November 24, 2024 • 36 mins
Ever wondered how press releases can transform your marketing strategy? Sit back as Mickie Kennedy from eReleases reveals his journey from creative writing to becoming a press release maestro. Mickie shares fascinating insights into the art of storytelling within press releases, emphasizing how a captivating narrative can win journalists over and boost your business's success. Through Mickie's experience, you’ll learn how press releases are not just about data or product launches, but about crafting stories that resonate.
Press releases can be a powerful tool in today's fast-paced media environment, but they need to be done right. Mickie uncovers common pitfalls, like misdirected media targeting, and offers advice on utilizing platforms like PR Newswire effectively. You’ll hear about the incredible success of the Dining Bond Initiative during the pandemic, which shows how a well-crafted press release can lead to widespread media attention and significant impact. Mickie also touches on how industry surveys can create media buzz and networking opportunities, making them a strategic asset in press release creation.
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Guest Contact Information:
https://www.ereleases.com/
https://www.ereleases.com/plan/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Howdy.
Welcome back to another episodeof the unknown secrets of
internet marketing.
My name is Matt Bertram, I'llbe your host for today, and I
just wanted to wish everybody ahappy.
Well, you're going to probablyhear this in a couple of weeks,
on a Sunday night, but it isFriday here and a lot of great
things going on in Houston.
(00:37):
It is fall now.
The weather's great.
I'm excited.
Hopefully you're enjoying thistime of the year.
Typically, I would read atestimonial, but I've been
jumping back to back calls withclients today and so I don't
have one.
But what I do have for you is Ihave a very special guest and I
(00:57):
want to talk about how toincorporate today press releases
into a broader content strategy, broader SEO strategy, and how
that should be utilized.
And so I have a subject matterexpert here.
I wanted to bring on MickeyKennedy with eReleases.
(01:21):
Hey, mickey, welcome to theshow.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So today we're going to deep dive into press releases
and how they could beincorporated into a broader
content strategy, pr strategy,marketing strategy.
I personally believe that youshould be doing a press release
at least once a quarter Now,depending on your business.
The new cycle, from what Iunderstand, is about every 28
(01:49):
days, so that's 13 pressreleases.
So think about it If you'relistening, are you doing 13
press releases a year?
Probably not.
Well, hopefully Mickey canexplain to us why we maybe
should be.
And Mickey also has a servicewith eReleases that he sends out
(02:10):
customized press releases onyour behalf and could be a
possible vendor for you to talka little bit about your
background, how you got into it,and then we can jump into, well
, why press releases are soimportant.
And I know I wanted to talk alittle bit about the histories
(02:32):
of how all this evolved intowhat it is today.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Sure.
So I got started a little over27 years ago.
I had graduated with a master'sof fine arts in creative
writing, with an emphasis inpoetry.
My career plan was to waittables and write poetry the rest
of my life.
And so I did that for a summerand realized that my knees and
back couldn't handle being onconcrete for 10, 12 hours at a
(02:59):
time.
So I transitioned to a safeoffice job, got hired at a DC
startup in the telecom world andwe published research and
telecom traffic numbersspecifically.
And because I had writing as abackground, as employee number
three, they told me to figureout press releases.
And so I inherited a Rolodexfrom the boss, who was a telecom
(03:24):
attorney, and he said startfaxing.
And so I wrote press releaseson sort of just the telecom
traffic data as we got it andnothing much happened.
My boss, the telecom attorney,said oh yeah, nothing happens
with press releases, but you'resupposed to do it.
And so I didn't take that asthe answer because it felt sort
(03:44):
of futile.
And so I started to notice thatwhat we were publishing was
data and, like, one of thereleases we had just done was
about telecom traffic in theCaribbean and it was a data
table of those countries andwhat their traffic was to and
from the United States.
And I just realized, looking atwhat journalists were writing
(04:05):
the end product articles thateven if it's a small article,
journalists like a story arc.
And you know I knew from youknow, being an English lit major
before going into creativewriting that you know there is a
natural story arc that peoplelike from children all the way
up to adults.
We like a story that builds andthen, you know, concludes and
(04:29):
there's a satisfaction of aclimax usually, and even in the
smallest little article, ajournalist can still sort of
follow that model and what wewere producing just data wasn't
going to do the job.
And so I looked at thatCaribbean traffic and noticed
that one country had moretraffic than almost all the
others combined and I was like Iwonder why that is, and so I
(04:53):
asked the two other guys thatwork there and they explained to
me that that was the callcenter for 1-900 numbers and
most of the US 1-900 numberswere being routed through that
country at the time.
So I did a press release onthat and sent that out, and we
got picked up by the Economist,the Financial Times, washington
(05:13):
Post, wall Street Journal andthree telecom trade publications
.
The phones rang, orders pouredin and everybody was like, wow,
mickey did it, he's a champion.
Can I do this again?
And I continued to do releasesthat were more of a story format
and we continued to get pickedup.
And I think that you know somany people, even to this day,
(05:37):
are doing press releases sort ofself-centered.
They're like we have a newproduct, so I'm going to write
it from my perspective.
Here's the product, here's abunch of features, here's a
button to learn more and buy.
And from a journalist lookingfor a story arc, there's not a
lot there.
So what I would recommend tojust that format is to
(05:57):
incorporate a use case study.
You know, here's a company thatwas losing 7% a year.
They integrated our logisticssoftware solution at the end of
a 90-day trial.
They are projected to have a 7%net profit by the end of this
year for the first time ever.
And then you can alsoincorporate public data, like
saying that, hey, in thetransportation industry, 67% of
(06:21):
businesses like this fail in thefirst five years because they
can't get their cost undercontrol and this software solves
that.
So it really shows the stakesof why your product or software
or solution is really important.
And so once you sort of addressthat and take everything that
you want to launch and put itthrough the perspective of, you
(06:41):
know, trying to give thejournalist the building blocks
for a story arc, as well asrecognize the journalist as a
gatekeeper, they have to decideis this information that is
going to either entertain oreducate or, ideally, both for my
audience?
Once you get through that,you'll have a lot more successes
, and I was so enamored withthis that I just wanted to do PR
(07:07):
and press releases foreverybody.
And so at the time that I wasfaxing, there was a trend where
I'd get phone calls after a faxsaying could you email this
press release in the future?
And so I spent about a yearnetworking with journalists,
mostly on bulletin boards andonline, and making some calls.
And so when I launchedeReleases in 1998, I had about
(07:31):
10,000 journalists who said sendme press releases by email,
something that would not happentoday.
I guarantee you, if you talk tojournalists, almost 100% of
them would not say send mereleases, and that's because of
media.
Databases have really changedthe landscape, licensing those
(07:51):
and when people buy a databaseor license it for a year and
they pay 8,000 or $15,000 andrealize there's only 2,400
contacts that are reallyspecific to their industry.
They start sending to offtarget stuff you got people who
create golf clubs themselves andto sending it to financial
(08:12):
analysts and business reportersbecause, hey, their audience you
know, bankers and businesspeople play golf but these
people will never report on golfequipment.
It's just not cover.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah.
So I think the information, uhlike from a data set standpoint,
like bad information in is badinformation out, and certainly
when you're trying to hitnumbers, um, yeah, it skews the
data and you start spreading itout and then it it skews the
engagement, right.
And so press releases havechanged a lot.
Now I love press releases, justlike I love podcasts.
(08:47):
It's one to many, right You're,you're syndicating something
out and you're putting it infront of a lot of eyeballs.
Now to your point.
I think that a lot of people seepress releases or they skim
them, right, and they're lookingat, like the subject line.
So you got to have a good hook,you got to catch them of having
them look more.
