Lessons

Lesson Info

Press Releases: Distribution & Leveraging

So now let's talk a little bit about press releases I know we talked about it in our last session but I wanted to talk a little bit more about it because I know it's a topic that when people think about publicity they automatically think about a press release so a press release by definition is unofficial statement issued two newspapers giving information on a particular matter so press releases started out I should being a thing for newspapers because newspapers cover things that are newsworthy in a lot more ways than a magazine would matt newspapers are all about ok what's going on right now what do our residents need to know? What do people need to read about what are they interested in or as magazines are not really that I mean they love newsworthy stories but it's not with the same urgency that newspapers air actually writing about them so press releases can work really great for a newspaper if you have something that's actually newsworthy but not so much for a magazine so that's ...

why I focus on press releases a little bit but there are ways when they couldn't really do work really well so I mentioned this before but there's two ways to distribute er press releases you can send that yourself fax I can't believe I put it in there but some people still do send it by fax and I did read from a couple of editors that they like the facts because they don't have to print every anything out, and they just go once a week to their fax machine look through all of the facts is that come in and the ones that are relevant they take to their weekly meeting and the ones that are not they just put in the trash, so I'm not a big fan of faxing, but if you find that an editor loves to get pitches by fax, then go ahead and do it, but otherwise I would just stick to email and and sending it out that way, or you could use a pr distribution service, and what they do is that they will take your press release and they have relationships with aa lot of different sites, and they'll put your press release on those sites and then also editors sign up to get press releases because it helps them to do their research a little quicker if they could just look at all the press releases that are coming in that day. So that's a great thing to get your press release out there too, although not so effective in terms of getting your products mentioned. So I put this on a slide before, but I wanted to talk about it again because this happens all of the time and it's, so important to sort of let go of this mentality where you launch a product, you're super excited about it, you write a press release or you hire someone to write it because maybe you don't like to write and then you distributed and then you keep waiting and waiting and waiting for the media to come to you, and usually they're not going to come to you, so you're just going to be waiting and waiting until you decide to write the next press release when something else happens in your business and this is used to work a long time ago, it does not work anymore, so when you're launching a new product that's not newsworthy, so or actually yes. So if you're launching a product that's not newsworthy, so a piece of jewelry is not really then use or the there's nothing that people have to know about just because you launched a new business with jewelry or a soap line it's not really newsworthy, but if you have a product that has maybe is using a little known little known technology or has a brand new ingredient that a lot of other product don't don't have or you find a new way to use a product and tio to use it in a different way than that's definitely newsworthy it's something that is worthy of a press release in a lot of ways, because it's a press releases are there to announce the product to the price something that's newsworthy. So in thes cases and a couple of other ones, it can be really, really effective. I know a lot of companies that are now using kickstarter to launch their products, and once they get funded, you know, it could be a really cool product that is totally innovative, nothing like it out on the market. Once they get funded, they'll go ahead and announce that to the press because it is newsworthy, you know, this product didn't exist before they got one hundred thousand dollars to do it from people that back them on kickstarter, and that could really make for a great story, but if you just have a product, you know, like a clothing item or something like that it's not necessarily newsworthy, but it could still have a great story. You just have to approach the pitch in a totally different way terminations to what might be appropriate far fig newton, who was saying in the chat room earlier today, maybe when you add an employee, maybe when you land a new client, there was a good opportunity, particularly small business. Do you agree with that? Or do you think there are some things that just aren't going to be of any interest to anybody? Yeah, I don't think adding a new employee is newsworthy, for example, to a magazine because let's say you saw the celebrity I suppose I'm exactly right yeah, I mean, if it's someone like let's say the head of google decides to work for your small business that's kind of newsworthy, right? But if you just hire a new lawyer on your staff or or someone who so you know is just coming on and they're just for starting, it might be newsworthy for you obviously because you're growing your team and that's awesome and it's really great for you, but a newspaper might not really care about that because it doesn't help their readers in any way doesn't really pertain to them. So I think and I get these pitches all the time one a magazine hire someone you or they have a new employee or something like that and I'm not going to really announced to my readers that this company has a new employee, so if you think about if there's a reason for a magazine or a newspaper to announce