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What You Need to Be Media Ready

So a couple more things that you might need before your or before you start pitching is a media kit, so probably all of you have heard about media kits I'm curious to know if anyone in the audience actually has one robin you do and a little bit yeah, so a media kids is something that could be elektronik or it could be a hard copy. I have one for launch, grow joy and it's just the pdf document that outlines or that has my logo it has photos of me and some of the media outlets have been mentioned in it has information about the company, your story, why you got started even some pitch ideas again, making their job a lot easier if you could suggest to them different story ideas for your products maybe might not be a good fed right then, but if they're thinking ok, I didn't realize that this would also be a good fit for that again you've planted that seed in their head, they're more likely to keep you in mind the next time they're working on those types of products. You can also have press ...

mentioned, so if you've gotten some really major press mentions it's a good idea to put them in your media kid again because press gets more press on dh they love to know that other outlets are supporting supporting us well you might also want to have some press releases and there again we're going to talk a little bit about press releases a later but press releases are great one unedited a request more information so what happens a lot of times is that they'll say I love your products can you send me a press release with more information so it's sort of the other way around where they requested as opposed to you sending it and that's where they can get information about your products about the founder about your company and they get everything in one place as opposed to having them go on your site search for all of this information ah press release really makes it easy for them to have everything you want tyson ah couple of more things you might want to add to your media kit are testimonials from customers or if you sell to other stores maybe you might want to have testimonials from your retailers and again it's testimonials are really great for social proof and when people buy online or people buy from other companies they want to see the social proof they want to see that other companies and other people are already doing business with you and they trust you so I'm a huge fan of putting testimonials everywhere whether it's on your product pages on air about page on your home page and your media kid the more out there you can put them the more social proof you'll have and the more people are going to be able to trust you and that trust is what turns into sales um and lastly, you gonna have wanna have product information so just basics about what your products are made out of all of the features about your products because sometimes they do want to know exactly what goes behind a product and then lastly you buy wanna have contact information, so if they're interested they know exactly who to contact to get more information, and sometimes I've seen this done and press kits were they put up frequently asked questions whether it's questions about the product maybe fit something that's not something more innovative, that aa lot of people haven't come across, but for example with myself, I probably wouldn't have an ethic you in there, but if I was launching some new innovative product that it was brand new to the market and no one really knew much about it on a fake you about how to use it might be a great place or a great thing to have in your media kit so next I wanted to just give you some quick example is your media kid can be really simple just like a folder here that's really nicely designed that has all of the information once he opened the folder or it could be something a little more appealing with more branding where I think this is a chocolate line on, they have their media kid and packaged like chocolate, so obviously something like this is going to cost more money, but at the same time in my getting more attention, so you have to weigh benefits versus costs and on dh what you're going to get from it. So obviously this is ah large company they could afford to do this if you're a great designer and you already have the tools to do this, go for it if not a simple media kid like this will be just fine and ah lot of times you also want to have a new elektronik copier off this because obviously if someone wants more information, they're going to want it now and they're not going to want to wait in the mail for a media kid. So this is something that you're going to be using more if you're doing a trade show or if you're meeting the press in person, then this would be a good thing to have. But I recommend starting with on online media kid and if you do end up expanding to trade shows and in person events than a printed one as well would be worth investing in another thing you should have to be media ready is a press friendly website, so what this means is that on your website you want to have a section where editors, conventional photos taken, download press releases and information about your company and the media kids. So this is what I was talking about before a section on your site where they can go to get all of the information they need without having to go back and forth with you and try to get that information from you. And this is ah, great example from noodles and company. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with them, but if you go on their web site, they have a second. This is their media kids section on their site, they have press releases, contact information they have with downloadable media kid, you can also download their logo on dh you were asking before, what should you put on your press page? If you don't have product photos, your logo would be another great thing to add because almost everyone is going to want your logo if they're going to be publishing something about the online or offline. Even and this is just such a simple way. And just imagine if you were an editor and you're requesting information from this company and they sent you to this page or they khun get access to everything they're looking for, this is going to save them so much time from e mailing you and saying, hey, can you send me a logo? And then you send them your logo, like they say, oh, I also need your media kits, so you can just imagine the amount of time you're going to be saving them, and you from having to do all of this extra e mails back and forth with people trying tio give them what they want, so I highly recommend having this on your web site, and again, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. I think those things are just a place where you can download the logo, media, kid, and so on, so super easy to do, I think all of you guys can do this right for your own sites, great with this, be a separate tab, so let's say you would have press being went one section, but then this media kit kind of has all those things that the editor needs in one place, but then you have different sections for thier customer who's coming there's, an esso. What happens a lot of times this? Because you'll see on their top many words, says many locations order they don't have any of the press information there, because their website is mostly for their customers to go on and find information about their restaurants, so a lot of times what I've seen is that they still have this on the site is just not a published link that everyone could access, but it's still alive link were if you were to send someone that direct link, they're going to be able to have access to it right away and I do this on my side too. I have in the new section where I have all of my press mentions, but then I don't have any of my press information on that page, I only give that out to people that are actually requesting it, but it's still on my it's still sits on my web site is just not visible when someone goes to my side and I've actually send both you can put it out there if you want or or just leave it up, but as long as you have it somewhere to send to the press, that will definitely go a long way with, um, you see a lot of times in the footer, yes, who's a lot more links usually down at the bottom because you're not as important on the top, so a lot of times it says press right on exactly yes, yeah, so you'll see there and if you want examples from other companies like you were saying, just go to their website look at their press or the footer section or you could even google, you know, press kit examples or press kits and maybe jewelry companies or something like that. I know you'll get some really great ideas from companies that are doing this really well, and they're always featured in the media because I'm sure your jewelry line that you were working for, I mean, they were everywhere, you know, and it's because they had a really great press section that everyone can access easily and off. Obviously they did a lot of work to get there if idea they made it super easy for for the media to access that information. So a couple more things that I wanted to share with you, this is about press releases, so a lot of us feel like we have to have a press release if we want to be out there in the media and you kind of do, but not for the reasons that you might think so you don't not anymore. At least you don't just write a press release and send it out to ah whole bunch of editors without any personalized emails or without any personal information on there, and expects to get a press mentioned, but what press releases are great for is that they're really great to get back links to your website. So before a few years ago, what do you would have to do with you would write a press release and send it out there directly to the editors. But what happens now if you write a press release there's a ton of press release services that will actually the attribute your press release for you and what they do is they blasted are all over the web, too. Yahoo and google and cnn and all of these different sites that they have relationships with. And what that's great for is that every time you get a link from another sites to your site, google really loves that. And the search engines loved that, and they more off those links you have back to your site, the higher up in the search results, your company's going to come so press releases are great for that reason, especially if you use one of these press release released distribution services. But if you're hoping that you launch a press release and a magazine editor is going to somehow come upon it on the web and contact you, teo, get samples that's probably not going to happen, but this and directly contributes to the success of your website if you have on online presence. And the other thing that press releases are great for is like I mentioned before, if on editor request more information, you just send them a press release on dh they have all of the information they need right in there and a ton of times I've been asked by editors for a press release once they were interested in my product. So it's definitely a good thing to have as you're pitching, but not to lead your pitch with and as I mentioned, they're not great for getting media coverage because I've done it. Other people have done it a used to work, and it just does not work anymore, so this is usually what happens with press releases? You're going to write a press release and I've already talked about this, but I just wanted tio show show it to you in a more graphical format, but going to write a press really distributed keep waiting for an answer, and then you're going to keep waiting for an answer and hopefully you're wanting the editor to contact you, so they conveyed about your products. But that's not this is the old way of doing publicity, and anyone who's doing publicity now knows that this is a thing of the past it used to work. It just doesn't work anymore, so I hope I have convinced you guys that you need a press release, but not for the reasons you might think you need one so it's making sense to everyone. Okay, great. So a couple more things, you also are going to need a media list, and we're going to talk tomorrow about how to actually go about building it and how to find contact information, but a media list is basically just a list, a convene a pdf format, or excel, or whatever format you set it up, and that has the contact information for the editors. It has their phone number, their email address, the magazine they work for, their