And then you got to help themdo their job, because they're
trying to hit whatever theirnumbers are, their metrics or
(09:11):
the story they're writing, orvisibility or whatever.
And if you can give them quotes, if you can give them stories,
if you can give them data thatthey can't go grab somebody else
, they're going to reference you, right, and?
And so it's super helpful tojust help them do their job
better and write it in a waythat, hey, a lot of people are
going to see this.
What are they going to do withit?
(09:31):
And I I like that writing fromtheir perspective, utilizing the
case studies, that they canincorporate some kind of data
into what they're doing.
Because, yeah, if you're justpublishing it out there, it's
really just like you know, ifit's just about yourself, if
someone's searching for you,they find it, but it's not going
to, you're not going to get thebenefit of of those journalists
(09:54):
or bloggers sharing it, andthat's where the real SEO
benefit comes in.
It's not from the press releaseservice, it's what people do
with it after that.
And if people are not doinganything with it, it's not
really that helpful, and so yougot to really think about it
from a copywriting standpoint.
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right.
So I do about 10,000 plus pressreleases a year for my clients,
and today all of our releasesgo out through PR Newswire,
which is owned by Scission.
Pr Newswire is the oldest andlargest newswire of press
releases, and so I had to walkaway from email because email
became really ineffective forreaching journalists and even
(10:34):
the PR firms that pitch peoplethrough email.
They have to follow up by phone, often to say, hey, it's buried
in there.
Can I walk you through how tofind this thing?
I emailed you, and so the thegreat thing about the wire is a
journalist can log into the wireand they can see a feed that's
specific to their beat that theycover, but they can also tailor
(10:57):
it.
So maybe you know they coverfashion, but maybe they don't
cover you know a lot of commonretail stuff, so they can
exclude keywords and just seestuff that's really relevant to
what they're about, and that'sthe real value of it.
At the same time thatjournalist inboxes have exploded
and are nightmares, theNewswire is very clean and it
(11:21):
makes it very easy for ajournalist to see very tailored
feeds that are specific to them,and the newswire is not going
to take those golf club releasesand send them to the feeds of
financial analysts and peoplewho cover banking news and data.
So that's the real value ofreaching a wire In the US.
(11:43):
It's basically a duopolythere's a business wire and PR
newswire.
Outside of that, there used tobe Globe Newswire making inroads
, but they pivoted and said hey,if you are publicly traded, you
can meet SEC disclosure, and doyou really want journalists
looking very closely at you?
I didn't think so and so, andas well as save a lot of money
(12:06):
with them.
But the good side of that isyou only have to send your
release to one of them and witheReleases, all of our releases
go out nationally through PRNewswire and you don't have to
pay anything close to the $1,600that they charge to go national
for a 600 word press release.
We have arranged a really greatdiscount with them and, because
(12:29):
we're moving 10,000 plusreleases, you get a national
distribution at a fraction ofthe costs by uh using e-releases
.
Um, you know that that.
That being said, uh, a lot ofpeople are still sending the
wrong types of media and pressreleases out there.
Um, you know one of the bigcritics.
Uh, go ahead.
So.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I just wanted to speak to that.
So, so, certainly there there'sdifferent additions and things
you can add on.
If we're talking about PRNewswire, I mean you can go
after different areas of themarket.
You know different industries.
You can reach differentinfluencers.
You can go after differentregional areas.
You you can do statewide um,you know, a lot of people are
(13:12):
using not, like you said, notthe right um type of uh press
release, but they've made itvery easy and they have a huge
reach and and, to your point, um, you know, getting that that
volume discount and gettingthose costs down, because a
regular press release throughthat network is is quite pricey
Um, and so there are advantages,uh, of scale and working with
(13:35):
someone with scale, whether itbe a slash account or whatever
they're doing Right.
So, um, I think that, um, I wanteverybody to hear that Um,
you're not going to be able toget the same uh kind of discount
, uh, but you'll get the samekind of discount, but you'll get
the same kind of release, butyou won't get the same kind of
discount, so you'll pay quite abit for it.
The full price press releasesthat people pay for are very
(13:58):
expensive, and so bulkdiscounting is big, and also
someone that knows how tonavigate all the different lists
.
Some of the lists are even alittle bit misleading.
I've had to ask for requestslike you know who's on this list
, what you know, who is thislist going to, based on who
you're trying to to, to reach,and having someone that knows
(14:18):
how to navigate all those things.
And even, like you know, Itypically do like a 400 word
press release, 600 word evenbetter, and, and you know you
can, and then it costs moremoney to add the logos or the
graphics and they'll try tocharge you for, um, uh, yearly,
uh, retention on their site.
Like there's, there's all kindsof tricks, guys, that that if
(14:40):
you need to do press releases,you need to find someone that
knows what they're doing, oryou're going to spend a lot of
time navigating it and there'sgoing to be costs of learning
that you're going to associatewith it.
And so I just, I just, ifyou're thinking about
incorporating newsletters, um,definitely hear, hear what we're
saying, um, and then you know,mickey, back to you.
(15:02):
But I want to kind of talk toabout, like, what are the
benefits of the press releaseand maybe go into the story arc
a little bit more to explain topeople what they're doing, cause
I see a lot of companies doingthose press releases that are,
hey, we got a new product, wehad a new team member, whatever,
but there there is no storybehind it.
And so then you look at thereach and you look into the
(15:22):
engagement and the reshares andyou wonder, well, how is this
the baseline?
Right, is this the baseline?
But I don't.
I think it's a lot aboutcopywriting.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So right.
So yeah, I have a case study upon my website at eReleases,
called the it's for the diningbond initiative.
It was a very short livedeffort to help restaurants that
were closed during the pandemic.
Um, we did a press release forthem at no charge and, uh, it
was uh, you know, meant to uhhave where you could nominate
(15:56):
your favorite local restaurantand if they were, the volunteers
were able to contact them, youcould give money that went
directly to that restaurant andbe back sort of what they call a
dining bond or gift certificatesort of scenario.
And, uh, you know, during thattime we thought it was, you know
, we needed to make the biggestsplash in the smallest amount of
(16:18):
time, and so you couldn'treally pitch a lot of people, so
we just sent it on the wire,hit send once, and it resulted
in over 100 media outletspicking it up.
And this isn't syndication.
Syndication is your pressrelease replicated on websites,
and every time you issue a pressrelease, that does happen.
A lot of it is based off ofwhat they do for publicly traded
(16:42):
companies.
So that's why you might be arestaurant and your press
releases on Yahoo Finance andFox Business and places like
that, but that real earned mediais when a journalist writes an
article about you.
And in this case, over 100journalist publications wrote
individual articles, all withdifferent headlines, different
(17:05):
copy about this initiative basedon one single press release.
And so for what would have cost?
You know, under four or $500with us.
Uh got picked up in the wallstreet journal, CNN, harvard
business review, fox, business,bloomberg, forbes, um, james
Beard foundation, a bunch offood publications, including uh,
taste and Rob report and andReport and things like that, but
(17:28):
over a hundred, and itgenerated over $10 million in
revenue and this was the onlything that was used to market
this.
And so that is the potential ofthe value of a wire that if you
have a meaningful message, itcan really resonate and go very
far, and especially when it goesout nationally, like it does
(17:49):
through us.
And so that is the goal.
And a lot of people say I sentthe press release and, other
than the syndication, not muchhappened, and that's because it
wasn't newsworthy enough.
In this case, here was aninitiative that was meant to
help restaurants during thepandemic.
I think it did really wellbecause it was positive news at
a time where there's a lot ofuncertainty.
