It's Marketing's Fault

Welcome to it's marketing's fault.

The podcast where we discuss how to do marketing the right way.

I'm your host Eric Rutherford and hey, I am thrilled today because I have with me Mickey Kennedy.

He is the founder and president of e-releases, the small business leader for press release distribution, which is now celebrating 25 years in business.

He is an expert.

and hoping small businesses increase their visibility and credibility.

Mickey, welcome to the show.

Oh, it is my pleasure.

Now, as we kind of jump into this, I have to ask, do press releases even matter in today's social media landscape?

I mean, won't people hear things about the new things about my business anyway through other channels?

mean, it's possible, but it's also unlikely.

I mean, a lot of, you know, small businesses don't have a large enough social media following to really reach the right influencers and people, you know, but they're, you know, the newswire who we work with PR Newswire does reach influencers.

They're given journalists access, just like other you know, bloggers and influencers of different types.

And, you know, I follow someone on Tik TOK called snack a later who each week does a roundup of new snacks, hitting the grocery shelves and all of his images.

He says he pulls from press releases and, you know, uh, to, to rely on organic social reach, you know, doing the job, it would just be too much work for someone like that.

So it's good to have one place where you can just go and pull down.

and look and we're fortunate in the US, I say fortunate and unfortunate because we basically have a duopoly of news wires, of press releases.

It's business wire and PR news wire with PR news wire being the oldest and largest and that's who we work with You know that the you know, the good reason is it's it's fewer places for journalists to have to go You know, it also means that if you use one of those You know, most journalists will see you or at least skim you You know that the downside of it is, you know with with the duopoly is here you're paying more and the news wires aren't cheap as a result.

Okay, you have sold me right there as you have shared that information in terms of distribution, in terms of getting information out.

Let's just jump in then with e -releases because there's more questions I want to ask you regarding even what you just shared about the duopoly, about the news wires.

But let's jump into e -releases first.

I got a feeling we're going to flush that out there in more detail.

So what is e -releases?

Right.

So e -releases is a press release distribution platform.

Uh, we launched, uh, a little over 25 years ago.

Um, in my previous job before that, I, um, was hired by a telecom research startup as employee three.

I had a creative writing background.

I had just finished an MFA in creative writing, uh, with an emphasis in poetry, but all they saw was writing and they said, right, press releases and figure out what the media wants.

And, uh, I would.

you know, write these releases and fax them.

And, and, you know, initially not much happened.

And I, I sort of like realized that what the journalists are really looking for is a story and we were publishing a lot of data.

So I would internally look at anomalies in our data, like, Hey, this is interesting.

You know, this company's telecom traffic has, has jumped 20%.

Uh, you know, in the past year, you know, why is that?

Or.

Hey, there's this one Caribbean country that is creating more inbound and outbound traffic to the U S than all other Caribbean countries combined.

What's going on there?

And at the time it was the center for one 900 numbers, which were really popular, I guess, 27 years ago.

Um, you know, everything from astrology to, you know, predictions, uh, it was all over the place for one 900 numbers.

And, uh, you know, I would write these releases, send them out.

And all of a sudden now we were getting picked up.

Uh, you know, the economist, financial times, Washington post, wall street journal, all the telecom trade publications.

Um, you know, we were just generating lots of buzz, lots of sales, um, lots of industry recognition.

And, you know, uh, at that startup, uh, we, we were publishing our annual, uh, book of data for $600 at the time.

And, you know, that business is still around and today, uh, they charge, uh, for one.

I don't think that they could be asking that much if they didn't have really, really great recognition throughout the industry and this respect and credibility as having this really amazing data.

And it's a really great position for them to be in.

Wow.

Oh my word.

That is amazing.

Both in how you got into it, what you release is kind of where it stemmed from.

Just as a total aside, I also worked at a small telecom company 25 years ago.

So I remember the feeling.

We're doing long distance, doing local, all that good stuff.

So it brings back memories.

was the wild, wild west of a Burgers and you know, 10 cent a minute dialing and all kinds of just crazy offers and fun advertising.

It was, it was a wild time.

It was, it truly was.

Yeah, it's so hard now when, especially when I, whether it's when I talk with my kids or when I talk with, you know, people who are younger, who have never experienced long distance in terms of per minute and the long distance war.

So that's just a flashback that is so fun to revisit.

Let me ask.

So, It sounds like you were able to put press releases for your customers, get them to the news wires.

Is it visibility that you solve for your customers?

Is it storytelling?