that then it's newsworthy but just because you're doing it doesn't mean it's important to them and it's totally important to you obviously otherwise he wouldn't be doing it but not so much to a media outlet yes business journal because when l a business journal when I was hired by the jewelry company I worked for down in los angeles, they did a release about it. And it was in the business journal, but that's a lot smaller and it's very business related, and it was relevant. So maybe in something like that, it would be much more relevant. Yes, total? Yeah, totally. I'm glad you said that because there are those local publications, especially if it's a new employee, that that's all they write about they and it's newsworthy to them when someone is a lot, you know, hiring any employees but your local newspaper that targets consumers and everyday people it's not going to be newsworthy to them. So if you can find an outlet that would appreciate knowing about it because that's all they write about then totally but a magazine, unless it's a business magazine or something like that, they wouldn't really it wouldn't really impact them or their readers too much. Or if you have a specific thing that sets you apart like imes, I'm hiring new employees, and every single one we work with is going to be stay at home moms that want to at additional income or like they have, you know, differently, able their special needs, and this is what we're adding, adding value kind of thing rather than yes, suffer standard employees. Yeah that that would be interesting yeah that's interesting and that's newsworthy and I think a community especially if you're targeting a local community newspaper or something like that or a tv station they love stories where their communities involved so in that case it would totally be appropriate yeah yeah so you sort of have to wait it out and see you know it doesn't make sense is in use or the to them or is it just newsworthy to me um yeah and if it's newsworthy to them go ahead and send it if it's just to you it might not me it plans to send it out and maybe that's something that's reserved for social media you know like hey let's we just joined our team yes yeah you know maybe that's the outlet for it great yeah and it's great for a block post where you introduce a new team member in your blogged because your audience wants to know about that you know it's totally relevant to you when your business so in that case definitely and um the jewelry dissenters that I work with with a new collection that they come out with you know because it's a least three at least a minimum of three times a year to come out with a new collection but especially january seems to be like the big you know, announcement of the new collection and the inspirations behind it and all of that um it's still important to announce that that is it still relevant to send out a press release and that are just do it on the facebook and do it on, you know, um, an email last tio their already existing community? Yeah, you know, I think in that case, that something where the trade magazines would be super interested in because their audience are buyers off stores and jewelry stores and retail stores, so it's totally right, really appropriate for them because their readers are always looking for new product, so if you have a new product, they're probably going to want to know about it. If it's a consumer magazine where they're always expecting you to have new stuff, I think you can still send it, but more as a thing that they can look at if they have more information, as opposed to just the press release itself. Because, again, if you're just sending out your press release to a consumer magazine that says we launch something new, it doesn't really answer the question what's in it for them. But if you say, hey, I know you're probably working on this type of story, and you looking for products that are new and innovative, we just launched this new product you see below our press release if you'd like more information or to request sample so there's a couple of ways to do it, and I'm so glad you guys are asking this but there's some ways to do it where it is really appropriate to launch something new, but for example, I get pitched all the time when someone's launching a new product and that's not really relevant to me. But if someone's launching a new book for entrepreneurs, I'd love to know about it because I want to share that with my audience, who are entrepreneurs, and they always want to read the latest thing, so it just depends on how relevant it is to the outlet or just to you. Yeah, I think yes, I'm glad you brought that up, so press releases are great for the reasons we just talked about, but they're also great, as I mentioned before, one an editor request more information a lot of times there are going to want it in the form of a press release and most importantly want you want to get links back to your website, so these links are so important because the more links you have pointing back to your site, the higher google and other search engines are going to show your company when people are searching for that key word, so they're really, really important I don't want to dismiss press releases at all. Because they do serve a lot of great purposes but it just shouldn't be your main approach when you are reaching out to publicist or bloggers or or out to the media it's more like a second everything that they can request or you could use it for other reasons yes, but it's great for the ceo so are their sites on the internet that you would submit to your press release two and then they show it on their site which gives a link back to your side is that sort of how it works? Yes that's sort of how it works let me see fight yep I will be talking about that in just a second so yeah, there are sites here that where you could totally just upload your press release and they'll send it out to everyone and I'll get to that in just a