(18:11):
We had been sent home for twoweeks to flatten the curve and
we didn't know what was going tohappen.
But here was something that waspositive and, even more
important, I think, it wasactionable.
So if you're a couple at homeand you worry about your
favorite restaurant that you goto on your every anniversary,
here was a way for you to give$50 to them and hopefully keep
(18:32):
the lights on and, you know,when everything recovered,
hopefully you'd have a giftcertificate or be able to use
that $50.
And you know, barring that, youknow what can you do to write
more meaningful and strategicpress releases?
And you know the story arc isone of the most important
elements, I think, to reallyremember that and sort of build
(18:54):
that in there.
Is there something about yourbusiness, you starting it or
your origin story?
When I started eReleases, Ididn't have an origin story.
And they're like well, how didyou learn about press releases?
And I was like, oh, the lastplace I worked at.
And you know like, well, howdid you learn about Press
releases?
And I was like, oh well, thelast place I worked at.
And like, well, what was itabout it that excited you?
And it's like because the bosssaid that they don't really work
and I got them to work and Ithought I had this magic secret
(19:17):
sauce and I was passionate aboutit.
And this is like oh, I do havean origin story.
So, you know, do an audit ofwhat started you, your business.
You know the company, theproduct, the services.
There's a reason that everybodythat appears on Shark Tank opens
with that story.
Sometimes it's being authentic.
You know well, it's alwaysideally authentic, but it's
(19:39):
often vulnerable.
You know them sharing that.
You know their father died andthey used to have this hobby and
she just got laid off and nowshe was wondering could I turn
this hobby into a business andsomehow honor my father as well?
You know those things happenagain and again on that show and
it's because it breaks througheverything and it humanizes the
(20:00):
business and it includes a humaninterest element and it really
creates this immediate empathyand people care.
And so if you share that in apress release, you know that
will help you as well.
And if you can't lead with that, like you know, you're not
doing a press release launchingyour business.
You have a section at thebottom of the press release
(20:21):
called a boilerplate, where it'sabout company and you get to
write an elevator pitch, maybeincorporate that little bit of a
story nugget in that elevatorpitch and it will be when the
journalist is skimming thatpress release that's another
aspect of it.
They'll say, oh, that humaninterest element would really
feed my audience and that givesme.
(20:43):
You know this was a mediocrepress release as far as
newsworthiness, but that aspectof it I can work with that and I
think I can build a story thatwill really engage my audience
and it really does help quite abit.
You had mentioned people doingpress releases with hiring.
Those are probably the mostineffective press releases there
(21:04):
are, with the exception of anew major executive that you
hired or CEO or an industryveteran.
You really shouldn't pay moneyto go over a wire for a new hire
press release.
You can get probably the samepickup by reaching out to your
local newspaper or businessmagazine, business newspaper and
(21:25):
just send them the photo and afew lines about the new hire and
what they'll be doing at yourbusiness.
Same thing with tradepublications.
Spend the money to go over anewswire with stuff that's going
to be more effective and dowell and do not look at your
competitors and do not look atwhat everyone else is doing,
because 97% of press releasesthat are going out over the wire
(21:47):
will not yield earned media.
They will be ineffective.
The same reason that if youapproach AI and say what would
be a great press release, here'sthe company You're going to get
, 97% of the time, pressreleases that aren't effective.
Ai is not good at picking agood topic for a press release
because it's been trained on thegarbage that's out there for a
(22:10):
press release because it's beentrained on the garbage that's
out there.
What you need to do is do anaudit of your company and
business and what would bemeaningful stories.
Share what's going on right nowwith your product launch or an
update to your product.
Incorporate a use case study.
Take publicly data that's outthere and use it to sort of
(22:32):
position your product or serviceand show the stakes of why it's
so important.
Even more importantly, ifyou're looking for a type of
press release that never failsand on average when I coach
someone through this, they getusually between eight and 14
earned media articles every timethey do this type of press
release is do an industry survey.
(22:52):
Survey your industry and anyonecan do it.
There's no rules.
You're the author of the survey, you will get the credit.
It will elevate you in themarketplace and people will know
about you.
And you just want to ask a fewmeaningful questions that are
timely as of right now.
Post pandemic, the workplace haschanged.
There's a lot of middlemanagement concerned about
(23:14):
culture, people working fromhome, people working hybrid.
How am I going to make thiswork?
You could ask questions aroundthat.
Ai is really big.
Are people in your industryafraid they're going to lose
their job or be replaced becauseof AI?
And you can ask questionsaround that.
But also there's stuffspecifically going on in your
industry.
What are things you would askif you were to trade show, a
(23:37):
conference, say, hey, have younoticed lately that it seems
like everybody's taking 90 to120 days to pay, when it used to
be net 30?
And like, yeah, I have noticedthat that could be a sign that
money is tightening up in yourindustry or, you know,
nationwide.
So you know, think of questionsyou can ask right now.
Network with others.
You know, perhaps ask onLinkedIn and build a survey of
(24:01):
you know eight to 16 questions.
I like SurveyMonkey.
I put four questions per pageand at the end of the page.
Don't send them to SurveyMonkey.
So many people do that.
Send them back to your websitetalking about who you are and
offer to let them network withyou, because these are going to
be other people in your industrythat you could network with.
(24:24):
They could be valued friends orjoint venture possibilities.
So many people are obsessedwith competitors and I tell you
I've gotten so many leads fromcompetitors, so use that as an
opportunity to introduceyourself.
And then who do you send thesurvey to?
That is the easiest part ofthis.
(24:44):
There are independent and smalltrade associations in every
industry.
This there are independent andsmall trade associations in
every industry.
In mine, public relations, Iwas told once on a podcast that
well, in our industry we're theexception.
There's only Public RelationsSociety of America.
I had to break it to this60-some-year-old woman that
there was over 470 other PRtrade associations in the United
(25:06):
States.
Some of them are very esoteric,like Florida PR firms or the
Mid-Atlantic.
Some are Italian-Americansfounded ones, but there are some
that are like PR firms of 50employees or less, which
probably makes up the bulk of PRfirms in the US, except for the
big giant ones, and my problemwith them is how are you ever
(25:28):
going to get one person at thatcompany to stand for what the
entire entity feels or believes?
So I feel like that would be agreat entity.
You approach them and say, hey,here's a link, could you send
this to your members?
In exchange, I'll mention youin a press release.
I'll be issuing a repairnewswire in the coming weeks.
(25:48):
The small and independent tradeassociations no one knows about
them.
This person didn't realizethere was 470, some others out
there, and so they see this as awin-win for them to potentially
get some attention as well.
And about two thirds of thetime the first trade association
we approach says, yes, I'venever had to go and ask a third
(26:09):
one.
The second one has always beenlike sure, we'll do that.
You're looking for like at least100 responses or pretty close
to it, and you're really goingto focus the press release on
the one big aha moment from thatsurvey.
What's going to be the biggestshocker or surprise?
You're going to provide anamazing quote of analysis in
there, like if you ask graphicdesigners if you believe AI is
(26:35):
going to replace them in thenext five years and they say,
yes, it's going to be Adobethat's doing it.
You can then say, hey, I don'tbelieve that AI is going to
replace graphic designers in thenext five years, but I do think
that those who don't realizeand learn how to incorporate AI
into their business are probablygoing to be at a very serious
disadvantage and may findthemselves out of a job.
And so it's a way for you to bereasonable and rational and to
(26:58):
really provide a little bit ofanalysis of the data points that
are there, and you're going tobuild out a page on your website
with all 16 questions andanswers, or how many questions
and answers you did have,because a journalist will click
on that and they may findanother question that they can
write another article on orfocus a different approach.
