Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

It's really time now to get going with no nonsense publicity with Andre airs, let me just give you a little bit of information about Andrea. She's a very successful entrepreneur. She started and sold three companies over the past five years, and she currently owns two. She's the founder of Launch Grow joy dot com, and she helps entrepreneurs launch customer product lines through retail outlets on the media. She's also the founder off soaps to live by dot com, and Andrea inspires people to think positively through her organic soap line. She's a guest author and frequent contributor to Yahoo Small Business entrepreneur dot com Ladies Home Journal Self Shape Design Sponge, which is all three separate things on over 200 other media outlets. She's very prolific. We are so excited to have her here at creative life today. Please welcome Andre Airs Way are so excited to have you here today. Now tell us about your soap line cause that sounds really intriguing and I'll hand you that as well. Tha...

nk you. So I make so excited to be here today. My soap line is organic handcrafted soaps, each stamped with an inspirational ward like love and dream and live. Um, and my goal is to really inspire people whether they're in the shower or using their soaps as their washing the hands, their their hands to just think positively. That's a great idea. Fabulous. Well, I'm gonna get out of your way. Good luck today, and we're really looking forward to getting going. Great. So much so high. Everyone in the studio audience and everyone online as well. I'm so excited to be here today. I have so much awesome inform information to share with everyone. And over the next three days, you're going to get a lot of information about how to get your product in magazines, how to work with bloggers, how to establish yourself as an expert so you can contribute to other media outlets and just so much great info. So I'm super excited to have everyone here today. Um, and I wanted to go a little bit over exactly what we're going to be covering every day. So you all know what what to expect. So today we're going to spend this first session talking about why you and your business need publicity. So why, You know, what are the benefits of being in magazines. Why should you be guest blogging on other sites? And how can that help to grow your business? And after that, our second session, we're gonna be all about crafting your story, because when you reaching out to the media, it's really important to reach out with a story that's relevant to them as a postage is sending out a press release. So speaking of press release, we're gonna be talking about those a lot later. But I'm just curious to know if anybody and Internet audience or anybody in the studio audience, if you've ever written and sent out a press release, you have okay. And what happened that that anything happened from that or it did. It was with a well known jewelry line that I was working with. I and him. We sent it out to all media, not just the, you know, in style and the kind of magazines that you would pick up, but with the business media, and it actually worked really well. But I know things have changed. So, um, I know it. Just in the short last 23 years, things have changed drastically. Yeah, it's definitely I was gonna ask how long ago was that? It was probably four years ago. Okay? All right. So yes. Oh, I'm so glad you brought that out because things have changed dramatically and before. Used to be where you could write a press release or hire someone to write it and just blast it out to the media. And that was basically publicity on. And it seemed really simple. It was somewhat effective at times. But ever since then, things are totally different. And that really doesn't work anymore. And you're going to hear all about why, and and what to do instead in the session. So then the next session, we're going to talk about everything you need to be media ready. So you've probably heard about media kids and press releases and photos and on online media site and all of those different things that you need in order to be ready when the media is actually interested in your products or services. So we're gonna cover all of those things. And lastly, today we're gonna talk about crafting your media plan because as with anything in your business, you probably want to have a plan of how you could move forward. I know. When I first started, I really had no plan. I'll thought I could just write a press release, send it out whenever I want publicity. And as you can imagine, that doesn't really work. It's all about making sure you know how far ahead in events magazines are working on there, their issues. And we're going to talk about that here today. Um, and by the time you leave here today, you're gonna have a really great idea of what your media plan should look like. So tomorrow we're going to talk about getting buzz in magazines. And this is mostly for entrepreneurs that have a product, whether you have on a para line or jewelry like you, Robin, more like your clients and all about how to get featured in their pages. Maybe you want to be an Oprah magazine who doesn't write, um, or maybe Glamour magazine. Or maybe you want to be featured in Entrepreneur magazine for you. Then I know that probably would be a great avenue for you. So we're going to talk about all how to get your products in magazines, and then we're gonna talk about how to actually pitch those magazines because there is a science to it. You know, I like to say that if you consent an email, you can get publicity and you can get your products whether you want them to be on TV or in magazines on Sometimes it really is as simple as you're sending an email. But you do have to be strategic about it. Unknown exactly what you're gonna say in your email what to say in your subject line. So we're going to talk about all all of those best practices. And here I've also reached out to a lot of magazine editors and I asked them, Hey, what what's your pet peeve when entrepreneurs pitch you, you know, can you share with me what that is? So I'm gonna be sharing that with you tomorrow. So you would really get a great idea directly from the magazine editors exactly what they're looking for. And then the second part of the day, we're going to talk about how to build your media list. There's a couple of ways to do it. But before you reach out to magazines or bloggers or journalists, you're going to need to have their contact information. So this session is all about how to get their contact information. And lastly, tomorrow we're going to talk about establishing yourself as an expert through your blawg, and I'm gonna have a guest speaker here on Corbett Bar from Think traffic dot net on, and he's established a couple of successful blog's and businesses. And who's going to share with you all about setting up your blog's what information to have on their how to find your audience. So that way, when the media is interested in you, they're gonna be able to come to your blawg and know exactly what you can offer to them. So that's tomorrow and then the last day. I have some fun things planned. We're going to talk about how to be a guest blogger, and this applies to entrepreneurs that have a product and entrepreneurs that have with services well, basically, any kind of entrepreneur would be would benefit from this. And if you have a product, you probably have seen other products mentioned them. Blog's where they do product reviews or giveaways, so that sex session is all about how to get influential bloggers to write about your products and to share them with their readers, whether it's on their blogged or in social media and the last two