second. So I'm glad you asked that is it also possible to send out a press release? Maybe after the fact it doesn't have to be pretty poignant to what you're actually announcing. So let's say hypothetically I didn't have a press release for the start of my company, which is kind of a big deal can I can I really set now after it's been a little while or should I you know, just chalk it up to a loss and do it the next time something important I mean, I think it depends if their release or the launch of the new company's newsworthy to someone um then you can definitely do it a little later I wouldn't wait a few months maybe just a couple of weeks because press releases usually do have a date associated with them and if you're you launched your company in january and it's now april and you're sending out the press release then three months later is sort of has lost the newsworthy aspect s o u do you wantto be mindful of the timing of it on dh not wait too long? Because if you wait too long that too announced that after a few months, then that's not really news worth and use a word that might offer that that link back to your site so it would help with the ceo it might not be newsworthy. You might not get a mention on a blogger, a magazine or anything like that yeah, but it is on the internet and it does probably help you out a little bit more in terms of those back links coming back. So right. And in that case, you know, maybe you could just change the date on changed the wording right a little bit to reflect the new date, but yeah, and you know, when you put something on the internet in terms of a press release the date isn't I mean it's important but it's not going to be the thing that's going to give you a ceo help so it's important when someone's reading it but for a ceo purposes that they doesn't really matter because it's still out there so yeah you khun leave the day it would change the date but if you're using the press release tio get media attention that should be it should be timely yes yeah so in terms of a press release format and I'm not going to give you an example here because you couldn't just really go online and google press release format or what does a press relief look like and you can get a ton of different ideas but it's pretty simple just has a headline that's really sure that just summarizes what it is that you're trying to release out there and then it has a little summary paragraph that has the main point of what you trying to say? So if you hired a new employee or if you launched a new jewelry line or something like that or a new product, then this is where that would go in the summary paragraph and then you're gonna have the location and date so this is really important especially for local businesses because they love to write about local stuff that's go or local media because they love to write about local stuff that's going on so to them, the location is going to be really important, and the date is going to be really important to the search and just not so much, but to the people that are actually reading it and wanting to write about you, they're going to they're going to care because if it's a business that's located in their town, they're probably going to write about it over a business that's located and another city or state. Um, and then after that, you're gonna have the body so the body is goingto go into exactly what you're trying to do again. It's going to talk, maybe have a quote or two from you? Why you're doing this again, sharing your story this is exactly where all of that information should go in here on dh then lastly, you're going tohave your company information. So why did you start this? Who are you? What experience did you have previously and contact details? So if someone thus find your press release online as opposed to you sending its thin via email, they're going to want to know if they're interested who they can contact for more information or for a product sample, or maybe for all for a quote, and this is pretty simple theirs. Not too much that goes into a press release because there really is one standard way to do it and everyone that's press releases that way and the format seems to work because editors know exactly where to go if they want to know why city the press release was in, they go to the first part of it if they want to get in touch with you, they'll go to the bottom so you do want to follow this format because it's just this is what they're used to they know exactly where to go for that information, but if you want a distributor press release, here are a couple of sites some of them you have to pay for some of them are free and some of them offer both free and paid services and I think for all of these I'm pretty sure you have to pay if you want if you want anything more advanced theun their basic features but if you google free press release distribution, you're going to get a ton of different sites that are offering this for free as well. But again, sometimes you do get what you paid for, so if you're paying for something excision or pr web, you're going to get a lot more links back to your side you're going to get a lot more visibility to places that are relevant as opposed to if you were just going tio aside that, how did distribution for free, where they might not be as relevant? So, again, the tradeoff between paying for something that's really high quality, or saving money, and getting something that might or might not be working? And here is actually from pr web, and I wanted to put this out there, because now what how what's happening is that a lot of times, all of these press relations released distribution sites, they could really help you get your press release out there more than before, before they used used to just upload your press release, and they would just send it to the editors and box. But what's happening now is that you can actually just upload it, and it goes to their site. It goes to editors, they can