(27:19):
And if you build that page as agood resource, some publications
who have a no link policy willlink to you.
The New York Times has a nolink policy.
I've had them link to one of myclients in an article because
of that.
How many resources and aninfographic that was on that
resource page.
So build that out and, like Isaid, every time we've done that
(27:40):
and sent it out, it's generated, between you know, as many as
as many as 20 pickups, but onaverage eight to 14 seems to be
where most people alignthemselves.
The least I've ever had one getis four articles and it was a
very specialized biometricsfield and they were thrilled
with four articles.
They're like I can't think ofanybody else who covers
(28:01):
biometrics who didn't cover this, and it creates a lot of buzz,
a lot of interest, and I've seenwhat I felt was a Link Farm
website utilize this where theywrite the top 10 of different
fields, like top 10 software forarchitects, top 10 automotive
sales, crms and things like that, and they did press releases
(28:26):
for each of these fields, basedoff of surveys for each of these
individual verticals, and theygot eight to 14 articles for
each one of those and they weredoing at the height 30 of these
press releases a year and todaythey don't even have to issue
those surveys anymore becausethey get asked by the media.
(28:46):
What's your opinion about thisindustry?
Here's some consolidationhappening, how do you feel?
Because they have establishedthemselves as experts by just
doing the survey over severalyears and it's a great way to
stand out.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Awesome.
That is just absolute gold,mickey, so I was just letting
you go, I.
I think that, um, there is areassurance of creativity coming
, okay, I think with AI, um,there are some advantages,
Absolutely, but I also thinkthat, uh, creativity is going to
shine because there are thingsof human ingenuity that are not
(29:26):
in those large language modelsand they're homogenizing.
I'm seeing it on theadvertising side.
I'm seeing ads that are very,very similar, right, because
they're all pulling from thesame data set.
So I think being able to tradeyour own is kind of that next
evolution.
But I think just creativity isso important and working with
someone that knows what they'redoing on that side to get that,
(29:48):
I mean everything you weresaying fantastic strategy, great
way to do it and, to your point, from an SEO standpoint, the
value of those backlinks.
There's a quantitative value tothat, right, and so, if you're
getting high quality links, ifyou're trying to, uh, not earn
(30:10):
the link and and and kind ofoperate in the gray, you're
going to spend a lot of money.
So, doing it the right way,you're going to get full link
equity, because, also, if you'renot doing it the right way,
okay and I and I preach this ifyou're not doing it the right
way and that link gets found outor they already kind of know
what's going on with that Likewhen you talk about link farms
or anything like that um, it'snot going to get full value,
(30:32):
it's only going to push partiallink equity or even no link
equity.
But if you earn the link andit's a true link that you earn
and or it's a difficult sitethat you get, that that has a
rule of not getting it.
It's going to be so powerfuland the only way to do it is do
it the right way, just spend theeffort and time and the
creativity to do it the rightway and offer information that
(30:53):
other people don't have.
Right, that's what journalistsare looking for, is is data
that's not publicly availablethat they can use and whatever
goal or story that they have.
So I think that that's justabsolute gold, mickey, and I
know we've talked about this andmaybe you want to use that as
your unknown secret, because Iwould love for you to share,
(31:16):
kind of in a synopsis, whatmight be a new unknown secret
that you haven't shared, or ifyou want to share that one.
I thought that one was absolutegold.
What would you say the biggestunknown secret of digital
marketing utilizing pressreleases would be.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I think that the biggest secret is a lot of
people feel like they're toosmall to matter with the media,
and I would counter to that andsay that the most shares that a
journalist gets are not fromcovering Google or Microsoft.
The most shares they get for anarticle are when they spotlight
a new tool or resource that noone knows about, and often these
(31:55):
are small businesses.
They're sometimes mom and pops,sometimes they're side hustle
businesses.
These are people for whom theydidn't feel that they were big
enough yet, and yet they got thespotlight put on them.
Because journalists like to beseen as curators and they don't
feel that they were big enoughyet, and yet they got the
spotlight put on them.
Because journalists like to beseen as curators and they don't
get credit for spotlightingsomething that everybody in the
industry knows about.
(32:15):
And so if you're doingsomething that's unique and
novel in an industry, you aredeserving of media attention,
and so don't undersell yourselfbecause you're just not quite
there yet, because if you wait,you'll just be waiting forever.
Go ahead and take advantage ofit now.
I've had people who feel likethe only person that I can list
(32:37):
as a quote in the press releaseis me, because the company's
just me.
But then the media contact do Ihave to make someone up?
And I'm like, no, the mediadoesn't care that you're a solo
operation, it does not lookterrible to do that.
I have people who get picked upby the Wall Street Journal and
really great big publicationsBarron's and other places that
(32:58):
they're the same media contact,the same person quoted in the
press release.
Being authentic is the mostimportant thing and you don't
have to disguise yourself.
Uh, you know, and and sometimessharing the little stumbles
along the way work really well.
I had one client who had anembarrassing story where they
nearly had to cancelthanksgiving and the whole
family had to pitch in thatweekend to put stuff in boxes
(33:21):
and ship it out because they hadjust gotten a crash order and
and needed to get out asap.
And so we led with that in apress release and they didn't
want to.
They thought it wasembarrassing.
It became the lead of a twopage article about them in Inc
magazine and they just didn'tget.
Why would they focus on that?
(33:42):
And I'm like because it'ssomething every entrepreneur
identifies with.
We all have obstacles.
We all have things we overcome.
We have these littleembarrassments, these little
setbacks, but yet the thingsthat we look back later on and
we look fondly like, yeah, weall came together, we all did
this, and the whole familypitched in, and that's part of
entrepreneurship.
(34:02):
It's not just me, it's like thewhole family's involved, even
if it's just them sacrificingtheir time with me.
Uh, because I'm focused on thebusiness and so, uh, you know,
focus on the story, focus onwhat's really going on, be
vulnerable, don't be afraid toreally show who you are in the
business and, uh, you can really, uh resonate, just being
(34:25):
authentic with the media.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Awesome, Mickey.
I think that that's just fire.
So everybody that's listening,take Mickey's advice.
Mickey, if people want to knowmore or they want to contact you
, what's the best way for themto get in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Right.
So ereleasescom is the website.
There's no salespeople, justeditors.
So feel free to chat, email orcall All of our social medias.
On the lower right of thewebsite I do have a free
masterclass that I recommend.
It's a great place to start.
If you don't know much about PRor I would say even people who
do know stuff about PR it wouldalso be good.
(35:01):
It's less than an hour longvideo and I did that because
last class I signed up for.
I paid $1,500 for it and when Isaw it was 40 hours of videos,
I just knew I wasn't going to beable to commit to that.
I just don't have that time andso it's available at
ereleasescom slash plan P-L-A-N,again completely free, and it
goes through the types of pressreleases that do get picked up.
(35:24):
It ignores the 75% that don'tand within the 3% of ones that
do get picked up, it's thepatterns of the press releases
that you can incorporate, and ifyou build a PR campaign of six
to eight releases and you followthose that are there, you're
going to walk away with two orthree of those having meaningful
(35:46):
media pickup.
The rest may be duds, but thetruth is you really only need
one to really kill it to make ahuge difference.
But you should have several ofthose by following this and
again, that's eReleasescom slashplan P-L-A-N and, of course,
that survey one is definitely inthere and it walks you through
that as well.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Awesome.
I'm gonna have to maybe checkthat out myself.
I think I've learned some stuffas well.
So this was awesome.
Mickey wanted to let everybodyknow we are going to be changing
the website.
We are going to be changing thepodcast cover very soon, as
well as the intro, so don't getthrown off your game there.
