March 6, 2025 • 34 mins
Are you struggling to get your business noticed in a crowded marketplace? Press release marketing might be the solution you've been searching for. In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down with Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, to explore the power of strategic press releases and how they can elevate your brand.
Mickie shares his journey from aspiring poet to PR expert, revealing how he transformed the art of press release writing. His insights will change the way you think about media outreach and help you craft compelling stories that journalists can't resist.
Key Takeaways from This Episode:
- Why most press releases fail to generate earned media
- The secret to creating press releases that journalists actually want to read
- How to leverage AI in press release writing (without letting it take over)
- The types of press releases you should avoid sending
- Strategies for uncovering your business's unique story angle
The Power of Strategic Press Releases
Discover why Mickie believes that only 3% of press releases generate earned media, and learn how to position your business to be part of that elite group. We discuss the importance of focusing on strategic ideas and how to craft press releases that stand out in a sea of mediocrity.
AI and Press Releases: A Delicate Balance
Mickie offers practical advice on using AI to streamline your press release writing process without sacrificing quality or authenticity. Learn how to guide AI to create more powerful headlines and compelling content while maintaining your unique voice.
Crafting Your Business Story
Uncover the elements that make a press release truly newsworthy. Mickie shares tips on how to audit your business history and uncover the emotional threads that can captivate journalists and readers alike.
"Media like to be seen as curators and they get the most shares and accolades of articles when they put the spotlight on a product or software or a solution that no one in the industry is aware of yet." - Mickie Kennedy
Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a small business owner looking to boost your visibility, this episode is packed with actionable insights to enhance your press release strategy. Don't miss Mickie's free masterclass, available at ereleases.com/plan, where he dives deeper into strategic press release ideas that can transform your media outreach.
Ready to take your press release marketing to the next level? Listen now and discover how to craft stories that will make journalists and readers sit up and take notice.
Connect with Mickie
Website: https://www.ereleases.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/publicity/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ereleasespr/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ereleases
Looking to leverage AI? Want better results? Want to think about what you want to leverage?
Check and see how I am using it for FREE on YouTube.
From "Holy cow, it can do that?" to "Wait, how does this work again?" – I've got all your AI curiosities covered. It's the perfect after-podcast snack for your tech-hungry brain.
Watch here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of
Imperfect Marketing.
Today we are going to betalking about press release
marketing.
I am super excited because Ilove marketing, but I'm not a
fan of PR because it's so timeconsuming.
But that's why we have Mickeyhere who's going to be talking
(00:22):
to us all about it.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So okay, how did you get into press release marketing
and what is press releasemarketing?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Right.
So I got started working at atelecom research startup after
finishing my master's of finearts and I was originally going
to be a poet and wait tables.
And I did that for a summer andrealized that, you know, being
on your feet 10, 12 hour shiftsis not something I was built for
.
So I got hired at that telecomresearch company as employee
(00:56):
three, as a startup, and becauseI had writing as my background,
I'll be at creative writing.
They said you know, figure outpress releases and send them to
the media.
And they gave me a littleRolodex of like 150 numbers to
fax to.
And so I did that.
And it's a full-time job, youknow.
Just you know faxing it,programming a fax machine and
(01:18):
hitting send and waiting for theerrors and the prints and all
that.
It was a waste of an entire dayjust sending them.
And so when nothing happened, Ijust felt like I'm doing
something wrong.
And the owner's like oh no,nothing ever really happens with
press releases and I was likethen why do it?
And so I said is it OK if Iresearch a little bit more?
(01:41):
And they were like sure, and Inoticed that we publish a lot of
data and the media generallylikes data, I've found out, but
what we weren't giving them islike the context, the story
behind the data.
And so we had just published,like the Caribbean traffic, and
there was one country that hadmore traffic to and from the
(02:02):
United States and basically allthe others combined, and when I
looked into it I found out thatthat country was like the call
center for 1-900 numbers at thetime and they were really big in
the US, where you would call apsychic and speak to someone
live for $2 or $3 a minute andit would be billed discreetly to
(02:24):
your landline bill and youcould also get a recorded, you
know, astrology or pet adviceand tips, and it was just like
the wild, wild west of 1-900numbers out there.