also help you distributed tio, google and yahoo. So your content come be seen on those sites, and they couldn't even let you track it, so they even give you statistics of who opened it. How many people opened it? Where were they located? So you can get pretty fancy here with seeing where your press releases is reaching out to. So this is something we obviously are going to have to pay for if you're using a free distribution site, you're probably not going to get any of these features so again keep that in mind if you want to distribute a press release, this is just some basic info to get you guys going and to get you start thinking about press releases so now let's talk about okay, now that you have all of these press mentions, which we're going to talk about all day tomorrow and friday, why do you actually do with them? How do you translate that into sales? Because it's, great to have all of these links back to your site and all of the magazine mentions, but if that doesn't translate into sales that's not so great for you because the whole reason you're doing this is a lot of times to get more sales, so the more media coverage you're going to get, the more media will want to feature you. So that's, why it's super important to leverage those press mentioned so by leveraging what I mean by that is by taking something and repurpose ing it into something else or for a different reason and a lot of times that's how you get the sail sometimes, yes, people will come to your site from seeing maybe a product review or something like that and they might buy, but again, if you remember what I was saying before is that they're going to need to see, on average, off seven times before they're actually going to buy something from yourself, the more you could get this media mentions out there for other people to see the more success you're going tohave with us. So one way, tio, leverage your media mentions is to have an in the news section on your website, so you'll hear, see here, this is my soaps company, and I have in my top menu bar press, so this is right list all of my recent press, both magazines and online for my launch grow joy business. I have my speaking engagements and guess block post that road and things that I was quoted on, but again, it's a press section dedicated just to this and believe it or not, people do look at this because they want to know that your company is trustworthy and that they can buy from you, especially because they can walk into your store and talk to you personally. So if they see this, and if they see that other people are writing about you, they're probably going to buy from me. So if they go to a self company that has none of this, or they come to my company, where they have this or where I have this think about who are they more likely to buy from and it's, probably me, hopefully because I have a lot more press mentions and other people are writing about me and they trust me that I'm actually alleged legitimate business that's going to deliver on my promise so another thing you can do is you can share it on social media so every time I get a press mention I will mention it on my facebook page I'll tag them just so they know that I'm supporting them as well and if my products were relevant to them than their magazine would probably be relevant to my readers as well. So this is a great way to just support them and show them that you know, I acknowledge it is one of one way of saying thank you to them and sending some traffic back to to them so you can do this on facebook you could do it on instagram twitter, pinterest all of the social media networks out there you can let people know that they promoted you and they're going to appreciate its too and your customers are going toe be trusting you even more because it that whole social proof think if other people are believing in you then they're going to have another reason to believe in your company and your products as well and another thing that you can do is you can share it on your product pages and I think this is from l l bean dot com on dh they get a ton of press mentions and what they do here is they have a note there that says as seen and parents magazine, and this is right on the product page where people are deciding if they're going to add your product to their bag, and if they see that this product was already mentioned again, they trust him more and they're more likely to buy from you. And this is how you can convert people that are just browsing and two people that are actually buying. So a lot of times the press mentions my not direct or might not result in direct sales in terms ofthe someone season in a magazine, they go buy it, but if they come to your site and they see that you have all of this press behind you, then that's going to translate into some more sales, as opposed to if you didn't have this at all. So everyone should have this on their site if your products were mentioned, or your services or your courses or anything like that. The more of this you can put on your product page is the more people are actually going to buy from your from your website and a couple other ways you can also mention it in your newsletter and again. They're going to love the extra attention that you're giving to them and their magazine, or their blogged and it's going to send people to their site or to their magazine, but your audience again if they haven't bought from you, this is another reason to give them to buy, to actually buy from me because someone else is buying from you or someone else is endorsing you and a lot of ways, and they're going to be more likely to buy. And lastly, just let everyone who you're affiliated with. No, and I'm not saying send an email out to all of your retail of partners every time you get a press mention, because if you get a lot of those, then it's going to be really overwhelming and again it's more about you than it is about them, right? Because it's not really that relevant to them