(36:26):
I will be letting everybodyknow about it.
I will try to publicize it,maybe through a press release, I
don't know.
Mickey, we'll talk, um, but uh,everybody, um, you know, if
you're trying to grow yourbusiness with the largest, most
powerful tool on the internet,reach out to EWR for, uh, more
visibility and revenue in yourbusiness.
Uh, until the next time, bye,bye, for now.
(36:47):
Thanks for coming on, mickey.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
You're very welcome.
Howdy.
Welcome back to another episodeof the unknown secrets of
internet marketing.
My name is Matt Bertram, I'llbe your host for today, and I
just wanted to wish everybody ahappy.
Well, you're going to probablyhear this in a couple of weeks,
on a Sunday night, but it isFriday here and a lot of great
things going on in Houston.
(00:37):
It is fall now.
The weather's great.
I'm excited.
Hopefully you're enjoying thistime of the year.
Typically, I would read atestimonial, but I've been
jumping back to back calls withclients today and so I don't
have one.
But what I do have for you is Ihave a very special guest and I
(00:57):
want to talk about how toincorporate today press releases
into a broader content strategy, broader SEO strategy, and how
that should be utilized.
And so I have a subject matterexpert here.
I wanted to bring on MickeyKennedy with eReleases.
(01:21):
Hey, mickey, welcome to theshow.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So today we're going to deep dive into press releases
and how they could beincorporated into a broader
content strategy, pr strategy,marketing strategy.
I personally believe that youshould be doing a press release
at least once a quarter Now,depending on your business.
The new cycle, from what Iunderstand, is about every 28
(01:49):
days, so that's 13 pressreleases.
So think about it If you'relistening, are you doing 13
press releases a year?
Probably not.
Well, hopefully Mickey canexplain to us why we maybe
should be.
And Mickey also has a servicewith eReleases that he sends out
(02:10):
customized press releases onyour behalf and could be a
possible vendor for you to talka little bit about your
background, how you got into it,and then we can jump into, well
, why press releases are soimportant.
And I know I wanted to talk alittle bit about the histories
(02:32):
of how all this evolved intowhat it is today.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Sure.
So I got started a little over27 years ago.
I had graduated with a master'sof fine arts in creative
writing, with an emphasis inpoetry.
My career plan was to waittables and write poetry the rest
of my life.
And so I did that for a summerand realized that my knees and
back couldn't handle being onconcrete for 10, 12 hours at a
(02:59):
time.
So I transitioned to a safeoffice job, got hired at a DC
startup in the telecom world andwe published research and
telecom traffic numbersspecifically.
And because I had writing as abackground, as employee number
three, they told me to figureout press releases.
And so I inherited a Rolodexfrom the boss, who was a telecom
(03:24):
attorney, and he said startfaxing.
And so I wrote press releaseson sort of just the telecom
traffic data as we got it andnothing much happened.
My boss, the telecom attorney,said oh yeah, nothing happens
with press releases, but you'resupposed to do it.
And so I didn't take that asthe answer because it felt sort
(03:44):
of futile.
And so I started to notice thatwhat we were publishing was
data and, like, one of thereleases we had just done was
about telecom traffic in theCaribbean and it was a data
table of those countries andwhat their traffic was to and
from the United States.
And I just realized, looking atwhat journalists were writing
(04:05):
the end product articles thateven if it's a small article,
journalists like a story arc.
And you know I knew from youknow, being an English lit major
before going into creativewriting that you know there is a
natural story arc that peoplelike from children all the way
up to adults.
We like a story that builds andthen, you know, concludes and
(04:29):
there's a satisfaction of aclimax usually, and even in the
smallest little article, ajournalist can still sort of
follow that model and what wewere producing just data wasn't
going to do the job.
And so I looked at thatCaribbean traffic and noticed
that one country had moretraffic than almost all the
others combined and I was like Iwonder why that is, and so I
(04:53):
asked the two other guys thatwork there and they explained to
me that that was the callcenter for 1-900 numbers and
most of the US 1-900 numberswere being routed through that
country at the time.
So I did a press release onthat and sent that out, and we
got picked up by the Economist,the Financial Times, washington
(05:13):
Post, wall Street Journal andthree telecom trade publications
.
The phones rang, orders pouredin and everybody was like, wow,
mickey did it, he's a champion.
Can I do this again?
And I continued to do releasesthat were more of a story format
and we continued to get pickedup.
And I think that you know somany people, even to this day,
(05:37):
are doing press releases sort ofself-centered.
They're like we have a newproduct, so I'm going to write
it from my perspective.
Here's the product, here's abunch of features, here's a
button to learn more and buy.
And from a journalist lookingfor a story arc, there's not a
lot there.
So what I would recommend tojust that format is to
(05:57):
incorporate a use case study.
You know, here's a company thatwas losing 7% a year.
They integrated our logisticssoftware solution at the end of
a 90-day trial.
They are projected to have a 7%net profit by the end of this
year for the first time ever.
And then you can alsoincorporate public data, like
saying that, hey, in thetransportation industry, 67% of
(06:21):
businesses like this fail in thefirst five years because they
can't get their cost undercontrol and this software solves
that.
So it really shows the stakesof why your product or software
or solution is really important.
And so once you sort of addressthat and take everything that
you want to launch and put itthrough the perspective of, you
(06:41):
know, trying to give thejournalist the building blocks
for a story arc, as well asrecognize the journalist as a
gatekeeper, they have to decideis this information that is
going to either entertain oreducate or, ideally, both for my
audience?
Once you get through that,you'll have a lot more successes
, and I was so enamored withthis that I just wanted to do PR
(07:07):
and press releases foreverybody.
And so at the time that I wasfaxing, there was a trend where
I'd get phone calls after a faxsaying could you email this
press release in the future?
And so I spent about a yearnetworking with journalists,
mostly on bulletin boards andonline, and making some calls.
And so when I launchedeReleases in 1998, I had about
(07:31):
10,000 journalists who said sendme press releases by email,
something that would not happentoday.
I guarantee you, if you talk tojournalists, almost 100% of
them would not say send mereleases, and that's because of
media.
Databases have really changedthe landscape, licensing those
(07:51):
and when people buy a databaseor license it for a year and
they pay 8,000 or $15,000 andrealize there's only 2,400
contacts that are reallyspecific to their industry.
They start sending to offtarget stuff you got people who
create golf clubs themselves andto sending it to financial
(08:12):
analysts and business reportersbecause, hey, their audience you
know, bankers and businesspeople play golf but these
people will never report on golfequipment.
It's just not cover.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah.
So I think the information, uhlike from a data set standpoint,
like bad information in is badinformation out, and certainly
when you're trying to hitnumbers, um, yeah, it skews the
data and you start spreading itout and then it it skews the
engagement, right.
And so press releases havechanged a lot.
Now I love press releases, justlike I love podcasts.
(08:47):
It's one to many, right You're,you're syndicating something
out and you're putting it infront of a lot of eyeballs.
Now to your point.
I think that a lot of people seepress releases or they skim
them, right, and they're lookingat, like the subject line.
So you got to have a good hook,you got to catch them of having
them look more.
And then you got to help themdo their job, because they're
trying to hit whatever theirnumbers are, their metrics or
(09:11):
the story they're writing, orvisibility or whatever.
And if you can give them quotes, if you can give them stories,
if you can give them data thatthey can't go grab somebody else
, they're going to reference you, right, and?
And so it's super helpful tojust help them do their job
better and write it in a waythat, hey, a lot of people are
going to see this.
What are they going to do withit?