I'd love to hear that because I love the storytelling aspect as well.

How do you solve this conundrum for your customers?

Sure.

So, you know, E -releases is basically a platform.

When I started, I was just emailing releases to people.

As I was faxing, more and more journalists were saying, could you email in the future?

And, you know, it's so much easier to just create a list and hit send.

So that was the light bulb moment for starting E -releases.

I spent about a year or two contacting journalists and asking them if I could put them in my database and send them releases.

They all asked, how much is this going to cost me?

And I said, it's free.

They're like, yes, sign me up.

You know, now, you know, uh, journalists, inboxes are just overloaded with spam.

You know, there are several media database companies out there and there are a lot of people who say, Hey, I just paid, you know, X dollars for this database.

It could be, you know, as high as $16 ,000 for yearly access to these databases.

And they're just like, you know, I could just send it.

to a very small group, but I paid for the whole database.

They just blast it to really large numbers.

They're like, eh, everybody in business and banking.

Sure.

They might be interested in my telecom release or learning more.

Or, you know, they have these ways of explaining it to themselves that, you know, sending non -banking news to banking journalists is somehow going to be a benefit.

It doesn't cost them anything more.

Uh, but you know, the end result is journalists, uh, their inboxes are just overloaded and glutted now.

And so, you know, that it really is hard to stand out with even email pitches from PR firms.

That's why, you know, most PR firms or a lot of them still do phone pitching, which journalists don't like to be interrupted constantly with phone calls.

But, you know, it is one of the ways to cut through the email.

And I think that, you know, because of that, you know, I was very fortunate that PR Newswire approached me well over a decade ago.

and said, Hey, you know, we'd love to partner with you.

We like what you're doing for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

We don't service them.

And we would never tell ourselves people to go out and land as a small business client.

You know, the average client that their sales people are looking for, they're hoping are 20 to $40 ,000 a year in newswire fees.

Like, yeah, sign me up for a 20 some thousand dollar newsroom and, you know, add a global distribution for $10 ,000 and things like that.

So, um, you know, that's what their time is spent.

And they like that I represented so many smaller businesses that they normally wouldn't work with.

And so, you know, all of our releases that go out, get a national distribution over the wire, Pure Newswire charges over $1,600 for a 600 WordPress release.

And you don't have to pay anything close to that using us.

The downside is, you know, if you're looking for that global distribution, you focused on national.

We do offer local saturation, reaching journalists who are tagged as only interested in local news.

And also, you can reach the appropriate trade and industry publications and people who cover those industries.

so then it sounds like very much national in terms of the US in terms of your customers and who you're able to get them in front of You also mentioned though, especially this idea of storytelling would you elaborate a little bit on that because?

I know when I think of press release, storytelling does not immediately come to mind.

And so I'm guessing if that's true for me, it's got to be true for some other listeners.

Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

So when someone issues a release and it goes over.

goal that we're looking for is earned media.

And that's when a journalist takes the elements in the press release, and they draft and write an article, we're looking for original articles to be written about us.

And there is something that happens called syndication, where the release, the press release itself shows up on a few websites, that's nothing to be excited about.

Yet, it's created a whole cottage industry of people who only focus on that.

I mentioned there's only two news wires of press releases in the US, business wire and PR news wire.

There are dozens and dozens of websites with wire in their name that are not wires.

They are syndicators of the press release.

And so you pay a fee and the release gets on maybe a couple hundred websites.

There are locations on the websites that don't matter.

You can't organically reach those in most cases.

If you do a search in Google web or Google news, you're not going to find these and no one's looking at them.

And a journalist is never going to write an article based on that because it never reached a journalist.

And so there's a lot of education in our market.

You know, we, every day we get, why would I pay this if I can go to XYZ wire for$69?

And I'm like, well, you know, we're about earned media.

They're not, you know, they've.

They're very clear that they're just a syndication outfit.

And maybe less clear now because a lot of them have removed language saying, we don't reach journalists, we're just syndication.

So yeah, maybe it is a little muddled now.

And unfortunately, if you want to reach journalists, you're going to either have to use a PR firm or a newswire.

And PR firms do both.

They do pitching and they also issue stuff over the wire as well.

So, you know, my belief is that if you have news or really press releases that are story ready, you know, you can definitely engage the media and get that earned media.

It's not easy.

You know, there are people that come to us quite often who spent 20, $40 ,000 on one year campaign with a PR firm and they got no earned media.