And so when I revised the pressrelease and sent it out,
talking about that context, itgot got picked up by the
(02:46):
Economist, financial Times, wallStreet Journal, washington Post
and about three telecom tradepublications, and I was like you
know, this is worth spending awhole day faxing, you know it
worked out really well, and so Itended to try to figure out
what the media was interested inand I found that I got really
(03:06):
good at it, and so that reallygot me wanting to do that for
other small businesses.
I was aware of PR firms andpeople who were just like, oh, I
can't afford to spend $20,000to $30,000 a year for a PR firm,
but I would like to get arelationship with the media
going and get some media pickup.
(03:28):
And so I sort of just got outthere and started my business
sending releases via email.
And that was a big changeover.
Every time I would fax, I wouldget journalists calling and
saying, hey, in the future,could you email them?
And that's what gave me theidea for email releases,
e-releases.
(03:48):
At the time and over the years,as I was emailing PR Newswire,
I reached out to us and said hey, we'd love to support you, we'd
like you helping entrepreneursand startups and small
businesses.
And what do you say aboutadding a city or state
distribution?
And I held out and said youknow, my clients really are
(04:09):
looking for national media.
And eventually we were able tocome to terms so that every
release that goes out througheReleases today goes out
nationally through PR Newswire,goes to the appropriate trades
and there's local saturationavailable.
But you know, you don't have topay $1,600.
And I think it's around $1,650to move a press release
(04:32):
nationally through PR Newswire a600-word press release and
through us it's like about aquarter of that.
So it's a big price savingsgoing through us directly and
then going directly through thewire.
And the good thing that hashappened is email is now
probably the worst way tocontact journalists.
That was how I originallystarted.
But email databases have comeout, media databases and there
(04:58):
are people who pay anywhere from$5,000 to $20,000 a year for
access to these media databasesand they just talk themselves
into spamming so many peoplethat are not interested in what
they're doing.
You know golf club company says, hey, there's 1600 golf
contacts in here, but there's,like you know, 125,000 banking
(05:22):
and 250,000 business journalistsand banking and business people
like golf clubs.
So let's just send them toeverybody.
And so, as a result, email isthe wild wild west with a lot of
journalists.
A lot of them are having verydifficult times trying to keep
that in and control what they'regetting, and so the newswire
(05:43):
has become even more importantfor busy journalists that they
can log in.
It's very clean.
They see their industry feed bydefault and they can customize
it so that it's just the typesof releases that they're
interested in, and so it'sbecome a very effective way for
people to get their message outeffective way for people to get
(06:08):
their message out.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Okay, so I can tell that, yes, you're an amazing
storyteller, because the way youtold your story just kept me on
the edge of my seat.
I'm like, oh my gosh, that's socool.
And you pulled out importantinformation that related to me,
that made me want to be like, ohwow, that's so cool.
I lean in and I think thatthat's so powerful with someone
who's in any type of publicrelations type position.
(06:29):
So thank you for sharing thatstory.
I love it.
And I love that insight aboutPR, newswire and how that's
breaking through a bit with orthe newswires, I should say and
how that's breaking through withjournalists, because I hate
sending them emails.
They don't know me, like theydon't, and I I'm guessing that
(06:50):
they're interested.
I mean, and I'm sending themindividual one offs.
I'm guessing that they'reinterested based on the seven
articles that they wrote that Iread that sort of relate to what
I want to send them.
But, um, but it's yeah it.
Pr is time consuming.
That's like the one thing that,like people are like, do you do
PR?
And I was like, no, but I'llwrite a press release and that's
(07:14):
about it.
Um, cause that, it it reallycomes down to relationships or
having the right angle, and Ilove that story about how you're
like.
We have data and the 1-900numbers.
That's just funny because letme just take a little bit of a
segue off of that.
I remember I used to I workedin sales reporting and I would
(07:36):
call different people and leavethem messages to ask them
questions about their salesreporting.