(09:31):
And I I like that writing fromtheir perspective, utilizing the
case studies, that they canincorporate some kind of data
into what they're doing.
Because, yeah, if you're justpublishing it out there, it's
really just like you know, ifit's just about yourself, if
someone's searching for you,they find it, but it's not going
to, you're not going to get thebenefit of of those journalists
(09:54):
or bloggers sharing it, andthat's where the real SEO
benefit comes in.
It's not from the press releaseservice, it's what people do
with it after that.
And if people are not doinganything with it, it's not
really that helpful, and so yougot to really think about it
from a copywriting standpoint.
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right.
So I do about 10,000 plus pressreleases a year for my clients,
and today all of our releasesgo out through PR Newswire,
which is owned by Scission.
Pr Newswire is the oldest andlargest newswire of press
releases, and so I had to walkaway from email because email
became really ineffective forreaching journalists and even
(10:34):
the PR firms that pitch peoplethrough email.
They have to follow up by phone, often to say, hey, it's buried
in there.
Can I walk you through how tofind this thing?
I emailed you, and so the thegreat thing about the wire is a
journalist can log into the wireand they can see a feed that's
specific to their beat that theycover, but they can also tailor
(10:57):
it.
So maybe you know they coverfashion, but maybe they don't
cover you know a lot of commonretail stuff, so they can
exclude keywords and just seestuff that's really relevant to
what they're about, and that'sthe real value of it.
At the same time thatjournalist inboxes have exploded
and are nightmares, theNewswire is very clean and it
(11:21):
makes it very easy for ajournalist to see very tailored
feeds that are specific to them,and the newswire is not going
to take those golf club releasesand send them to the feeds of
financial analysts and peoplewho cover banking news and data.
So that's the real value ofreaching a wire In the US.
(11:43):
It's basically a duopolythere's a business wire and PR
newswire.
Outside of that, there used tobe Globe Newswire making inroads
, but they pivoted and said hey,if you are publicly traded, you
can meet SEC disclosure, and doyou really want journalists
looking very closely at you?
I didn't think so and so, andas well as save a lot of money
(12:06):
with them.
But the good side of that isyou only have to send your
release to one of them and witheReleases, all of our releases
go out nationally through PRNewswire and you don't have to
pay anything close to the $1,600that they charge to go national
for a 600 word press release.
We have arranged a really greatdiscount with them and, because
(12:29):
we're moving 10,000 plusreleases, you get a national
distribution at a fraction ofthe costs by uh using e-releases
.
Um, you know that that.
That being said, uh, a lot ofpeople are still sending the
wrong types of media and pressreleases out there.
Um, you know one of the bigcritics.
Uh, go ahead.
So.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I just wanted to speak to that.
So, so, certainly there there'sdifferent additions and things
you can add on.
If we're talking about PRNewswire, I mean you can go
after different areas of themarket.
You know different industries.
You can reach differentinfluencers.
You can go after differentregional areas.
You you can do statewide um,you know, a lot of people are
(13:12):
using not, like you said, notthe right um type of uh press
release, but they've made itvery easy and they have a huge
reach and and, to your point, um, you know, getting that that
volume discount and gettingthose costs down, because a
regular press release throughthat network is is quite pricey
Um, and so there are advantages,uh, of scale and working with
(13:35):
someone with scale, whether itbe a slash account or whatever
they're doing Right.
So, um, I think that, um, I wanteverybody to hear that Um,
you're not going to be able toget the same uh kind of discount
, uh, but you'll get the samekind of discount, but you'll get
the same kind of release, butyou won't get the same kind of
discount, so you'll pay quite abit for it.
The full price press releasesthat people pay for are very
(13:58):
expensive, and so bulkdiscounting is big, and also
someone that knows how tonavigate all the different lists
.
Some of the lists are even alittle bit misleading.
I've had to ask for requestslike you know who's on this list
, what you know, who is thislist going to, based on who
you're trying to to, to reach,and having someone that knows
(14:18):
how to navigate all those things.
And even, like you know, Itypically do like a 400 word
press release, 600 word evenbetter, and, and you know you
can, and then it costs moremoney to add the logos or the
graphics and they'll try tocharge you for, um, uh, yearly,
uh, retention on their site.
Like there's, there's all kindsof tricks, guys, that that if
(14:40):
you need to do press releases,you need to find someone that
knows what they're doing, oryou're going to spend a lot of
time navigating it and there'sgoing to be costs of learning
that you're going to associatewith it.
And so I just, I just, ifyou're thinking about
incorporating newsletters, um,definitely hear, hear what we're
saying, um, and then you know,mickey, back to you.
(15:02):
But I want to kind of talk toabout, like, what are the
benefits of the press releaseand maybe go into the story arc
a little bit more to explain topeople what they're doing, cause
I see a lot of companies doingthose press releases that are,
hey, we got a new product, wehad a new team member, whatever,
but there there is no storybehind it.
And so then you look at thereach and you look into the
(15:22):
engagement and the reshares andyou wonder, well, how is this
the baseline?
Right, is this the baseline?
But I don't.
I think it's a lot aboutcopywriting.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
So right.
So yeah, I have a case study upon my website at eReleases,
called the it's for the diningbond initiative.
It was a very short livedeffort to help restaurants that
were closed during the pandemic.
Um, we did a press release forthem at no charge and, uh, it
was uh, you know, meant to uhhave where you could nominate
(15:56):
your favorite local restaurantand if they were, the volunteers
were able to contact them, youcould give money that went
directly to that restaurant andbe back sort of what they call a
dining bond or gift certificatesort of scenario.
And, uh, you know, during thattime we thought it was, you know
, we needed to make the biggestsplash in the smallest amount of
(16:18):
time, and so you couldn'treally pitch a lot of people, so
we just sent it on the wire,hit send once, and it resulted
in over 100 media outletspicking it up.
And this isn't syndication.
Syndication is your pressrelease replicated on websites,
and every time you issue a pressrelease, that does happen.
A lot of it is based off ofwhat they do for publicly traded
(16:42):
companies.
So that's why you might be arestaurant and your press
releases on Yahoo Finance andFox Business and places like
that, but that real earned mediais when a journalist writes an
article about you.
And in this case, over 100journalist publications wrote
individual articles, all withdifferent headlines, different
(17:05):
copy about this initiative basedon one single press release.
And so for what would have cost?
You know, under four or $500with us.
Uh got picked up in the wallstreet journal, CNN, harvard
business review, fox, business,bloomberg, forbes, um, james
Beard foundation, a bunch offood publications, including uh,
taste and Rob report and andReport and things like that, but
(17:28):
over a hundred, and itgenerated over $10 million in
revenue and this was the onlything that was used to market
this.
And so that is the potential ofthe value of a wire that if you
have a meaningful message, itcan really resonate and go very
far, and especially when it goesout nationally, like it does
(17:49):
through us.
And so that is the goal.
And a lot of people say I sentthe press release and, other
than the syndication, not muchhappened, and that's because it
wasn't newsworthy enough.
In this case, here was aninitiative that was meant to
help restaurants during thepandemic.
I think it did really wellbecause it was positive news at
a time where there's a lot ofuncertainty.
(18:11):
We had been sent home for twoweeks to flatten the curve and
we didn't know what was going tohappen.
But here was something that waspositive and, even more
important, I think, it wasactionable.
So if you're a couple at homeand you worry about your
favorite restaurant that you goto on your every anniversary,
here was a way for you to give$50 to them and hopefully keep
(18:32):
the lights on and, you know,when everything recovered,
hopefully you'd have a giftcertificate or be able to use
that $50.
And you know, barring that, youknow what can you do to write
more meaningful and strategicpress releases?