You know, despite that, you know, I do provide a lot of training.

and lessons that I've learned and things that I see with my customers, because we move over 10 ,000 releases a year, I kind of see what works and what doesn't work.

And, you know, I get all these press releases for product launches and it's like, here's our product.

Here's a list of features.

And I mentioned that journalists like stories.

It's really hard to craft a story around that, you know, elements that you could add to that release that would make it more worthy of a story arc.

would be a use case study.

Someone who beta tested it, what were the results that they saw, why is this important, and maybe a quote by them.

And then you also have the features and then you have a page to the product.

All of a sudden that's a lot more information for a journalist to craft a story arc of like, hey, here's a product.

You put in there that 67 % of people in your industry fail in the first five years of business because of this issue, you know, the stakes are really there and So, you know the reader is lulled into that and then you talk about this one particular client You know, maybe they you know, they they implemented the product and they saw like, you know a 32 % reduction and the logistics cost or whatever the product aimed to solve and then they have a quote by them and you know, all of a sudden that that is a lot more information and more of a story.

And if you're a journalist who is sort of like a gatekeeper of their audience, you realize that this story fulfills more of what your audience is looking for.

And, uh, you know, that that's one of the most important elements, uh, you know, the most common release that we get at E releases is probably a personnel change.

And then second is the product launch, uh, personnel changes rarely ever get media attention.

you know, unless it's a new executive or a major industry veteran who's coming on board, you know, just because you hired, you know, Sam as an associate in HR, you really shouldn't spend money going over a wire with something like that.

You would be better served by just sending it to your local paper, your local business magazine or newspaper, if you're lucky enough to have one of those.

And then maybe a trade publication or two that often have like on the move.

section where they put like a little photo and two sentences and yeah, that's probably best case scenario for those types of releases.

I appreciate that context because I think a lot of people think everything is newsworthy, or at least it is to them.

There is that feeling of, oh, this is significant or this is important.

This product's important.

This service is important.

We made a new hire.

But really, it sounds like small businesses need to get into that mindset of, OK, It's not really about me, it's all about the journalists who will then take this information and do something with it.

Yeah.

I mean, if you, if you, if you think about it, you know, something that's really important to you, you know, let's say you discovered the cure for cancer, uh, by just saying I've discovered the cure for cancer click here to buy, you know, it's not going to pass the smell test with any journalists.

They're not going to cover it.

It's really important to you.

You feel like this is the biggest change in the world, but you know, what are things that you could add to that?

That would be meaningful.

Uh, you know, one is the context of who you are.

You know what?

You know what what what makes you important?

Are you a medical researcher or you know, you know have you know, what what what is your story and You know adding that and then you know What are you know?

What kind of studies have been done proving that there is some efficacy with this and you know and you know getting Maybe some quotes from people in the medical field talking about this product in the results of your study.

And, you know, all of a sudden you're layering credibility, but you're also creating more elements of a story.

And, uh, you know, what is important to you could be newsworthy, but often you have to really go back to that press release and start putting elements in there that really, um, you know, make it more aware and, uh, you know, more credible to the media, like, you know, you have to sort of pitch who you are, and why, you know, if you're, you know, selling something or something that's radical, or really important, communicate why it's important, you know, get publicly available data out there that shows the problem.

You know, I mentioned that, you the one about, you know, a certain percentage of businesses fail in the first five years because of this problem.

That's a really great number and it probably is out there.

There's lots of numbers and data that are out there that are publicly available and you putting them in a release really anchors that and shows the stakes to, you know, to, to a potential audience.

You know, journalists are really looking for, you know, what is going to educate their audience or entertain them, or in some cases really just delight them.

And you really have to make sure that you're providing those elements in a press release.

And ideally in a way that is more elements of a story.

If you look at Shark Tank, it's no coincidence to almost everybody that appears when the first things they do is they talk about who they are and what their story is and their story behind either launching the company or the product or the service.

And it's a very, It's a way to provide some authenticity.

Sometimes they're sharing something that's inspirational or vulnerability, like maybe they lost a spouse or a family member.

Maybe they had a hobby and all of a sudden they're stuck with being a sole provider and they're wondering, could I make a business around this hobby?

And the reason that works so well is personal stories help to humanize.

and they really give a human interest element, going back to that whole story thing.

People want to do business with people, not logos and products and corporations.

And so anything you can do to sort of humanize you and pull those threads of a narrative in certainly gives you potential angles to work with.

I like that humanization of the whole process.

And I think it sounds like, too, it's really easy to assume that journalists will pick up on why things are important or how things are important just with straight facts.