Back when I worked at DaimlerChrysler back in the day it was
Daimler Chrysler, it was notStellantis or Chrysler Actually,
I did work at Chrysler itself,but it wasn't FCA or anything
like that and I was there andthis one guy goes Kendra, I'm
like what he goes.
(07:56):
I was listening to yourvoicemail to me on speakerphone
and somebody walked by andthought I called a 1-900 number.
So that's how long ago I wasdoing that.
But that's so funny that peoplewere calling and that one
wasn't the astrology one that hewas thinking that I was leaving
messages from.
But okay, so very cool oncustomizing your message to meet
(08:21):
your audience, which is what Ialways say right, and delivering
it in the way that they want toget it delivered, which sounds
fantastic.
So kudos to you for what you'vecreated.
All right, let's talk about AIand press releases, because I
think anytime we're talkingabout anything that's the
written word, we have to talkabout AI now, right, sure, how
(08:46):
do you and how don't yourecommend people use AI to
create press releases?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So I believe AI can write a press release very well
and I have no problem withpeople using AI to write a press
release.
That being said, I feel thatgiving AI the the runway to come
up with what you should writeabout is a bad idea.
(09:12):
The reality is that probably97% of press releases out there
don't generate earned media, andthat's what we call it.
When you get the articleswritten about you, a lot of
people look at what other peopleare doing and they're like oh,
competitor X did a press releaseon them speaking at an event,
(09:34):
or they got a new HR director orsomething, and so they do press
releases based off of that.
And AI is trained on all thebad press releases that are out
there, and by bad not howthey're written, but what
they've chosen to write about.
And so I feel like you knowwhat I've learned is to be very
strategic with the types ofpress releases that you're doing
(09:57):
.
So anytime you approach AI, youshould know certainly what
you're going to write about.
You know what that idea is.
And then I approach AI anddon't give AI full reign.
Don't say, write a 600 wordpress release on this topic,
because AI is kind of lazy iswhat I found.
You tell it to come up with,you know, rattle off a hundred
(10:18):
ideas for a brainstorm orsomething like that, and they're
just kind of weak.
But you know, sometimes if youtell AI to stop, slow down,
pause, or every 10 ideas, stopand think about how the next 10
ideas can be more strategic orjust better, or just get AI to
(10:41):
stop and pause, and I find thatAI will give you a better result
.
It doesn't stop for very long,but it does give you a more
measured result.
And so what I do is I say, hey,how would you structure a
600-word press release on thissubject?
And then it would give me theoutline.
And then I'd say, okay, give methree headline variations and
(11:06):
between each one, think abouthow you can make the next
headline more succinct, morepowerful, and almost have a call
to action.
And boom, I get three goodheadlines and generally the
third one's better.
And I find if I just say, giveme three headline variations on
that, they're all pretty muchthe same.
But when I tell it to stop andto make the next one a little
(11:31):
stronger, think about how youcould make it more powerful,
maybe involve a call to actionin a way.
You know AI can do that and sowhy would you ever approach AI
and just give it, you know, thesame measured type of headline?
(11:51):
And so then I say, okay, nowgive me an opening paragraph.
And I look at it.
I'm like you know, injournalism we learn the most
important aspects are the who,what, when, where, how and why.
And I look at that paragraphand I said is it answering most
of that?
Is it really, you know, puttingthe idea that I have at the
forefront?
And if I'm happy with it, I'mlike that's great.
(12:12):
I may ask, hey, give me acouple more variations of that
opening paragraph.
Or I could say, hey, I likethis, but I'd really like you to
incorporate this thing that youdidn't mention.
And so I sort of get myparagraphs and my information
piecemeal from it using thatoutline.
(12:36):
And one area that I find that AIis not great at is a quote, and
that's probably overall.
Quotes that are in pressreleases are probably one of the
biggest missed opportunities,because an amazing quote can
save you.
Because an amazing quote cansave you.
If a journalist is looking attwo possible story ideas and
they're like to them, equalnewsworthiness.
(12:57):
If there's an amazing quote.
They know at the end of the day, they're gonna have an article
with a really strong quote in itand if it's a weak quote
they're gonna say, hey, it'llend up being an okay article,
but there's nothing reallystrong there that elevates the
article.