title, what they write about, which is also known as their beat, and this gives you a really good idea of who you can actually contact that's relevant to you, and you come by this, or you can build it yourself. Obviously, there's advantages and disadvantages to both. If you buy it, it's obviously going to cost money, and if you're a small business owner, that might be a little hard to do, because sometimes they cost thousands of dollars. Um, and or you can build it, which costs two time, but I think either way, whether you're investing your money or investing your time, this is you need this if you want publicity, so we're going to spend a whole session tomorrow on how you can actually build your media list and get the media to know about you and find their contact information. So here's, another thing that I want to leave you with for this section of the presentation, eyes that the most important thing you can have all of these things in your back pocket, you can have great photos, you can have press kids, expensive ones, you can have immediate list, but if you don't know who your customers are, and if you don't know your target market, your efforts are going to be wasted because you're going to be reaching out to the wrong editors, you're gonna upset them. They're not going to open any of your future emails and it's just so important to know who your customers are. So that's, the one thing I want to leave you guys with today is that you have to know your customer before you even attempt to do any of these things. Good. Yeah, okay, great. I'd love to hear from our students actually because obviously andrea sharing an awful lot of what might be new ideas are these completely new ideas have you tried some of these things and failed and now do you have the skills you feel to go away and try them again but with a different approach down do you mean you're saying it lunch these air a lot of you know, sort of those hits your head ideas where you're like, why heaven I thought about making you know, immediate kit or you know, trying to contact logs and magazines and stuff so it's you know, it's a lot of information at once but it's exciting to to know that there are so many different avenues now that I can take for my company well, great have got the press release blast no, it doesn't work it's not is um you know, it's just you think because you're reaching out so many people that it will work but no it really it really doesn't but it does take more time of course to then kraft the each individual email based on, you know, the editor and what type of media outlet they are and show like some kind of well, you know well, relevancy to your product and they're you know, magazine on block or something like this you have to kind of come up with each email campaign crafted so yeah, this seems so work a little better definitely true. Yeah, I think as you go along though, you have to kind of get your voice I think, um because, you know, just even in the beginning still tryingto create the email in a way that provides some kind of interest. So I think as time goes along to send up can honing indian yeah, you do any also start noticing what's working and what's not working and even subject lines too? I mean, I'm a huge fan of testing, always testing things to see what's working and subject lines are one of those things that it's like, I'm curious to see if this is going to work or if this thing is going to work and the only way to know if it's gonna work is you just have to put it out there and analyze the results that come back, um but yeah, and it gets easier to it might seem like there's a lot of things to dio, but really once you write that first email, all of the other ones are super easy because you just need to tweak a couple of things in each one and that's really all we have to do, but it does you have to invest some time at first into doing all of these things um to make sure that you're ready when you are want to expand tio a larger number of editors or bloggers yeah I love the patience and persistence I mean that's just kind of you do you have to have patients that you can't that those knows khun b so hard yeah but it's it's also it's there heard somewhere it said you know go for the yes you know keep it's fine if you hear the news but just wait until you hear they guess keep keep moving forward right video so um and knowing who your customers are I mean that's not only knowing who your customers but what you said before like who are you? What does your brand have toe offer what is your um what do you what do your benefits what do your features you know try to really know that because you're going to get so much more out of that by having that voice yeah so true I'm just sort of curious what you think in regards to my own line tech I I I know who my customers are I'm getting a better feeling as it goes on but unlike I think a few other of our products mind let's say my let's say a big client base of mine would be women in their fifties and sixties you had the t shirt company and so you would go for like in shape magazine a magazine for technology, my, those women, they're not looking at tech magazines, they're probably not looking a tech blog's I don't want to put a tech article in in shape magazine, all right? So I'm having a tough time trying to market to those folks because there isn't really a good channel leased that I see right now to focus on in a way, yeah, I know, so we're sort of coming from with I do, I do and, you know, there's a lot of magazines, actually, that there's a lot of magazines for seniors like aarp magazine, they're the largest magazine in the country, I think they have twenty two million users, and I'm not sure you know if they start at fifty or maybe in the sixties, but that would be a great place for you where you can reach out to them and say, you know, I know so many of your readers struggle with technology. Can I give you five tips on how to use your iphone or how to, you know, fix your computer if something breaks? And there are a lot of magazines to women's magazines that focus on the older women like forty and above s o you khun definitely search for those two, so there nine is that, you know, they do provide fashion tips and products but they also provide a lot of other tips, like technology tips and the yacht they know