It's at least from a business standpoint, from the business side.

It sounds like very much what you're saying is, you know, don't make that assumption.

You want to make it easy on the journalists to be able to write their own story and engage with their own audiences with the information you provide.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, there's, you know, there's so many ways of sort of approaching the media and the idea of press releases.

But, you know, one of the most important things is, I think, you know, working from a story standpoint, you know, making sure you have a lot of necessary elements for a journalist to work with, even when you're publishing, you know, core data.

like I was at Telegeography, the telecom research firm I was working at, putting the story in there.

Like, hey, here's this interesting anomaly with data, and here's why.

And then providing a quote from the company in regards to that lends itself an authority.

Most of those quotes get included when they write an article.

So I always tell people, spend a little extra time on the quote.

Make it so that if they paraphrase what was said in the quote, there'd be a loss there.

They'd be like, oh, I really, I really want to put that quote back in there.

And so sometimes a really great quote could be, you know, the being a wordsmith and how you said it, but it also could be the authority or your gift of concision of really just striking through and telling something could also be controversial.

If you have a contrarian viewpoint, they're certainly not going to just publish that as fact.

And paraphrase it, they're going to want to, uh, you know, uh, link it to someone.

Uh, so you're the out if it, if it, if it bothers anyone.

Um, so you know, I always tell people, you know, being a contrarian is a great way to get media attention.

Uh, because journalists like to cover both sides of a story.

And if there's a story that's really just getting a lot of miles in your industry, um, you know, whether it's like, uh, you know, everybody moving to electric cars and it seems to be the hot issue.

If you're the one contrarian out there saying not so fast, you know, these, these cars catch on fire and sometimes it takes 30, 40 ,000 gallons of water to put them out.

Uh, and you know, most fire departments aren't equipped for that.

And also, you know, what are we going to do with these batteries at the end of their life?

We haven't really solved that as well as the mining environmental issues.

And, uh, you know, if you provide a, a, a contrarian viewpoint, that's you know, level headed, not gonna, um, you know, alienate you with your customer base.

Uh, it's a really great way to be plugged into every article and story because you know, very few people are out there pointing out the negative.

And so they can just plug you into every story that talks about it.

Cause you're the one person raising your hand saying, Hey, I'm the contrarian on this topic.

And, uh, that's, that's a really great way, I think, to, uh, to get some attention out there.

Um, you know, another, uh, thing that, you know, works, I'd mentioned data is really good, you know, you controlling the data, you putting the data out, you don't have to create a, a, a, you know, a research firm, like where I worked at before, but you could do a study in your industry, you know, maybe pick 16 hot button questions, you know, brainstorm with other people, like saying, Hey, if you could ask our industry right now, you know, anything, what are some questions you'd want to ask if you were going to a, uh, a conference or a trade show, you know, next week, you know, what would you want to, you know, pull someone aside and just ask, Hey, have you noticed this going on in our industry?

Those could potentially be really great questions to ask.

Also, you know, we're, you know, we're, we're post pandemic.

People are always talking about cultural issues, people wanting to still work from home, you know, maybe questions about something like that would be a good safe thing to put in there.

Maybe asking about.

Uh, people's spending over the next quarter or two, uh, could potentially point towards, uh, you know, uh, economic growth or, uh, uh, you know, potential downturn.

Uh, there's lots of little things.

So just make sure you're sort of brainstorm, spend a lot of time asking the questions.

Cause that's the most important aspect of a survey.

Um, you know, then putting it in a survey monkey, uh, takes like less than 15 minutes.

I like four questions per page for page.

questionnaire, take that link that you get, and then just approach a small or independent trade association in your industry.

There are probably dozens if not hundreds in your industry, and you're just not aware of it.

Everybody knows the big trade association, stay away from them.

They don't like to cooperate.

They get lots of media attention on their own.

But if you approach one that's got like 1200 members, and maybe they're like, you know, the mid Atlantic section, or maybe they represent people of a certain age or, you know, demographic.

There's so many different little, uh, of these trade associations that are out there and, uh, you know, pick one.

Um, I usually like 800 or more members.

Um, you know, we're looking for at least a hundred responses.

Um, ask them if they'll send that link to their members, um, ideally through email as well as social media and, uh, Tell them that in exchange for that, you'll mention them in the press release.

You'll be issuing over the wire.

The small and independent trade associations don't get any media attention.

So, you know, they'll see this as a win-win.

I've had a couple go back to my clients and ask if they could co -brand the survey.