sessions, we're going to talk about celebrities and how to get your products featured on celebrities. This is more relevant to those entrepreneurs that have a product that can actually be seen either used or weren't on a celebrity. And lastly, I'm going to share with you some more creative ways that you can get buzz. You know, whether it's from speaking at events like this one or life conference more, creating infographics and getting them published on other blog's. So that's the last day off the course, and I'm just so excited to be here today. Um, and I have to say, You know, when I started, my business is I really had no idea about how to get in magazines or how to get in blog's. I just knew that I wanted to do it. Um, and I figured out along the way it took me a while. I made some expensive mistakes, sometimes costing up to $6000. But it was really great because I learned a lot from that, and that's why I'm here today able to share with you everything I've learned during the last, I don't know, seven or eight years or so that I've had businesses. So how does that sound? Are you guys ready for that? Are you excited on the Internet as well? Awesome. Okay, so I wanted to start off with sharing a quote and the quotes. It's by Wayne Gretzky, and it says you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Um and I wanted to share that because I know a lot of times, you know, we think, Well, I'm I just started my business. How am I going to get publicity? I'm never going to get featured. And it's really easy to start off with a negative attitude about why. Why would they pick me when there's other brands that have millions of dollars to spend on publicity and have a publicist who knows what they're doing? And they are going to get more publicity than me. So I want you to shift your thinking to start thinking about okay, I can do this. I can take the shots. And if I don't, I'm probably gonna be exactly where I am today. Um, so yeah, starting in the shots to get publicity for your business and you can do it. I feel like if I could do it, you guys can do it and everybody on the Internet could do it as well. So that's what I have in store for you over the next three days. So I wanted Teoh. I know some of your a little bit familiar with what I do, but for those of you who don't know a little bit about me, I started my own T shirt company called He's for Change in and I learned a lot along the way. And during the four years that I had my business before I ended up selling it, I was able to get my products featured in over 200 media outlets, and that includes magazines like Ladies Home Journal and Read Book and Self. I was even on TV. There's me on the news in Rhode Island, and it was my first time on TV, really had no idea what I was doing, but it was again a really great learning experience, and I even was able to get my T shirts on a talk show, Um, and the host and the guest or my T shirts. And the exciting thing is that I got a ton of sales from it, and it really helped me to build my brand more than I had before. So that's a little bit more about my T shirt business. And then, after I sold my T shirt business, I ended up launching Launch Grow Joy, which is my business, where I teach entrepreneurs that have a product line, how Teoh together product in magazines, how to get in stores and how to market their products. So those are just some outlets that either I've written guest articles for or that have written about me and mentioned mine, my products and services. And again, if I could do it, you guys can do it to you. When I first started launch Crow Joy, I had no idea how to be a guest blogger. I didn't know how Teoh get featured in any of these places. And again, slowly along the way, I figured it allowed. It is really You can figure this out, and that's why I'm here today to cut you a lot of that time that would take for you to figure it out on your own. And lastly, just this past July, I launched mine brand new businesses, gold soaps to live by, and I launched in July for a reason. And it's because I know that in July and August, all of the magazines are looking for products for holiday gift guides. So I knew that if I don't launch in July, I'm probably going to miss the whole window of opportunity to be featured in this year's holiday gift guide. So I'm happy to say that as soon as I launched I got Prada or I got sample requests from nearly 100 media outlets, some of those just appeared like my featured an organic spell, which I'm going to show you in a couple of minutes. I think Self is about to come out on the newsstands, and I even got a sample request from Oprah magazine, which is I'm sure everyone's help publicity outlets to be in. So this is all fun and exciting off course, but it also could lead to a lot of sales so ever seen since my products or my soaps have been featured sales have been coming in more steadily, and it's a really great way to launch your business because before these magazines came out, some people might have known about my soaps. But with circulation, some of them have over a 1,000,000 readers. You could imagine how many people are now coming to my site and signing up for my newsletter and, um, most importantly, buying Myself sa's well, so that's my publicity side. In terms of me. I feel like I've always been an entrepreneur. I started my first business on the side when I had my first job out of college, and I ended up installing candy machines in my employer's office. So I goto work, refill the candy machines, and and it was just a cool and fun thing to do on the side. And right after that, I ended up getting another job and again on the side. I wrote a book. I was living in New York City at the time, and I wrote a book about how to live healthy and we're to find farmers markets and organic restaurants and so on in New York City, and I ended up selling that girl in 2000 and eight when somebody contacted me and they said, Hey, really want your your old, Not your content, just the girl. Will you sell it to me? So I said, Sure, it was a nice chunk of money, so you know why not? And at that time I had started teas for change. So I thought, You know, I don't really have the time to have to businesses. This is perfect for me to sell it. So I ended up starting teas for change in 2000 and seven, and I had it for four years before I sold it in and 11. And the reason I sold my business is because a lot of entrepreneurs that were starting T shirt businesses would write to me and they would say, Hey, Andrea, how did you get into so many magazines? You know, how did you get in stores? Can you please teach me how so? I ended up writing on e book on how to start a T shirt business, and Dad lied to people hiring me one on one so I couldn't help them with their businesses as well. So that was the basically the start of launch grow joy and why I started it and I've had launched grow joy for almost three years now. But I also really missed having a product, and there's a lot of stuff that has changed since 2000 and 11. Things are moving so fast now, and I knew that I really wanted to have a product again. I wanted to try all of the strategies that I was teaching people about, and I just really love soap. I love branding and I love packaging. So I decided to combine all of those interests and what I had learned since I sold my T shirt business to arm to launch the so business. And I've also spoken on many conferences any venz, the local and national. I've done radio shows and interviews and podcasts and tele seminars. And really, my passion is to work with entrepreneurs and share with them everything that I've learned so that they couldn't cut the learning time and really grow their businesses a lot quicker than they would on their own.