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Creative Ways to Get Buzz

so thanks so much for that. Can't believe this is our last session. It all went by so quickly. Um, I hope you guys got so much out of it. I do have a couple more things I want to share with you and the Internet audience before we head out. So in this last session, we're going to talk about more creative ways to get. But so we talked about magazines and blog's and celebrities. But there are a couple of other things you can dio to really get your business out there, get buzz, get increased awareness and hopefully turn all of that into sales. Are you guys ready for the last session off today on how to get even more buzz? Awesome. Great. So let's talk about I know Harrow has come up a couple of times, and that's a huge website that everyone's using, especially when it comes to publicity. If you don't know anything about it yet, don't worry. I'll tell you exactly what it is and how it works. But I'm going to share with you how to become a source for those. Reporters are looking for sources ...

and experts on Harrow and how you can pitch them to make sure that your email gets open and that you're going to get publicity out of that. After that, we're going to talk a little bit about getting booked on TV. I've been on TV a couple of times. It's been really fun. Even if you don't think you like being on camera. I think it's something that everyone should try because who knows, as you might beside you, like being on camera and you can get a lot of exposure and a really short amount of time. After that, we're going to talk a little bit about the words and how to get an award, either for your business or for one of your products. And lastly, one of my favorite things is infographics, And I was saying before, I've had a lot of success. One of my infographics, the only one that I've ever had, has been re pinned on Pinterest over 50,000 times and has appeared in a time of websites and online publications. And it still continues to drive a ton of traffic to my website, even though that was about a year ago that I released that cell never underestimate the power infographics. They couldn't be a huge impact or could make a huge impact on your business, and I'll show you exactly how you couldn't do that. So let's first talk about how to become a source. So everyone who is trying to get publicity should be signed up for a cycled help. A reporter also known as Harrow. For short, it stands for help a reporter out and this side. Basically, I've been using it for a long time since I had my T shirt business, but it basically started out as a site where reporters would go when they would look for sources. So let's say a reporter for the ABC show in the morning would need someone to talk about wellness and health. They would go to the site, post what they need, and other people who were sources or experts would reply to that and get in touch directly with the reporter who was looking for that. So this is great because it can apply to entrepreneurs that have a product and entrepreneurs that have a service it can apply to bloggers. It can apply to authors and coaches and speakers and everyone who's trying to get publicity for themselves or for their business as well. And I've used this personally with my T shirt business. I've used it with my soap business, and I've used it with Launch Grow joy as well, and I know a ton of clients who have a huge range of businesses that are also using this with great success. But before I talk about how to get on there, I wanted to let you know about a couple of other sites that are really similar to Harrow that you might want to sign up with now. I'm not saying you should be signing up for every single one of these could this. This could get really overwhelming if you're getting a ton of pitches and request every day. But some of these might fit fit your needs a little better than some of the other ones that are here. And the great thing is that a lot of these are much smaller than Harrow. So it's a lot easier to get seen because, for example, let's say Harrow has 100,000 subscribers and I don't know the exact number, but it's probably around that maybe a little less for a little more. These sites maybe only have 10, or 20,000 again, I don't know their traffic, but I was only using those numbers Teoh to sort of put it in perspective. But the noise here is a lot less than all of the noise you would find on Harrow. Off course, it's all good noise, but it's a lot easier to stand out on some of these. So I wanted to share these with you so you can have an idea that there are other options out there when it's a little easier to get seen. So maybe you might want to start out on some of these sites first to get a little practice, see what people are responding. Teoh, before you go out on hair or you couldn't start out on Harrow right away. So basically, what happens with help a reporter, This is their page on their website, where if you're a reporter, you can go over there and submit a query. So for me, for example, sometimes I act as a reporter when I need to interview an entrepreneur, so I'll go on Harrow and say, I'm looking to talk to entrepreneurs that have used monthly subscription boxes because I'm writing an article on the effectiveness of monthly subscription boxes. And if you ve put your product in there, I'd love to talk to you, right? So I'm a source there. Most of you are not aroma of reporter there. Most of you are gonna fall into this other category of sources. And I'm also a source on Harrow as well. But sometimes I do use it as a reporter when I'm looking for content or on what I'm looking to talkto entrepreneurs for specific questions. So once a reporter goes on there, all of the query or the entire corps that they submit is going to go to the sources, which is everyone here. So you're going to go toe Harrow, go to the sources page and click on Sign Up today, and that's going to take you to right here to this box where you can put in some information and what happens after that. You're going to