to say yes to you and have you be horrible on TV because they care about their ratings, they care about the impressions and everything too right.

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So much has evolved over time, even from the online article perspective, right Like they have the editorial department and the e-commerce department, and when they write a roundup, they want revenue from it as well.

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Makes sense.

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So if you were on stage talking in person to a thousand marketers who wanted to win at PR and do better at PR, what would you tell them?

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So I would say you really first need to create a strategic plan going forward.

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Proactive plan around.

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What's your messaging every month?

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Because I find most of the time brands will come out with a new product or have a big company announcement, they'll do a news release, they'll put it on the wire, there's buzz and then it dies.

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Most people are reactive.

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Where you have to be proactive, you need to get press, month over month, quarter over quarter, because you have to build your community.

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It increases the perceived value of your company.

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But what happens if a crisis happens?

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You having press out there is going to help you when a crisis comes, because they already know you're a good company and they can read about you.

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I would honestly say that PR is non-negotiable and you don't have to be a really like million plus dollar company.

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I've seen people that just get local media with their story and small little website and it's very much, I would say, relationship-based and story-based.

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So okay, that makes a lot of sense.

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I think that's great advice.

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Do you think that once companies get some PR traction even if it's local stories and not necessarily the cover story in national media do you think that marketing has a role to amplify PR to get the most out of it?

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Amplify PR to get the most out of it.

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Yeah, because when the press goes live, it's really the job of the marketing team to amplify it.

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So that's ensuring there's a strategic plan in place to utilize those press logos in your email list.

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If you're running a promotion, say, hey, we were just featured in Forbes, read it here and get 10% off.

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It's updating your press page on your website where you've been featured.

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It's updating all your collateral and then even the sales team should be using your press to nurture potential leads as well.

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So the job just starts when the interview is completed or there's a live link and then it's content.

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Right, instead of having to create all this new content for social, you can utilize your articles.

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You can take a podcast interview and get 30 pieces of content from one interview and use it across social media.

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I can take this interview, I can have my team transcribe it and then use this content for social media posts or articles.

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If you're being in PR for almost 10 years, how do you think that it's evolving?

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If you're being in PR for almost 10 years.

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How do you think that it's evolving?

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Yeah, there's a lot more independent companies and network.

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For sure, I would view influencers and YouTubers as media members.

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Right, they have their own audiences.

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There's been a lot of consolidation and there's a lot more, I'd say, looking at metrics, especially when it comes to big publication.

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If they're going to interview you, they want a high rating.

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If they're going to review your, if Good Housekeeping is going to review your product, they want to be able to earn a commission for reviewing your product.

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There's been a lot more consolidation, way more independent publishing companies there, which is awesome.

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There's way more opportunity.

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There's way more opportunity.

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There's way more opportunity to write independently for all those third-party websites and blogs.

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And there's a huge focus on the affiliate side.

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And how is a media company going to essentially make a profit off of sharing your product?

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Because it's all about business, too, right, it's all about the numbers and keeping these media companies alive.

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Have you had some good success with influencers, with your clients.

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Yes, especially more from like a content user-generated content perspective.

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So brands are struggling with creating content on social media.

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The reason I love micro-influencers is, instead of hiring a photographer or videographer, you reason I love micro-influencers is, instead of hiring a photographer or videographer, you could partner with micro-influencers and they can create content.

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They can post it on their feed, they can tag you and now all that content is in your feed.

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Instead of you having to post and you can literally reach out to people, you can just send them products and they'll do content for you.

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I absolutely believe in micro influencers and building your community Awesome.

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Any final thoughts of PR wisdom to share?

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Yeah, I firmly believe that PR is the fastest way to grow your business.

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I have seen more revenue and impact come in from local media.

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Local people like to hear from local entrepreneurs and businesses.

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Awesome for being with us today.

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Thanks for sharing your story and these PR insights.

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We appreciate it.

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I will link to your company's website in the show notes so people can easily connect with you.

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Yeah, look at Public Speak for Good If you guys need anything.

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If you guys have questions about PR, I always love doing free strategy calls and really casting the vision of what's possible for you.

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All right.

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Thank you very much for being with.