I don't see a downside to it.

You know, it's a little more visibility for them.

It really doesn't hurt you.

Maybe aligning yourself more with them will actually be seen as a better indicator of you as a...

an authority.

So you get the survey results, you analyze them, and you're just going to focus on two or three of the ones that you felt were the biggest surprises or the most important questions.

And you're going to write a press release about that.

You're going to put a quote in there by you as to why you felt the numbers skewed a particular way.

You're the expert.

You did the survey.

And then you're going to issue that over the wire.

I do recommend that you build out a page on your website where you put all 16 questions and responses.

Cause sometimes a really clever journalists can go there and fish out a second or third story.

And you know, that could potentially be another press release.

You could do if it seems like something that you didn't initially think of.

And you're like, wow, that is a really good, uh, take on that, uh, question.

And so you can then put that in there, put another quote on to this issue and send that out on average.

When I coach clients through this, they often receive 8 to 14 earned media articles and the least we've ever seen is four and you know, like I said, I've had clients who spent 20 to $40 ,000 and got no earned media.

So, you know, here is one thing that you can do.

It's a little more involved, but you know, I broke down the process.

It's not a huge effort and in most cases, you know, Uh, two, you know, two thirds of the time, the first trade association, your approach will say, yes.

Uh, maybe you have to go to a second, but there there's just so many out there, um, that you can approach and use their audience for the survey.

And, um, I think that that's a really great win for people.

It really establishes you as an authority.

Um, and, you know, just getting earned media in general, uh, sort of establishes you as authority.

It's a huge credibility indicator and it's why, you know, so many startups.

focus on earned media over paid clicks and things like that, because they're really trying to establish themselves as a company that has authority, creating a signal of trust and then being able to use that signal of trust to then amplify it with paid advertising later down the road.

So that sounds amazing and that has given me so much context and more information then so it sounds like the earned media would just for everybody listening just to make sure we're tracking with that term and thinking of it in the same context, how would you define earned media?

earned media is when a human has written about you.

And it may be based off of a press release.

Sometimes people just get earned media all the time.

I know that when the high school wins the state championship, there's usually an article there.

And that article is earned media.

A journalist wrote about you.

They didn't copy and paste your press release and publish it.

Uh, it's not, you know, a version of your release, uh, on a website.

It's actually, you know, handwritten.

And the reason that's important is people recognize articles, uh, you know, when, when someone comes across an ad, their blinders go up and, you know, if they, even if they click through the conversion rate could be one, two, three, 5%.

And, uh, you know, but when they read an article, they get this warm feeling.

Uh, you know, there's this authority that, that, that's created by, you know, someone wrote about it.

Um, and, uh, they, they, they often want to do business with that entity.

Uh, I, I'm guilty of it.

I've read articles about Kickstarter campaigns.

They're like really sharing the story, um, you know, who this person is, uh, and, and what they've identified as a need and they're working on this product.

And I clicked through.

And I often look at the price and it's like, yeah, that's yeah, I can support them, you know, whether it happens or not, you know, that's the chance you take.

But, uh, you know, that, that upswell of, of feeling great and excited and wanting to work with them, uh, you know, is there, uh, you know, I'm not looking to price shop.

Is there something that's a little bit different or similar that could get cheaper on Amazon?

None of that happens.

You know, it really is this, uh, great.

great rapport that is created and excitement.

And, uh, you know, I had a client, uh, just a couple of weeks ago say, Hey, you know, this, this article generated like, you know, 300, uh, visitors to our page.

And it looks like, you know, almost 200 of them bought.

Is that possible?

And I'm like, it is because not everybody who read the article click through, but those that did and had that feeling and click through, you know, with your price point, they were a consumer product and pretty affordable.

It's just like, oh, click and buy and it's done.

And so yeah, it is possible.

They're like, yeah, our best landing page has never done over like 8%.

And here it's like well over 50 % of the people bought.

And I'm just like, yeah, it's a, it's a different thing, you know, earned media.

Because of that, I think that, you know, when you do get earned media, you want to use it, you know, Take screenshots of it because you know, articles can disappear.

Uh, newspapers in particular change their CMS every, uh, six to 12 years.

And often they will just rather than port everything into this new content management system, they'll just purge it and start over.

And so, uh, you know, uh, and some people just drop stuff off after a certain period of time.

So, you know, make sure you've got screenshots of it.

You've recorded it, take the link, share it with your social media.

share it with your newsletters and share it with your leads, you know, and your customers.