start receiving emails and you can choose the categories that you want to receive. Emails in some categories are things like lifestyle or business or health and fitness, or there's a general category as well. So you can choose. Do you want to receive queries from one category? Do you want to receive quarries from more than one category? And this is all totally free. You don't have to pay for it. And journalists are really coming to you directly. I think they do offer a paid subscription plan where you pay a monthly fee and you can get the query sooner. Or Or maybe you can set up a profile in there to direct people directly or to direct reporters directly to that. But you can do this totally free, and it works really well. So once you sign up for that, you're gonna be getting about three emails per day, usually in the morning, midday and in the afternoon. And the email is gonna look something like this. It's gonna have about sometimes 100 of these queries. Sometimes it might have maybe 20 or 30 but each query is set up where it's telling you who's looking for it and where they are from what their business is. It talks about the category that they're looking for, and it doesn't give you their direct email address. It used to be at one time when they first started, they used to give you the reporters direct email address. But I think a lot of people were using that email address in the wrong way, so they decided to put this year. So if you want to reply to this reporter, this is the email address that you're gonna have to you. So you never really get access to their email address unless they actually write back to you from Dad address. And then here, This is the media outlet that they're looking for and most importantly, is the deadline. So this is something that you're gonna need to pay a lot of attention to because what happens a lot of times with Harrow is that their deadlines are really, really tight. So you might get something in the morning or the deadline is in the afternoon or the evening. So you're gonna have to decide. Is this something that I can commit to doing every morning in order to meet their deadline? And some deadlines are a few days out. But I know the usually don't post things that have a deadline that's a month away, so just know that if you are going to be pitching to Harrow, their deadlines are super super tight. Sometimes that day, sometimes within 24 hours, sometimes a few days. But I don't think they ever really go past a few days. So I know that there and another really important thing to pay attention to is the query. So this is where they tell you exactly what it is that they're looking for, so you'll see here. This is a gift giving website. They tell you what they dio and they're looking sometimes here, so they'll give you their email address and their website. I still would recommend pitching to the general email or to the email address that they put up there instead of emailing them directly. It's still going to get to them, but this is super important to read, because this is where you know exactly what they're looking for. And if you don't pitch on topic, your email is going to get the lead it and you're never gonna hear from them. So you have to read this really carefully and Onley give the mother looking for and I know as a reporter on the other side When I put out a query, I usually get at least 100 pitches if it's something General, if it's something more specific, like I'm looking for entrepreneurs that have participated in a monthly subscription box, usually about maybe 10 or 15 people or so respond, which is still a lot by when I'm putting something more general like I'm looking, talked to talk to entrepreneurs or I'm looking to talk to moms or something more general. It's usually at least 100 queries and 100 people right again. So you could imagine has a reporter who he's trying to get their source. You're gonna have to do a good job of having a subject line that captures their attention and having an email pitch that short. That's to the point, and that gets directly to what they're looking for. Here's another example. It's really similar. We were talking about gift bags before, and I think someone mentioned give bags on herro. But another thing they do, and I think they send this out once a week or maybe twice a week, so not three times a day like you do with the other emails. But they are looking for people that have physical products or coupons or gift certificates or things like that to submit for different events. So this is for one for the type aim parent conference, I think, Um and they're telling you they're looking for 75 pieces to be inserted to gift bags. They're giving you their deadline. So if you have a product, you might also want to subscribe. Teoh, the gift bag requests I've Personally, I was actually launching when you think and I had a party for it where a lot of business women entrepreneurs were looking were coming. It was about 100 of them, so I wanted to do give bags. I went on here and I requested give that gift bags from Ivan so it could be smaller events. It could be a huge conference like this one. It could be something even bigger. Sometimes you find celebrity events in there, so the type of events you'll see totally, very and again you're gonna have to read the query to see if it's gonna make sense to you. And if you want to send 75 pieces of your product, sometimes ask for 200. Sometimes they ask for only 30 or maybe 10 so really carefully and make sure it's a good fit before you actually pitch Haro etcetera. Is there a fee to join these sites, or is it just signing up? There is no fee. You can sign up for free. They do have options where you could upgrade your membership, and I think it your queries a little faster and do a couple of other things. But you don't need to pay for that. You couldn't do the free option. And if you feel like you want a little bit more from them, then you couldn't join for the upgraded option. But totally free. Yeah, so let's talk about how to pitch them. We've talked a lot about pitching, but