Lessons

Lesson Info

Get Ready to Pitch!

So I want to know if something did that feel like when you came in your expectation that feel easier did it feel harder how do you feel about your pitching opportunities now yeah some iss so great I'm so glad to hear it because now you're ready you've got everything you need to send out your products emissions you've got this amazing template for a pitch email that you could put together and really sell your headline worthy products um you're putting together a media kit that gives blogger editor everything she needs to do your products you're making it so easy for them but I promised would get to the sample questions so I want to address that really quickly before we go on so I mentioned way way back at the beginning of this course that you don't have to send in samples and you don't you shouldn't send in unsolicited samples but you might decide that you want to set aside a few samples that you can send in especially to a magazine editor you know if they're doing their own product pho...

tography that you consent to them and so this is really up to you it is totally a personal individual preference and if you have a one of a kind thing like a painting you know that's probably not expected you know I wouldn't necessarily recommend that um but what I will say is if your product is not a consumable so if it's a consumable you can't get it back but if it's you consented if it's consumable like totally like that's fine you're just not getting it back because this trick is if it's a non consumable you can actually send a return address return envelope that they can send it back to you so you can ask them to return it to you so that's a way that if you have a product that is expensive maybe it's a noxious expensive at retail but it's expensive for you to make you know if you make we work to somebody who does handbags and her material costs is really high and so she just can't be sending all of her product people that's a way you can do it you can send it to them and ask them to return it now we all know that there's some bloggers who will on ly cover your product if they have sample if you actually give them free stuff right? We're not really talking about that so much because that is advertising advertising is paying people you know to get public relations is earned it they call it earned media it's how do you get in the media that they're choosing to cover you? You don't buy the coverage the second you buy it you're kind of outside the realm of what I would consider pure pr but let's talk about that a little bit too because you know there are some bloggers especially in like the fashion space or maybe the mom space who will say well, send me some product you know let me have it and I'll take a picture of it and always say there again that's up to you if you feel like it's worth the money because they're really talking to your client then you could do it if you have an event space or you know if you have a location you want people to come and you wanna have a blogger event and you want them to come to and check it out that is really been affected for people that we've worked with so it's up to you just know that's an investment and just know that you have a goal of what you're going to get out of it so you're not just sending product into the abyss or you're not just spending that money on the hopes that you're getting coverage because there are so many other fish out there in the sea as you do your media research you're gonna be like, oh my god there's too much so this is a great way to narrow and what your opportunities are which brings me next point, which is you know, when you're implementing your program, I really recommend that you focus your outreach on um you know, seasonal waves and product launches that are really speaking to your customers and so what I mean about this is one of the best ways I see people falling through in their product on their product pr is picking like okay so I'm gonna have a new line coming up and so I'm going to focus my outreach on supporting that new line and I'm going to do a push about reach around that or there's a season that really ties in and god we've been talking about gift guides and I think there's like an amazing gift guy tie in for my product or oh my god those pants home color so the colors I paint with you know like if you see something like that you can put together a whole campaign around it and put together and decide how much time a week you want to spend getting that ready and batch your work and do it and then you can like let it go for a few months so that's one thing that I do recommend that makes it a little bit easier because it helps when you're in the groove of your pr you know it helps if you if you spend a little bit of time researching and putting your pitches together um and get in that groove and in that mindset instead of trying to pick it up and drop it and pick it up drop it so can help to bat your work that's something I recommend no if you want to dio you know every monday is your p r day and it's a really important focus than do that totally I'm for it but I know that not everybody is a full time publicist and that that doesn't work for everybody a schedule so the one thing I do recommend is to batch it around those launches and we talked about lead times and so that's the way you can plan ahead for those you can also go back to the same editor bloggers twice a year usually so if you plan around season our lines it's a really easy way to do that again planning ahead for best results you know six months for print media one to two months for online really important that you're planning and scheduling out ahead if you can't make that six months can you still be sending out messaging centre? Is that going to be helpful? Do you really then have to wait for the next season if you want to be in the print and then really there's a firm cut off but so many publications now have online exclusive content or additional online content that I do recommend that if you missed that print cut off so we talked about editors and if you're going to send online there's often an online editor that you consent it tio somebody specifically who that's their name um bloggers if you're behind that one to two months it doesn't hurt right? It doesn't hurt they could be scrambling to fill something last minute so there I think you have more leeway it's that you know the reason the print is because they're actually done they're done putting the magazine together they literally that it's gone off to the printer s so there isn't you know, once it's out it's out but for the online you have a lot more leeway and a lot more flexibility thank you yeah, thank you and then the other thing I wanted to let you know is you know, you could be networking with the bloggers with editors with tv producers on social media so you can tweet their stories they love that they want their contents shared right there in the content business so they want you to share their contents, you can tweet it out, you can send them messages you can connect with them on pinterest it's a great way to get that relationship going so that when their scent when you're sending pitches, they see your name um and then you know, of course, but being consistent by being consistent with your outreach, you're absolutely able to get the coverage of your dreams so you can do this you can absolutely do this, you don't have to hire the workout people choose to because maybe they don't want teo they have other priorities, but you don't have tio and it's actually my personal mission to give you the tools that you need to do it, which is what we've been doing in this pr for your product purse so what you could do with your pr is get those endorsements from the media that your customers trust that they like that they turned tio when they're searching for that perfect thing you can try foot traffic to your story or online shop with your peer program you can get amazing results you can convert that intention into sales of your product which is why we're all doing mess right making sure that you're supporting your sales goals for your product so my last question for you here is you know how are you going to be structuring this outreach I want to hear a commitment on you know how are you going to structure your outreach are you going to seasonal pushes or you going to do a little bit a week and who are you most excited right now like what are you most excited right now to go out and dio um I would love to have photos of completed projects and like online dwell perfect awesome that is a great goal just excited to put my immediate kit together all right I love it put my media kit together and get ready to submit for joon for the holidays under for a variety of parent and love to hear the planning ahead we're actually a grand opening next month so I need to do all this this week way um teo you know online mediums they're probably to be the focus for this one I love it you can practice the material is you're implementing it that's fantastic I'm really excited to target local press and for my art and I'm also excited about having a plan for uh looking at you know an annual calendar for okay it's it's made start getting ready to pitch in june for the holidays you know it's november start getting ready to pitch for mother's day that's a great tip you know put those things in your calendar and put a reminder for yourself so you get it done yeah focus on getting my media kit together and then I think probably this afternoon we'll talk more about other stuff yeah media kit and then a calendar just I don't have any I do everything kind of willy nilly so yeah structure cool great product photography I need to do a lot more product photography and yeah getting the media kit together and just having like a place where all of these things live because right now it's very scattered and then you also setting up to be ready for holiday awesome great for me it's really putting together a media list like knowing exactly who the public publications are that I need to target so that I could actually start doing it yeah yeah that's such a great place to start is just that you know who are you going to reaching out tio and then just making that commitment like okay once or twice a year I'm gonna be going to the same people ten and one year is a great place to start, and then you can build those relationships. And then maybe next year you evaluate the results you have and you can add some people and take them off. And that's a really great way to grill the pre are pro oh, graham, some I'm so excited. I hope that he will tweet me at bridget lions. My website is b think forward and we have ah, pinterest, sport, actually where I have assist. So like people who, you know, we've trained to get their product out there. I love to see it, even if you don't want to be on our pinterest sport, um, or if you don't meet a tweet it out, but I just love to see the results that you get and I'm so excited for you to see, you know what comes out of your product pr efforts. So thank you so much.