Your customers are important because there's always churn and there's always people who are like, we've used them for a couple of years.

Maybe we should try someone else just to see if we're using the right company.

They read that article, they get that upswell of feeling good about you.

They're like, we're good with them.

We don't have to shop this year.

And also with leads, you know, I don't know what...

percentage of conversion you have with your leads, but you know, it's not unusual for people to have like 80 % of their leads are just not going to convert and maybe getting this, uh, earned media in front of them and some of them read it and they do convert.

So, you know, that those are just, you know, found sales that weren't going to go your way.

You know, when they were weighing things, they were like, we got to 49%, but we never got over the hump.

We never got over 51 % and decided on them.

And maybe.

this, this earned media will create that, that warmth and that energy and excitement and get them to convert.

Um, I had a local carpet company in New Jersey come to me once and said, we have a budget for a one year PR campaign, one press release a month.

And I said, I don't think this is going to work for you.

You're a local carpet company.

You know, after talking with them, I realized they're not doing anything really majorly different than anybody else.

Um, and I just, didn't know how to crack that nut.

And so they said, well, we've got the budget and we're, you know, it's already been appropriated.

It's just going to be lost.

If we don't give it to you, we're going to give it to someone else.

So I, you know, I worked with them on month five.

We did four releases that generated nothing.

I, I, I, I asked them.

a series of questions, one of which was who is their biggest enemy.

I expected it was like Stan across the street, you know, with his little carpet company, but they were like, No, it's the big box home improvement stores.

And let me tell you why they're so bad for the carpet industry.

And I was like, Ooh, I like this.

And I was like, let's, let's do a release on this.

It was sort of a David versus Goliath approach.

Talking about local carpet companies and how they have to compete against these, you know, billion dollar big box home improvement stores, who often we'll have people install carpets.

Sometimes you've never installed carpets before.

They call a list of people who are approved and licensed in the state for home improvement.

And they say, hey, we've got a carpet install available tomorrow at 11.

And if you're a roofer and you don't have a job tomorrow, maybe you're going to YouTube tonight and you're going to figure out how to do carpet in the morning.

And that happens according to my client.

They said that they are often coming into houses that got carpet six years ago from the big box home improvement stores.

They don't know why it didn't last and they look at it and they said there's nothing wrong with the carpet.

The padding is is is terrible.

The carpets weren't stretched.

The seams are visible and they weren't done properly.

And at that point taking it up and trying to reuse the carpet.

It's sort of a lost cause if you have to redo the padding.

And it's just like, it's just a waste.

And, you know, they said, you know, it's malpractice in a sense.

And so, um, we sent that out.

It got picked up by a dozen trade publications right off the bat.

And first thing I said was, Hey, the people reading these are the carbon companies.

They're not your customers.

And they were like, no, we, this is good.

We want this, you know, uh, what else can we do?

We want this.

So we, we continue to milk that, um, you know, talking about, uh, challenges.

Talking about marketing in particular, turns out that was a what I call a gap in the industry or a blind spot where the trade publications weren't talking about this.

And we were bringing these things to light and they were running with it.

They loved it.

And so at the end of a year, we got them in their local newspaper.

We got them in New Jersey magazine, but we also got them in over 20 trade publications, maybe close to 24.

And so they put all of these clippings, they printed them all out, you know, saved them.

And every time they go into a home, they they give their quote, and then they show them saying, Hey, look, we may not come in and it's the cheapest.

But you know, we've been around, we almost never have to come in and restretch a carpet or replace the carpet because the seam is visible.

You know, we stand on the fact we've been here for x number of years.

All of our employees are salaried.

And here you can see we've been in floor trade weekly.

Here we've been in this publication, this publication, you know, local newspaper, New Jersey magazine.

They said they probably adds about a minute and a half just skimming lightly through the book in their sales presentation.

And they started converting between 14 and 17 % more of those home consultations, just adding that what they call a brag book.

And, you know, that sort of just shows that having that.

as a prop, you know, this urge media really demands a lot of respect by people.

And if someone's looking and saying, Hey, we're spending a lot of money here.

And this guy's a couple hundred dollars more, or, you well within reason, I think we should go with them.

They're industry recognized, they've been in the local paper, you know, they're not a fly by night, I feel very comfortable letting them into my house.

And so, yeah, I mean, it really does help the whole sales conversion.

process using earned media.

Wow.

I had no idea of the credibility that this adds with the earned media as it gets picked up, as it just appears anywhere and I say anywhere and everywhere, but in inappropriate places.