But a really great quote can dothat.
And by really great quote, youknow you're saying something
(13:18):
that is succinct or powerfulthat if they were to take it out
, you'd sort of ache for theloss of what was there.
You know, previously you justsaid it perfectly.
You know there are people whoare wordsmiths and they can say
something beautiful, but youreally don't need that.
I mean, a great quote caninclude that, but I think that
(13:39):
just getting down to the rootand saying something powerful
and succinct and with authorityis is really what journalists
are looking for.
So spend a lot of time on thatquote and, you know, feel free
to beat up AI, but maybe that'sa place where you might have to
go in and, you know, toughen itup a little bit, make sure
you're using the most activeverbs, that you're saying
(13:59):
something that'll really getpeople on the edge of their seat
and like, well, you know, maybeeven be a little contrarian.
That's a place where youropinion is going to be, you know
, put in quotes.
So feel free to say somethingthat just sort of like will
shock the industry a little bitand you know, just go that
(14:21):
approach and at the end of ityou'll end up with a great press
release.
I've done these and modeled themfor other people.
The most I've ever spent on anAI press release going back and
forth, the way that I do is like22 minutes and so it's not as
quick as getting it out in threeor four minutes, but at the end
of the day on average 15minutes I come out with a really
(14:45):
well-written press releasethat's going to do really well,
and I'd mentioned that I don'tlet it come up with the ideas
for the press release.
That's my bread and butter iscoming up with strategic ideas.
I have a free masterclass whereI go into what these ideas
people should consider doing fortheir press releases and the
(15:07):
best thing, it's completely freeand it's about an hour long
video and so, if anyone'sinterested, I have that at
ereleasescom slash plan P-L-A-N,and I think that's a great
place for anybody who's new toPR or who have done it and it
didn't work for them to sort ofstart there.
Because if you focus on the 3%of press releases that
journalists are picking up onand you build a PR campaign of
(15:30):
six to eight releases andthey're all strategic, you're
going to see two or three ofthose press releases do
extremely well.
And I have one type of pressrelease in my arsenal that never
fails, always generates earnedmedia and usually about half a
dozen articles from that onepress release.
(15:50):
And so I tell people that's thearea where I would never trust
AI and I would really focus onthese strategic types of
releases and sort of go throughthem with a lens of your
business and you would besurprised at the types of
strategic and important pressreleases you could be doing
about your company that youdidn't even think about.
(16:14):
And I think that that's a wayin which a lot of people don't
realize that you may feel thatyou're not important and that
you're not newsworthy, buteverybody can do a survey or an
industry study and by youauthoring that that elevates you
, whether you're an author oryou have a business.
(16:34):
You putting out an industrysurvey and publishing the
results and having amazing quote, analyzing the results and why
they swayed a certain way,really makes you stand out and
if you've asked really timelyquestions.
People in your industry want toknow and, like I said, you know
that one generates usuallyabout half a dozen article
(16:54):
pickups every time we do it withclients.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So, wow, okay, there's a lot there.
First off, I will be watchingyour free masterclass for sure,
because, again, I've got thelove hate relationship with
press releases.
A lot of times, though, it'sbecause my clients come to me
and they're like, hey, let'swrite a press release on this,
and I'm like nobody cares, justus.
(17:19):
That's it.
Can you give me three examples?
If you don't mind, I'm going toput you on the spot here of
things that are not newsworthyin general.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
A personnel new hire, unless it's a new CEO or
executive, or you've taken anindustry veteran that everyone
in the industry knows and you'vebrought them in.
Outside of that, no one cares.
No one cares that you have anew HR person or a VP of sales.
You'd be better off.
(17:51):
Just, there's usually an emailaddress or a contact form at
your trade publications for anon the move section and you send
the photo and a couplesentences and maybe the same
thing with your local paper.
Maybe, if you're lucky enoughto have a business magazine or
business newspaper in your city,you could do that as well, and
it will go directly to thatsegment where a low level intern
(18:14):
is just looking for oh, thesepeople have moved positions, and
that's probably all you wouldhave gotten, and you know it's
not worth spending money to goout over a wire for those types
of press releases, other typesof releases that I feel don't
work very well, that I see a lotof.