if you've been paying attention to me, pitching is providing value. And I know I was looking for the Six Peas, and I was looking for something that starts with P. But I think providing value instead of pitching is something that starts with P. So any time I say pitch, think about provide value. So what are some tips that you could use to get your email seen? Imagine getting 100 emails all on the same topic. How is your email gonna stand out? So the first way is going to stand out is if you Onley respond to the queries that are relevant to you. I can tell you how many times I'll be posting on Harrow asking for a certain type of entrepreneur. And I'll say, I'm looking for entrepreneurs that have a consumer product line and people will pitch me and they'll say, Hey, I have an app. I think it would be a great fit. Well, I'm not asking for app, so you know it if you could just and I know a lot of reporters feel the same way on Harrow because so many people subscribe there. So please just make sure you're pitching on topic and answering their relevant questions. So if they're looking for on Entrepreneur that just launched their business a month ago and you've been in business for a year, probably not a good fit. Or sometimes I think, seen things were, they're looking for someone that started a business under $1000. So if you qualify there regardless of what type of business you have, if you started with under $1000. That would be a great foot. So this is a really great avenue for you to sort of think outside the box and not only just picture products, but also put yourself as an entrepreneur because a lot of these are queries about entrepreneurs and businesses and places like CNN Go on there and recourse sources The New York Times I've seen so some really big outlets are on their looking for entrepreneurs just like you, but not necessarily to review our products. So the first way to really get their attention, and to is to make the subject line interesting. So again, you can ask them a question in the subject line or what I like to say so that they know I'm responding to their hair. A query. I'll mention Harrow in the subject line, so I'll say something like your hair a request. So that way they know I'm coming specifically from there, and then I'll ask them a question or I'll say something that's relevant as to why they would want to open it and then just like everything else, and make sure to keep it short if they're asking for an entrepreneur that started a business under $ they're saying, Give me one tip that you can share with my audience about what do you think contributed to your success? And if you send them an entire press release and right about all of your successes and everything else, that's more than just one tip. And again, they're not going to read your email because you're not giving them while they're looking for. So please be really careful with exactly what it is that they're asking for an Onley pitch, that specific thing. And I know it's easy to come up with 20 things that are making your successful, but they're they're only asking for one. They probably only want one from you and again answer only what they were asking for. If they're asking for your experience at a trade show, don't talk about your experience with getting an Oprah magazine right, totally relevant and not something that they're looking for. And usually what I like to do is to respond before their deadline, and what happens a lot is, though the email comes out with the request and ah, 100 people right right away to that query. But what I like to do is to wait about an hour or so After that email comes out because that way they have a little bit more time to go through some of the other emails. Now, sometimes I think there is an advantage to responding right away because they could get to your email right away. And let's say maybe they're only looking for five sources and people email them and they've got their five sources in two minutes Any time when email comes in. After those first the 1st 2 minutes, they're probably not going to look at it. So I would play around. I've done it both where I wait about an hour before I send something or ascended right away. And a lot of times I dio again more of a response when I send something a little bit after the email comes out and I've done this personally to sometimes I'll put everything in a folder and I'll wait about a day so that all of the responses come in. But sometimes, if a email response comes in about an hour to later, it's not as crowded as all of the other responses that came in right away. So a lot of times I look at that first and then I'll put it in the folder. So when I come across it again, um, I'm a little bit more familiar with it. So there's advantages in this advantages to doing both. I wouldn't say there's a right way and a wrong way of doing it, but I would try and see what what works best for you. Yeah. Then where you gonna ask? Do you find that if you are featured that the we'll let you know if you have been or do you have to, then track them down and monitor it, just in case you are featured? Yeah, a lot of times they'll write back and they'll say Thank you. We plan on including it, but no other information. Sometimes they won't right back at all, and you'll get a Google alert with that feature eso. Sometimes that's a good way to know that most of the time I think they will right back, and sometimes they might have another question, maybe a follow up question or something like that. So usually I do hear back from them and they'll tell me when it's gonna be featured. But if it doesn't, Google alerts would be a good way to do it. But I would assume if you signed something out and you don't hear anything back, I think that's a good sign that it's probably not gonna happen just because they have 100 or 200 other emails and they can't reply back to everyone. So if you don't hear anything back, this is the one case where I don't recommend following up because it really means that they were not interested. They deleted your email and they got all