And you know the story arc isone of the most important
elements, I think, to reallyremember that and sort of build
(18:54):
that in there.
Is there something about yourbusiness, you starting it or
your origin story?
When I started eReleases, Ididn't have an origin story.
And they're like well, how didyou learn about press releases?
And I was like, oh, the lastplace I worked at.
And you know like, well, howdid you learn about Press
releases?
And I was like, oh well, thelast place I worked at.
And like, well, what was itabout it that excited you?
And it's like because the bosssaid that they don't really work
and I got them to work and Ithought I had this magic secret
(19:17):
sauce and I was passionate aboutit.
And this is like oh, I do havean origin story.
So, you know, do an audit ofwhat started you, your business.
You know the company, theproduct, the services.
There's a reason that everybodythat appears on Shark Tank opens
with that story.
Sometimes it's being authentic.
You know well, it's alwaysideally authentic, but it's
(19:39):
often vulnerable.
You know them sharing that.
You know their father died andthey used to have this hobby and
she just got laid off and nowshe was wondering could I turn
this hobby into a business andsomehow honor my father as well?
You know those things happenagain and again on that show and
it's because it breaks througheverything and it humanizes the
(20:00):
business and it includes a humaninterest element and it really
creates this immediate empathyand people care.
And so if you share that in apress release, you know that
will help you as well.
And if you can't lead with that, like you know, you're not
doing a press release launchingyour business.
You have a section at thebottom of the press release
(20:21):
called a boilerplate, where it'sabout company and you get to
write an elevator pitch, maybeincorporate that little bit of a
story nugget in that elevatorpitch and it will be when the
journalist is skimming thatpress release that's another
aspect of it.
They'll say, oh, that humaninterest element would really
feed my audience and that givesme.
(20:43):
You know this was a mediocrepress release as far as
newsworthiness, but that aspectof it I can work with that and I
think I can build a story thatwill really engage my audience
and it really does help quite abit.
You had mentioned people doingpress releases with hiring.
Those are probably the mostineffective press releases there
(21:04):
are, with the exception of anew major executive that you
hired or CEO or an industryveteran.
You really shouldn't pay moneyto go over a wire for a new hire
press release.
You can get probably the samepickup by reaching out to your
local newspaper or businessmagazine, business newspaper and
(21:25):
just send them the photo and afew lines about the new hire and
what they'll be doing at yourbusiness.
Same thing with tradepublications.
Spend the money to go over anewswire with stuff that's going
to be more effective and dowell and do not look at your
competitors and do not look atwhat everyone else is doing,
because 97% of press releasesthat are going out over the wire
(21:47):
will not yield earned media.
They will be ineffective.
The same reason that if youapproach AI and say what would
be a great press release, here'sthe company You're going to get
, 97% of the time, pressreleases that aren't effective.
Ai is not good at picking agood topic for a press release
because it's been trained on thegarbage that's out there for a
(22:10):
press release because it's beentrained on the garbage that's
out there.
What you need to do is do anaudit of your company and
business and what would bemeaningful stories.
Share what's going on right nowwith your product launch or an
update to your product.
Incorporate a use case study.
Take publicly data that's outthere and use it to sort of
(22:32):
position your product or serviceand show the stakes of why it's
so important.
Even more importantly, ifyou're looking for a type of
press release that never failsand on average when I coach
someone through this, they getusually between eight and 14
earned media articles every timethey do this type of press
release is do an industry survey.
(22:52):
Survey your industry and anyonecan do it.
There's no rules.
You're the author of the survey, you will get the credit.
It will elevate you in themarketplace and people will know
about you.
And you just want to ask a fewmeaningful questions that are
timely as of right now.
Post pandemic, the workplace haschanged.
There's a lot of middlemanagement concerned about
(23:14):
culture, people working fromhome, people working hybrid.
How am I going to make thiswork?
You could ask questions aroundthat.
Ai is really big.
Are people in your industryafraid they're going to lose
their job or be replaced becauseof AI?
And you can ask questionsaround that.
But also there's stuffspecifically going on in your
industry.
What are things you would askif you were to trade show, a
(23:37):
conference, say, hey, have younoticed lately that it seems
like everybody's taking 90 to120 days to pay, when it used to
be net 30?
And like, yeah, I have noticedthat that could be a sign that
money is tightening up in yourindustry or, you know,
nationwide.
So you know, think of questionsyou can ask right now.
Network with others.
You know, perhaps ask onLinkedIn and build a survey of
(24:01):
you know eight to 16 questions.
I like SurveyMonkey.
I put four questions per pageand at the end of the page.
Don't send them to SurveyMonkey.
So many people do that.
Send them back to your websitetalking about who you are and
offer to let them network withyou, because these are going to
be other people in your industrythat you could network with.
(24:24):
They could be valued friends orjoint venture possibilities.
So many people are obsessedwith competitors and I tell you
I've gotten so many leads fromcompetitors, so use that as an
opportunity to introduceyourself.
And then who do you send thesurvey to?
That is the easiest part ofthis.
(24:44):
There are independent and smalltrade associations in every
industry.
This there are independent andsmall trade associations in
every industry.
In mine, public relations, Iwas told once on a podcast that
well, in our industry we're theexception.
There's only Public RelationsSociety of America.
I had to break it to this60-some-year-old woman that
there was over 470 other PRtrade associations in the United
(25:06):
States.
Some of them are very esoteric,like Florida PR firms or the
Mid-Atlantic.
Some are Italian-Americansfounded ones, but there are some
that are like PR firms of 50employees or less, which
probably makes up the bulk of PRfirms in the US, except for the
big giant ones, and my problemwith them is how are you ever
(25:28):
going to get one person at thatcompany to stand for what the
entire entity feels or believes?
So I feel like that would be agreat entity.
You approach them and say, hey,here's a link, could you send
this to your members?
In exchange, I'll mention youin a press release.
I'll be issuing a repairnewswire in the coming weeks.
(25:48):
The small and independent tradeassociations no one knows about
them.
This person didn't realizethere was 470, some others out
there, and so they see this as awin-win for them to potentially
get some attention as well.
And about two thirds of thetime the first trade association
we approach says, yes, I'venever had to go and ask a third
(26:09):
one.
The second one has always beenlike sure, we'll do that.
You're looking for like at least100 responses or pretty close
to it, and you're really goingto focus the press release on
the one big aha moment from thatsurvey.
What's going to be the biggestshocker or surprise?
You're going to provide anamazing quote of analysis in
there, like if you ask graphicdesigners if you believe AI is
(26:35):
going to replace them in thenext five years and they say,
yes, it's going to be Adobethat's doing it.
You can then say, hey, I don'tbelieve that AI is going to
replace graphic designers in thenext five years, but I do think
that those who don't realizeand learn how to incorporate AI
into their business are probablygoing to be at a very serious
disadvantage and may findthemselves out of a job.
And so it's a way for you to bereasonable and rational and to
(26:58):
really provide a little bit ofanalysis of the data points that
are there, and you're going tobuild out a page on your website
with all 16 questions andanswers, or how many questions
and answers you did have,because a journalist will click
on that and they may findanother question that they can
write another article on orfocus a different approach.
(27:19):
And if you build that page as agood resource, some publications
who have a no link policy willlink to you.
The New York Times has a nolink policy.
I've had them link to one of myclients in an article because
of that.
How many resources and aninfographic that was on that
resource page.
So build that out and, like Isaid, every time we've done that
(27:40):
and sent it out, it's generated, between you know, as many as
as many as 20 pickups, but onaverage eight to 14 seems to be
where most people alignthemselves.
The least I've ever had one getis four articles and it was a
very specialized biometricsfield and they were thrilled
with four articles.