We get a lot of product launchpress releases and what they
(18:36):
fail to do is the same thingthat I figured out at that
telecom research company is theydon't have the elements of a
story and it's here's our newproduct, here's a list of
features and here's a page tolearn more or buy it.
And a journalist is like what'sthere?
You know, I have an audience toprotect and I have to make sure
(18:57):
that what I'm sharing with themeither entertains or educates
them, or both, and here it'sjust dry features.
And so what I tell people to dois go back, and I'm sure you've
had people review this productor this software solution and
you know what were their results.
You know you put a use casestudy in there, say, hey, we
(19:20):
have this new logistics softwaresolution and we took a trucking
company that was losing 11% ayear since they started three
years ago and they're on thebrink of failure and all of a
sudden them producing invoicesand quotes based on real results
that the software was able toextrapolate.
(19:42):
They're now projected, 90 daysin, to post a five percent
profit at the end of the yearfor the first time.
And you're like wow, that's ameaningful outcome that they saw
.
And you could actually evenpoint that, hey, here's a
publicly available number 63% ofnew transportation companies
fell in the first five yearsbecause they don't achieve
(20:04):
profitability.
So you took a publiclyavailable quote and you put it
in there and that sort of justshowcases, even more importantly
, why your solution can solveone of the biggest problems with
people in the industry.
And again, you know the medialoves numbers, but they love it
with context and so make sureyou include that.
And then you can also includesome of the features and things
(20:26):
like that.
It allows a journalist who'slooking at trying to compose a
story arc to say, hey, I havethe ingredients for a story now
because I can share a journey ofa client who used this and what
(20:47):
their outcome was.
And that's a much moremeaningful thing to share with
an audience, because they cansort of come along for the ride
of what this journey was.
You know of what this journeywas.
And it's one of the reasonsthat if you look at anybody that
goes on Shark Tank, they don'tstart with here's my shiny logo
and this is the product and willyou invest?
I think we can do three, youknow three, $3 million a year.
It's not that it's their journey.
(21:07):
It's like, hey, I got laid offand I remembered I used to make
these things with my dad and Iwas like could there be a
business there?
It's always these elements ofwhat it was.
That is their story and youknow, again it goes into a story
arc.
People love stories and all ofa sudden, when someone shares a
vulnerability of I just gotdivorced and I was alone and I
(21:32):
wanted to create this.
I wanted to own something thatwas meaningful that I could pass
along to my children, it's likeall of a sudden we're along for
the ride and we care and itreally gives immediate empathy,
because these human interestelements are probably the most
powerful things.
And it's one of the biggestmistakes that I see small
businesses do is they try totake all the humanity out and
(21:54):
appear ultra corporate andbigger than they are.
And generally, if you just takeall that away and just share
your authenticity, be vulnerable, share your journey, don't be
embarrassed that the mediacontact of your press release
and the quote in your pressrelease is you, because right
now the business is just you.
(22:16):
The media doesn't care and, as amatter of fact, I've had a lot
of people tell me I'm not readyyet for media because I'm just
too small and the media reallyonly wants big companies.
And that's not true at all.
Media like to be seen ascurators and they get the most
shares and accolades of articleswhen they put the spotlight on
(22:40):
a product or software or asolution that no one in the
industry is aware of yet.
They might have to cover theMicrosofts and the Ciscos and
the big giant companies, because, because you know, in the
industry, these people are thereand they have to be covered.
But they get the most sharesand the most accolades and the
most recognition when they putthe spotlight on someone that no
(23:03):
one has heard of, and oftenthese are solo businesses,
sometimes they're sidebusinesses, where it's someone
who still has a full-time joband they're doing this on the
side and for that reason you,being small and unknown, is a
superpower when it comes togetting PR.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
That's fantastic.
So stop writing these pressreleases.
Just do an announcement.
You can do a I'll call it amarketing press release that you
put on your website when youhire a new person.