every time you get a press mention. But if you send out let's, say your month e newsletter to your retailers than maybe in your newsletter, you can say, you know, by the way, we were also just mentioned an x y z magazine and ask them if they want a copy of it, or maybe they might want to print out to put next to your product. In their store on the same thing if you have affiliates or marketing partners or even investors they love to know this stuff because they know they love to work with companies that are being seen that have a lot of exposure and this is a great way to build your credibility and make or get people to trust you and to believe in what you're doing so just a couple of more ways there and lastly I wantto I have another thing that I want to leave you with for this session is that publicity doesn't always result in immediate sales, but if you love her do the what the right way it could result in direct sale. So aa lot of times what happens is that is that impatience thing where if a product was featured or if you spoke at an event or you wrote a guest block for someone you want a lot of reasons or a lot of why you do it is because you want that increasing sales right away, but sometimes people don't buy right away. They need to see you seven times on average before they're actually going to buy, so keep in mind that it doesn't always result in sales I get people all the time saying, you know, I was just featured on this block and I have no sales from it does that mean that I shouldn't be working with bloggers I know that's now what it means, it just means that it's not always an immediate result like some other things might be maybe like when he sent out your newsletter and you ask people to buy something aa lot of times they buy it because they already know who you are, but a lot of times in the media it's the first time they've come across you and they're going to need to be around a few more times before they could make up their mind and actually buy something. So if you get a media mention and you don't always see sales, just be patient and if you do all the right things, if you put it up on your site, if you like people know about it, if you share it on social media, that could definitely result in sales down the line, so he was coming up. I love that it's um, it's that patients again like seven times it's really good to hear that so not to give up its true question way had a designer who at valentine's day there was an article written about her really great article about love and she had moved to be with her now husband and she was on broadway and she started her jewelry line, so it was this lovely story of that she moved for love and it was valentine's day and and the article came out and she had put on her facebook and put on her website and done those things in it it was, you know, it was relevant at that time and so it was really interesting is I really felt that she needed tio revisit that and not just have it go away and not just posted that one time what was interesting few months later she posted it again and kind of circulated it and a local news station I saw it and she ended up being interviewed by this local news station and then in arden another article was written you know, it was just kind of it kept living. How much can you do that where you take? I mean, how relevant is it and for how long we need to have an article are an editorial? Yeah, I think it really depends. I think if it's something that you got a year ago it's probably not really relevant now, but if it was a huge mention like maybe let's say you were quoted in the new york times that's something that you always want to put out there so it just depends on how big the outlet is unfortunately in order for you to do that and how trust that they are because a mention and oprah magazine or in the new york times is going to go away long a much longer way than a mention like let's say in time out new york or a local magazine so it just really depends on the weight of that magazine or the outlet and how how much influence they have but I think you know if it's something smaller than you could definitely talk about it for a few months and then just sort of retire it and you're in the news or in your press page but if it's something more major you should definitely have it at the bottom of your site or everyone could see it maybe you could have it in every newsletter where you could say something like as seen in I know from my sight my launch grow joy and for soaps to live by I have, um a little thing at the bottom of my site that says as seen and done it has some of my major major media mentions so that you couldn't leverage really any any time um and in terms of social media I would say just do it for a couple of months maybe two, three months or so and then you could just focus on the more recent things that are coming in but yeah that's great and that just goes to show you that the more press you get, the more you're going to get and a lot more is going to come from everything else you've been doing before yeah, I think to that scenario the topic of love you know is is your round and it's universal never know if that would have been you know, five tips on how to you know, make your wife happy at valentine's day that sort of would die a lot earlier because it's just five tips for valentine's day but love people love hearing about love so you could hear about that in january or november it's true and interestingly enough, I think love is the number one hashtag on instagram so if you can do something with that it could really go a long way yeah, well, I've been having a fascinating chat with alicia his chance wait post I'd love to hear so some closing thoughts from massachusetts today I mean your shared with this in the very beginning of the show what you're hoping to get from today and the greatest here's you know, some some maybe your home on this today when the light bulb went off you thinking yes, this is