They're like I can't think ofanybody else who covers
(28:01):
biometrics who didn't cover this, and it creates a lot of buzz,
a lot of interest, and I've seenwhat I felt was a Link Farm
website utilize this where theywrite the top 10 of different
fields, like top 10 software forarchitects, top 10 automotive
sales, crms and things like that, and they did press releases
(28:26):
for each of these fields, basedoff of surveys for each of these
individual verticals, and theygot eight to 14 articles for
each one of those and they weredoing at the height 30 of these
press releases a year and todaythey don't even have to issue
those surveys anymore becausethey get asked by the media.
(28:46):
What's your opinion about thisindustry?
Here's some consolidationhappening, how do you feel?
Because they have establishedthemselves as experts by just
doing the survey over severalyears and it's a great way to
stand out.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Awesome.
That is just absolute gold,mickey, so I was just letting
you go, I.
I think that, um, there is areassurance of creativity coming
, okay, I think with AI, um,there are some advantages,
Absolutely, but I also thinkthat, uh, creativity is going to
shine because there are thingsof human ingenuity that are not
(29:26):
in those large language modelsand they're homogenizing.
I'm seeing it on theadvertising side.
I'm seeing ads that are very,very similar, right, because
they're all pulling from thesame data set.
So I think being able to tradeyour own is kind of that next
evolution.
But I think just creativity isso important and working with
someone that knows what they'redoing on that side to get that,
(29:48):
I mean everything you weresaying fantastic strategy, great
way to do it and, to your point, from an SEO standpoint, the
value of those backlinks.
There's a quantitative value tothat, right, and so, if you're
getting high quality links, ifyou're trying to, uh, not earn
(30:10):
the link and and and kind ofoperate in the gray, you're
going to spend a lot of money.
So, doing it the right way,you're going to get full link
equity, because, also, if you'renot doing it the right way,
okay and I and I preach this ifyou're not doing it the right
way and that link gets found outor they already kind of know
what's going on with that Likewhen you talk about link farms
or anything like that um, it'snot going to get full value,
(30:32):
it's only going to push partiallink equity or even no link
equity.
But if you earn the link andit's a true link that you earn
and or it's a difficult sitethat you get, that that has a
rule of not getting it.
It's going to be so powerfuland the only way to do it is do
it the right way, just spend theeffort and time and the
creativity to do it the rightway and offer information that
(30:53):
other people don't have.
Right, that's what journalistsare looking for, is is data
that's not publicly availablethat they can use and whatever
goal or story that they have.
So I think that that's justabsolute gold, mickey, and I
know we've talked about this andmaybe you want to use that as
your unknown secret, because Iwould love for you to share,
(31:16):
kind of in a synopsis, whatmight be a new unknown secret
that you haven't shared, or ifyou want to share that one.
I thought that one was absolutegold.
What would you say the biggestunknown secret of digital
marketing utilizing pressreleases would be.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I think that the biggest secret is a lot of
people feel like they're toosmall to matter with the media,
and I would counter to that andsay that the most shares that a
journalist gets are not fromcovering Google or Microsoft.
The most shares they get for anarticle are when they spotlight
a new tool or resource that noone knows about, and often these
(31:55):
are small businesses.
They're sometimes mom and pops,sometimes they're side hustle
businesses.
These are people for whom theydidn't feel that they were big
enough yet, and yet they got thespotlight put on them.
Because journalists like to beseen as curators and they don't
feel that they were big enoughyet, and yet they got the
spotlight put on them.
Because journalists like to beseen as curators and they don't
get credit for spotlightingsomething that everybody in the
industry knows about.
(32:15):
And so if you're doingsomething that's unique and
novel in an industry, you aredeserving of media attention,
and so don't undersell yourselfbecause you're just not quite
there yet, because if you wait,you'll just be waiting forever.
Go ahead and take advantage ofit now.
I've had people who feel likethe only person that I can list
(32:37):
as a quote in the press releaseis me, because the company's
just me.
But then the media contact do Ihave to make someone up?
And I'm like, no, the mediadoesn't care that you're a solo
operation, it does not lookterrible to do that.
I have people who get picked upby the Wall Street Journal and
really great big publicationsBarron's and other places that
(32:58):
they're the same media contact,the same person quoted in the
press release.
Being authentic is the mostimportant thing and you don't
have to disguise yourself.
Uh, you know, and and sometimessharing the little stumbles
along the way work really well.
I had one client who had anembarrassing story where they
nearly had to cancelthanksgiving and the whole
family had to pitch in thatweekend to put stuff in boxes
(33:21):
and ship it out because they hadjust gotten a crash order and
and needed to get out asap.
And so we led with that in apress release and they didn't
want to.
They thought it wasembarrassing.
It became the lead of a twopage article about them in Inc
magazine and they just didn'tget.
Why would they focus on that?
(33:42):
And I'm like because it'ssomething every entrepreneur
identifies with.
We all have obstacles.
We all have things we overcome.
We have these littleembarrassments, these little
setbacks, but yet the thingsthat we look back later on and
we look fondly like, yeah, weall came together, we all did
this, and the whole familypitched in, and that's part of
entrepreneurship.
(34:02):
It's not just me, it's like thewhole family's involved, even
if it's just them sacrificingtheir time with me.
Uh, because I'm focused on thebusiness and so, uh, you know,
focus on the story, focus onwhat's really going on, be
vulnerable, don't be afraid toreally show who you are in the
business and, uh, you can really, uh resonate, just being
(34:25):
authentic with the media.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Awesome, Mickey.
I think that that's just fire.
So everybody that's listening,take Mickey's advice.
Mickey, if people want to knowmore or they want to contact you
, what's the best way for themto get in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Right.
So ereleasescom is the website.
There's no salespeople, justeditors.
So feel free to chat, email orcall All of our social medias.
On the lower right of thewebsite I do have a free
masterclass that I recommend.
It's a great place to start.
If you don't know much about PRor I would say even people who
do know stuff about PR it wouldalso be good.
(35:01):
It's less than an hour longvideo and I did that because
last class I signed up for.
I paid $1,500 for it and when Isaw it was 40 hours of videos,
I just knew I wasn't going to beable to commit to that.
I just don't have that time andso it's available at
ereleasescom slash plan P-L-A-N,again completely free, and it
goes through the types of pressreleases that do get picked up.
(35:24):
It ignores the 75% that don'tand within the 3% of ones that
do get picked up, it's thepatterns of the press releases
that you can incorporate, and ifyou build a PR campaign of six
to eight releases and you followthose that are there, you're
going to walk away with two orthree of those having meaningful
(35:46):
media pickup.
The rest may be duds, but thetruth is you really only need
one to really kill it to make ahuge difference.
But you should have several ofthose by following this and
again, that's eReleasescom slashplan P-L-A-N and, of course,
that survey one is definitely inthere and it walks you through
that as well.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Awesome.
I'm gonna have to maybe checkthat out myself.
I think I've learned some stuffas well.
So this was awesome.
Mickey wanted to let everybodyknow we are going to be changing
the website.
We are going to be changing thepodcast cover very soon, as
well as the intro, so don't getthrown off your game there.
(36:26):
I will be letting everybodyknow about it.
I will try to publicize it,maybe through a press release, I
don't know.
Mickey, we'll talk, um, but uh,everybody, um, you know, if
you're trying to grow yourbusiness with the largest, most
powerful tool on the internet,reach out to EWR for, uh, more
visibility and revenue in yourbusiness.
Uh, until the next time, bye,bye, for now.
(36:47):
Thanks for coming on, mickey.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
You're very welcome.
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