It's not like it's just being skimmed on Twitter.

It's appearing in incredible sources.

that suddenly boost the overall validity credibility of the business and the service and everything else, I didn't realize the extent that it made that difference.

I mean, a lot of people years ago started adding testimonials.

And I think that there's a thing where there's just testimonial fatigue where people don't necessarily trust the testimonials or they've, they've kind of realized that, you know, even the worst of restaurants get a few favorable reviews.

And if you just focus on those, you get a.

distorted perception of the place, but you know, earned media is one of the things that you really can't fake or you can't fake a big cache of it.

And I think having that really just, you know, lends itself to, to really breaking through and really people just having that, that great, um, emotional response and amplification of trust.

Yeah, it's like that, that earned media gives you that almost like that third party neutral sort of credibility or response.

I like how you described, you know, with the testimonial fatigue, I definitely think that's out there.

And you know, businesses, you know, they'll have their customers, they, oh, you can contact so and so, and they'll tell you our experience and that, of course, you're only going to give those if they had a good experience.

But, but.

But really, earned media sounds like it's this neutral third party that goes out there, examines the information, says, yeah, this is real.

This is credible.

And it's a good story, too.

And so it boosts the credibility even more than I ever imagined.

So.

I've never really thought about the relationship between individual businesses and specific media outlets until I was recently reading some of your posts on LinkedIn.

I never thought about that relationship.

What types of outlets should businesses build relationships with?

Because this is like, this is a new concept for me.

So I'm just kind of walking in.

blank slate would love to hear your thoughts.

So, um, uh, when, you know, my clients that have, some have worked with us for more than a decade, uh, they always ask like, Hey, you know, I've interacted with this journalist in the past, you know, would it be a good idea to send them the release, you know, the day before we send it over the wire?

And I'm like, yes, you've developed a little bit of a rapport and continue to, you know, use that relationship and, you build your own little Rolodex and, uh, you know, uh, maybe, maybe you don't have a press release, but you have a really good idea.

Maybe you do a little pitch to them.

Um, you know, uh, the hope is that their inbox isn't so blooded that they don't notice, but also if you're hitting reply to an email, they'll, they'll, they're more likely to notice that because they'll notice that they previously interacted with you.

And so I think that, uh, you know, uh, working relationships that you have that are natural.

build your own Rolodex and continue to lean on that.

And you know, those are powerful and you know, just make them natural, you know, share ideas with them.

Sometimes if you have an idea, but you don't see a way that you can be the focus of it, just sharing a good idea is going to put some money in your savings account with them that hopefully you can call on at a later time when you're pitching them an idea that you are the focus.

stuff.

Yeah, So then it sounds like really you're just, as you're building this relationship, it's not just a relationship, friendship, dialogue.

It's also this idea of helping a journalist, a writer, some type of creator in that respect do their job because it sounds like they're always looking for new things to write.

traditional media isn't doing so great.

So there's a lot of journalists and editors and writers having to do more with less.

And so anything that you can do to sort of give them a little assist will be noted and appreciated later.

So, you know, that, that, you know, that, that, that it really is, we're all human nature.

We like to do business and, you know, help people.

that we have a relationship with.

And so if you build a little bit of rapport and a little bit of a relationship with someone, you're gonna find it's a lot easier to get that media attention later.

We have people all the time that call us and say, we're only looking for local media.

And I always tell them, good, you're about to save a lot of money because you don't need ear leases.

You don't need to pay our PR firm.

This is something you can do.

And basically, if you think about it for a local business, there's probably less than a dozen people in your local market that could potentially write about you.

Find out who they are.

Go to your local paper, who reports on your industry, find out their name or if it's a couple of people, their names, get their email address.

If it's not readily available online, call and ask for it.

These are not celebrities.

You're not breaking a rule asking for an email address.

They're members of...

media and they're members of the community and they want tips and they will provide you their email address.

Like I said, you are competing in the email address arena, but you know, choose your subject carefully.

Like, you local dry cleaner, you know, if they cover environmental issues and they write about local businesses, you know, local dry cleaner and then maybe, you know, environmental.

uh, you know, going green or something like that to get their attention and, uh, and then sort of, uh, have a pitch.

You don't have to write a whole press release.

Um, just a few sentences about, uh, what you're doing that you feel is newsworthy.

Um, you know, uh, and, and, and, you know, what, what you can offer as an example company, um, you know, maybe put a great quote in there because again, a journalist can build a whole article around amazing quote.