of the sources that they need, because it's a lot easier for them to go through 100 emails, get the five that they need and just delete everything else. So this is not a case where you could follow up a week later and say, Hey, did you get my query that I sent you last week from heros? So that's their way past that because their deadline was five days ago. So this is much more different and move so much faster than TV does or radio or newspapers or anything else because they really do work on a tight that line and they're looking for something right then and there. So if you are featured, which would be really great if your email stands out. If your subject line got them to open it, you do want to thank them and again put it on your website shirt. All of the things that we talked about that we do with some over other publicity mentions. You want to do the same exact thing with anything that you get from Harrow because they do appreciate the extra traffic. And again, sometimes they let you know, sometimes most of the time they won't let you know. But next time, if you do, thank thank them and take the time to do that next time they need a similar source for a similar story, they might come to you first before posting on Harrow because they know that you're reliable. You've already helped them out before, and they know if they post on Harrow, they're going to get 100 responses. So if you could make their job easier and work with them and give them what they need right away, and that's happened to me, I have quite a few reporters that come to me and to a couple of other sources before they post on Harrow. And if they get everything that they need from eyes, then they're not gonna go had imposed there. So it's really nice to thank them if you're featured and again, that can really go a long way. So, um, I highly would recommend for anyone and everyone to sign up for this. I know sometimes getting three emails a day and looking through 60 different requests can get overwhelming. So in that case, maybe you could decide. OK, I'm only going to read their emails on Wednesdays. No, I'm only going to read their afternoon emails when I have some downtime, so you don't have to read every single one of them, although you're probably missing out on some queries. But that's fine, because the point here is not to add more overwhelmed to your business and to feel like you have to drop everything to answer this one query. But the point here is to get a little more exposure to some avenues that you might not have been thinking about and really to get directly into their inbox when they're asking for something that they need. And they really do take all of the guesswork out of out of the query because I'm Micah editorial calendar where they're telling you were doing a wellness issue where there is a lot of things that can be wrapped up in wellness. But here they're telling you exactly what it is that they need. So I would say to find the balance, I wouldn't rely on this as your only way of getting publicity again because you are competing with a ton of other people that are emailing at the same time for the exact same reason. So it should be a part of your strategy by not your only strategy when it comes to getting publicity. So, um, if you guys have any questions about this, I'd love to answer them. Otherwise, we could move on. Teoh talk about how to get booked on TV, and I know sometimes there are opportunities to get booked on TV from Harrow as well. Um, but are there any questions on the Internet or how long have you been using hero? Have you used it for a while or I have used the since I had my T shirt business. I think he was maybe around 2000 and eight when they were just launching, um, or yeah, around that time. So a while. And do you use it for you just kind of signed up for the areas that you are interested in. So you constantly get emails and you get to choose What if you want to submit anything. Is that kind of so what I've done is this is actually one of the tasks that I have passed on to my assistant. So every day she subscribes to this. She looks, reads every single one of those queries, and by now, she I've been working with her for almost two years. So she knows my business. She knows exactly what I need. So if she finds something that is relevant to me, she'll pass it on to me. So, ah, lot of times people ask me, Well, what should I have an assistant do? I don't know. This is really a great thing that you can have your assistant do because they can filter out those emails. But before I was working with her, yeah, I was reading through them every day looking to see if there's anything but again. I would set aside time every day instead of getting their email, looking through everything, interrupting my work flow and answering the queries. I'm so I just had set aside about half a hour a day until I could no longer do that much time but again to see what works for you. Sometimes people like to be interrupted because it breaks down there day. Sometimes they want to work straight through when they file these away or they give them to their assistance. So but I've been using it for a while, and I've been quote quoted, and quite a few things from it and personally as a reporter. Technically, I'm not a reporter, but I do need to interview people and to get sources. It's been that's where I get a lot of my content from. So I know a lot of people are using it for the same reasons as well. Yeah, I use it to I think I've used it for a few months, and I think I saw yours when you wouldn't you mention the thing about the this description, Bob, I guess I recently Yeah, yeah, yeah great. Yeah, And the interesting thing is that you can. A lot of other things can come from that as well, so don't think that it's just the publicity mentioned that ends right there. Sometimes someone else, maybe a TV show might see you being quoted, and they might be looking for the same thing. So it really has a huge impact if you are featured in a major more major or even some of the smaller sites as well, just like publicity does.