It doesn't mean you don't haveto announce it, but it's not
going to run in the New YorkTimes.
Odds are.
So save your time, right.
And then, no product releasesunless you've got a story angle
(23:46):
Right.
Talk about how it came to be orthe problem it solves in a
unique and curious way, or talkabout that pain that you were
going through before you createdit, right, like that's what the
(24:23):
whole thing is.
Spanx is that story, and that'sone of the things again, when
you were doing your intro as tohow you got into this and where
you were going with it, you tolda story.
You drew me in.
It comes natural to you.
I struggle sometimes with that.
What is there a question thatpeople could ask to really get,
(24:47):
if anybody else cares about whatthey're doing, or how to get
that empathy or that story angleor the story arc out of where
they're going, because I thinksome of it's that they're not
just trying to pretend thatthey're bigger than they are.
I don't think they know how.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, I think that doing an audit of the history of
your business and talking aboutthat and finding patterns that
are there.
I talked with one person andshe shared when she started the
business and there was nothingreally magical, it wasn't like a
(25:25):
moment, it was like she was.
She approached it veryprofessionally and had ideas and
brainstormed and stuff likethat, and then later she's like,
yeah, she goes.
My mother was so proud becauseshe told me that her biggest
regret was just she was ahousewife her whole life and she
never did anything that wasimportant.
And I was like I think thatthat something around that is
(25:49):
your story.
That you came from a motherthat inspired you and nurtured
you to go to school and to pushyourself and part of it was why
it was because she never feltfulfilled personally and you
know not saying anythingnegative to people that aren't,
you know, coming out of that andnot feeling fulfilled but for
the mother she wasn't fulfilledand she wanted something
different for her child and Ithink that incorporating
(26:11):
elements of that and thatinspiration from her mother
allowed her to craft the story.
But sometimes it is doing anaudit and looking at the
emotional stuff around startingthe business and you may not
even be aware of some of thethings that were there Me
talking about me starting mycompany and the mistakes that I
(26:34):
made, and the journey andchallenges of facts and all that
stuff got me to sort of realizesome of the aha moments that I
wasn't really aware of at thetime.
I mean, the secret sauce of, youknow, telling a story.
It was there, but it wasn't asobvious and sort of planned out
(26:57):
until I've thought about it inretrospect and realized that is
one of the reasons that I sortof tell people to sort of you
know, go for the story, try togive the building blocks for a
story and a press release, andthat's sort of where that came
from and what I immediatelydiscovered starting.
But it wasn't as obvious therethat the threads needed to be
pulled a little bit andsometimes talking about it and
(27:19):
just sharing your story will getyou to those moments that will
coalesce and then you have thatstory that you can give out
anytime, that you're talkingabout your motivation and the
things that sort of were therein the beginning.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay, so definitely start with an audit after you've
watched the masterclass.
Where's the masterclass again?
It's at ereleasescom.
Forward slash plan CorrectRight.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Right, okay.
So definitely check that out anddon't be afraid to use AI.
Right, but AI is not the ideagenerator.
You are the idea generator.
You're going to give it thestory after you've done the
audit.
You're going to give it theinformation.
It's just going to help youstructure it and you're going to
do it piece by piece by pieceand you're going to give it the
information.
It's just going to help youstructure it and it's going to.
(28:07):
You're going to do it piece bypiece by piece and you're going
to give it enough informationthat it's going to pause and
reflect.
One of my, my success I guessI'll call it successes with AI
was when I was working on areview for a client.
Someone had given them anegative review and and I
respond to all their negativereviews and so I was working
with AI, because there's only somany things that you can say
(28:29):
and I'm like, how do I saythat's really not true without
saying it's really not true?
So, anyway, I was like, howabout, if I did this and it's
like I've trained it and gavethe project, because it's in
Claudeai I gave the projectenough information that I said
go ahead and question me anddon't be afraid to push back,
(28:53):
and I gave him all the values ofthe company and all the other
things and it goes.
Yeah, I don't think that's agood idea.
I'm like.
Yes, I'm like because I didn'teither, and I was on the fence
and I wasn't quite sure.