Um, so if you have a ready -made quote, you know, uh, work on one and put it in there.

That really stands a really good chance of a journalist hitting the trigger.

If you're lucky enough to have a business magazine, business newspaper, find out who covers businesses there.

Look particular in your industry, get that email address.

If there's weekly papers, you can do the same approach.

If there's magazines, like we have one for...

Baltimore here.

I think I mentioned New Jersey magazine for my client in New Jersey.

You know, do they cover businesses, including your industry?

If so, find out who writes that.

Are there radio and TV programs that occasionally spotlight businesses?

Are there segments that are business spotlights or cover different things or, you know, a talk show that covers certain issues?

If so, find out who the producer or booker of that segment is.

the show and get their email address and do the same thing pitching them.

So you know as you've got your little Rolodex for most people it's probably four to six people but it can be as many as a dozen if you're in a large metro area and then you know just send them ideas.

I tell people try to do it at least quarterly or as you have ideas you know a really good hack is if you know you know maybe you spent you grew up in a different city.

or you're very familiar with another city, create Google alerts and put the names of several, what you would view as competitors in that market and see if any of them get news and if they pop in Google news.

And if they do, it's like, this could work for me.

So you don't go to the journalists and say, hey, in the Southern market, this journalist wrote about this guy.

You don't approach it like that.

They're not going to feel comfortable with that.

It's like stealing an idea.

But what you could say is, hey, In my industry, there's been a lot of people talking about issue here and they say, I feel like I would be a great example to discuss that.

Here's a great quote.

And, you know, here are some things that I've done that are relevant to that.

Look forward to hearing from you and, uh, you know, just send those out naturally, uh, as, as you have ideas, uh, try to strive to do it quarterly.

And what you'll find is you will eventually get picked up.

It might be right off the bat.

It could be, you have to do it for.

six to nine months before you pop.

But the one thing you will notice with local media is it gets easier and easier.

As a journalist writes an article and they're looking to plug in a local business as an example, if you are a good fit, you will come to front of mind.

They'll look in their folders, pull you out and reach out to you.

I have people who've done this and they're like after four years, They said, we rarely send out because we get approached so often by local media that we don't have to.

And it's because they've just developed a rapport and they're at the front of mind of several journalists and writers and they just get called out anytime there's something that they can contribute on.

Wow.

Okay, that, that, I never thought of it in those contexts and just that, that relationship even especially at the local level, just the opportunities that are there to, to both help journalists to build that relationship.

That is, that's incredible.

Wow.

That gives me a lot to think on.

as, and I'm sure for the listener as well, especially if they are not familiar with press releases with this idea of earned media, man, this is giving us a lot to think on.

As we're wrapping up here, any takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with?

I think the biggest one is that so many people feel that PR is something that only the big companies can afford and are really deemed worthy of getting attention.

And you have to remember that journalists are often given the most accolades when they bring to light a new discovery.

They rarely get pats on the shoulder when they cover Google or Microsoft.

But if they brought up a new tool that maybe allows you to use AI to do something that most people do every day, they will get appreciated.

And people sharing with them on social media, sending them emails of accolades.

And most of those are small businesses, entrepreneurs, even mom and pops, even people with a home -based business.

And so for that reason, often being small is an advantage.

because journalists love to get those accolades and you know, if you're very well known and respected, you know, why bother doing an article unless you're doing something that's just really newsworthy.

And so I think that so many people have the imposter syndrome being a small business, you know, and sometimes just being vulnerable and honest with who you are, sharing your story and taking chances with PR.

You can definitely have a great chance of getting some media pick up.

I love that and for everybody listening, definitely begin this process if you haven't already.

Mickey, this has been wonderful.

If people want to know more about you, more about eReleases, where would you like them to go?

go to eReleases .com.

All of our social media is on the lower right.

Feel free to chat, call, or email the office.

We only employ editors, no salespeople, no commissions.

I do have a free video masterclass on how to create a winning PR strategy.

It's a great place for anybody who's considering PR to start.

It's based on the PR campaigns of my most successful clients.

Goes through some of the ones we've already talked about, like creating.

a survey or study, but it's available for free and it's at eReleases .com slash plan, P -L -A -N.

Excellent.

So if you're listening, eReleases .com and then eReleases .plan, we will drop all of those in the show notes.

Make sure you check it out.

Mickey, this has been phenomenal.

I've learned so much and it's just been a fun conversation.

Thank you for joining me today.

very welcome.

Let me hit stop.