that their audience are women who are probably struggling with that same same problem, and they're going to be providing value to them by giving them this advice. So look for those types of magazines, not necessarily fashion ones, but women's magazines that yes to ah more on older audience. Yeah, we've talked a lot about email and a lot about personalizing email you a fan of cold calling of actually just calling an editor and seeing if you get them on the phone and if you off doing an initial email to you, then recommend perhaps follow up phone call rather than for female? Yeah, I don't recommend phone calls, I I've spoken with enough editors to know that they hate it. Um, and I personally hate doing it, and I feel like if I'm going to run a business and I've decided to be an entrepreneur, I have to do the things that I enjoy doing and everything else either, you know I do, but not I know it's for a limited time or I hire someone else to help me with because I know I don't like doing good, so personally, I don't like it because I don't like calling people on the phone to pitch a magazine and also because a lot of times what they do is they go to staff meetings every week where they come up with like printouts of products and things that they're looking at and if you make a phone call and you pitch your product even if they pick up the phone they're going to have to go to your website, print out your product or get a photo take it to their editor as opposed to you giving them everything they need in one email that has a photo that's embedded with information and they could just print that email and take it to their weekly meeting so you're saving them so much time by not actually calling and I know even when you subscribe to the media databases they'll tell you which way the editor prefers to be pitched and I have not seen one person who said they love phone calls or they prefer to be pitched by phone s o for those two reasons I don't recommend it unless you have a relationship with the editor you know if you're a publicist and you already have a relationship with them I think the phone is okay but if you're just called calling tio introduce your products probably you're not even gonna get them to pick up the phone and is just a waste of time what do you think of the idea of calling them when you know they're not going to be there to leave a voice mail to say I've just sent you an email with that help direct them to your email do you think or event or do you think it just being too pushy it that you know, I think sometimes following up with a phone call after an initial email is ok especially if if you you know if you're goingto send them an email and in your email you're going to say I am going to follow up with you by phone and a couple of days to make sure you got it I think that that could work but as the initial thing it's probably not going to work and I also think that a lot of times they get upset if you call during off hours because they know that you know they're not supposed to be there and they're probably they're not to answer the phone but they're probably there to get more work done so if you're interrupting them with a phone call I think they're going to be really upset. I know it's happened to me where sometimes I'll start work earlier and the phone the phone rings and I think it's something born so I'm going to pick it up and it's someone pitching to me and first I think I shouldn't have picked up the phone because I'm not supposed to be working and then second I think you know, just because I'm here outside of working hours doesn't mean you should be calling and getting me on the phone so I think it's ok if you tell them a phone call is going to be coming but probably they're not going to be answering the phone anyone, especially if they work at a large magazine I think it's different if you're pitching ah local paper or something that's a little smaller or something more local I think that could work but all of the big magazines or the big bloggers probably your they're not even going to pick up the phone have a question here from pixel frau and earlier you mentioned in your press release having back links and trying to optimize ceo so pixel frau was curious they say google has actually started to penalize sites for this do you know do you have any opinions on I know it's hard to keep up with the latest ways that google is doing the ceo, but do you have any opinion on what people should do to try to avoid that if google is penalizing them? Um, I mean, I think google changes all of the time and they're always again trying any things to see what's working, so I feel like if they were paying if you're submitting your press release through one of those press releases really released distribution site that already has a relationship with god go I think that's ok but if you're just posting the same press release yourself on many different sites then you're going to be penalized for that but again I feel like they're always changing their algorithms and the things that they're doing and if you realize that people are being penalized for that then maybe it's a time to cut back but as far as I know if he used the press release distribution services I think it should be fine because they already have relationships to pose their content on google and yahoo and all of those other sites and if you want to know what google up to this week I recommend unicom being so next we're going to talk about crafting your publicity plan so I'll walk you guys through how to think about it in the big picture over a six month period and then how to break that down and two weeklies that by steps or month lease that by steps if you wantto work on your publicity monthly or weekly depending on how your business is structured fantastic well we're looking forward to that and thank you again everybody who's joining us today for your wonderful comments will just end with a couple here dominique artis saying these are tips sorry these tips are also relative to networking and solving the issues and many people have on the mistakes they often make within the networking arena these great points andrea thank you tara hall is saying the context of this workshop is excellent. And jae gil is saying, this is a mix of big ideas as well as practical tips. And I'm obsessed.