something I can really a treat let's start with them yeah, I mean at least for me I had that ah ha moment like in your teaser when you were talking about what we're going to be doing for the rest so that the workshop but I think for me I've been focusing so much on how to directly speak to my future customers what do I do to find them where I never really thought about how can I indirectly find them through blog's and magazines who cater to them already and so this has just opened up my mind and how to kind of not really speak to them directly but sort of an indirect way which I think kind of really expands my possibilities that way yeah that's great to hear and you're right they've already done off all the legwork for you because they found him for you you know you just have to get in front of them now so yeah, I'm glad you got that out of today's yeah for me um a lot of it is just like um reenergizing because it can get very discouraged and when you don't hear back and you don't understand why and the's tips have kind of show me a little bit of what I was doing wrong and maybe howto change it a bit don't always try to stick with something that may not be working on and so I think for me is just kind of taking it all and organizing it in such a way that I can just kind of be more effective with how I'm pitching to magazines and just reenergize and say ok, get back on yeah and I think that's such a great point too because sometimes I think if you keep doing something and you're just not getting anything back that's either a sign that you're not doing it the right way that speaks to them or to sign that your product needs to change. So the no is such great feedback to because it couldn't really give you insight into ok. Is this working? Or I thought I had this right by maybe I need to think about it in a different in a different way. So the no is such a great feedback just as much as the yes is yeah, I really liked your slide that said, um they're not gonna come and find you. You have to go and get them. It's a good reminder. Um, I think that was the best thing I took away from today. Great. Great. So now do you feel ready to go find them almost more ready? Okay, yeah. I feel like I've gotten so many nuggets of great information not only for my business, but also for the clients that I have, um and you know that their persistence, the patients, the seven times I think that just almost bring stuff so much relief that it takes a client or an editor, even a customer tio see you seven times and it's also being top of mind that kind of came up to and having a plan. You know that you mean winning it's great, but it just have it if you don't plan, it just doesn't really happen, right? Yeah. So I love having to plan. So radio, I think when going, it can take you so far, but if you really want to go far there, you really need to have a planet. I've done businesses where I've just sort winded. And then there was a sort of a stop to that before I have to move forward. So planning has really helped me to take all of my businesses to the next level. Yeah, and it's kind of been interesting because it's making me think of how can what other avenues can we go to to reach more jewelry designers? You know, it's really kind of opening my my mind. Tio opportunity, they're awesome. Yeah, good to hear. Yeah, for me, it's it's. Just that something that keeps coming up is the what's in it for them. Whether it's, you know, the direct customers or the media or in the stores I'm working with just always asking that question and using list I and me an hour and more. You think that was something that is really resonating with me, another thing that I really liked and that I'm going to implement in january when I'm kind of stepping back and re assessing everything is something you talked about a little earlier with emailing customers with a quick survey may be offering an incentive in return tow ask him direct questions on why they're buying my products, what they like and don't like and then from there whole thick and drop testimonials that I can use throughout my sight and then also just making it easier for the media to feature me by putting together a media page now that I do have a nice, decent collection of features so that's great it's great to hear that it sounds like all of you guys got so much out of it and there's so much great and foe for tomorrow and friday two so I can't wait to show to share that with all of you all right? Yeah any final thoughts from you people can take away from the end of day one um I mean, I think what all of these guys have said to, you know, be persistent, be consistent have a plan b patient um and make it all about them is what I wanted to share with everybody because all of these businesses that we're doing is because we love it so much but the reason people are buying it is because it serves them in some way so if you can constantly think about how can I serve other people, how can I add value to their lives or to their businesses? You're going toe really stand out from all of your other competitors that are trying to dio aa lot of the same things that you guys might be trying to do as well. So I love to leave you with those thoughts on dh then see you tomorrow here for even more awesome tips and really specific how twos fantastic. Well, thank you to all of you out there in the internet world who joined us today all over the globe. Thank you very, very much. We always appreciate it. You're the reason that we're here? Of course I wouldn't want to say thank you very much to ask you, as we did get a chance to me and at the beginning, because a horrible traffic. But we will meet her in the morning. So thank you. Thank you, robyn. Thank you, dorothy. Thank you. T shirt. Thank you, dan. Thank you all so much for coming and being such an engaging part of this today. But, of course, most of all, let's give a huge global creative live round of applause to our wonderful instructor today, andrea.