I didn't think it was a goodidea and it wasn't, and I was
much happier with it.
But, yes, ai can do that.
It's not going to come up withanything new.
(29:14):
But if you give it enoughinformation, if you want you to
pause, reflect, consider, reviewthe information that's in this
custom GPT or in this cloudproject, you know before you
start responding, and then youknow all of a sudden, it's like
(29:38):
I'm pausing and reflecting andI'm like, okay, and I do get
better stuff, which is crazy.
So again, don't be afraid touse AI.
Ai can definitely write stuff,but it has to come from you, and
that story has to come from you.
And I love that.
You gave us both sides of AI,which is it can write it.
(29:59):
It can write it in pieces.
You have to push it and youhave to customize it.
And if you're not getting theresults that you want, you have
to push it and you have tocustomize it, and if you're not
getting the results that youwant, you have to push back on
that.
And then don't forget aboutyour unique quote.
This has been an amazingconversation.
I love it.
I'm actually excited to give ita try, playing around with some
of it, and definitely check outyour masterclass, because,
(30:22):
again, pr it's scary.
It's a lot of work to invest toget nothing, and so I think if
you start with those storylinesand you start with um, those
those topics and types of pressreleases that you're going to
talk about in that masterclass,I think that that can hopefully
(30:43):
make it less scary and less of awaste of time.
So that is awesome.
Okay, before I let you go,though, I do have to ask you the
question that I ask all of myguests, and that is that this
show is called ImperfectMarketing.
Marketing is anything but aperfect science, hence why we
marketing people have takenpress releases and PR underneath
(31:03):
our umbrella.
We've just co-opted 90% of thebusiness.
I think finance is the onlything we didn't take under us,
but knowing it's not a perfectscience.
What's been your biggest lessonlearned in marketing?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think for me.
I didn't come from a businessbackground, so I sort of learned
everything as part of amarketing mastermind that I
joined and stayed part of forover a dozen years, and it was
just to measure everything anddon't necessarily go with
assumptions but test it.
(31:39):
And I started split testinglanding pages.
But I realized you could splittest processes in your business
and if you have two alternateversions you can test that and
determine which of thoseprocesses leads to a better
client outcome.
And for me, I used lifetimevalue of a customer and I've
(32:01):
looked at how I onboardedcustomers and tested out a
completely different way andrealized that one way was at the
two-year mark, giving me fourtimes the lifetime value than
the other one.
And so measure as much as youcan in your business and, you
know, don't be afraid of splittesting and trying different
(32:22):
things.
Just, you know, measure it andpick a winner once you have
statistical relevance.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
All right, and marketing is definitely part art
and part science.
It's a lot of experimentation.
It's not perfect.
That's why we move forward,imperfectly, right.
So thank you so so much for allof this information.
This has been a fantasticconversation and I'm really
excited actually to go check outyour masterclass.
So I'm going to plug that again, because if I'm excited enough
(32:52):
to take time out of my day towatch a masterclass, then it's
going to be worth it.
I can tell and I can tell justby what you've shared that it's
going to be worth my time.
So thank you again for joiningme.
Thank you all for tuning in andlistening or watching wherever
you're listening or watching.
Thank you for helping us spreadthe word by rating and
(33:15):
subscribing wherever you'relistening or watching, and until
next time, have a great rest ofyour day.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of
Imperfect Marketing.
Today we are going to betalking about press release
marketing.
I am super excited because Ilove marketing, but I'm not a
fan of PR because it's so timeconsuming.
But that's why we have Mickeyhere who's going to be talking
(00:22):
to us all about it.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So okay, how did you get into press release marketing
and what is press releasemarketing?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Right.
So I got started working at atelecom research startup after
finishing my master's of finearts and I was originally going
to be a poet and wait tables.
And I did that for a summer andrealized that, you know, being
on your feet 10, 12 hour shiftsis not something I was built for
.
So I got hired at that telecomresearch company as employee
(00:56):
three, as a startup, and becauseI had writing as my background,
I'll be at creative writing.
They said you know, figure outpress releases and send them to
the media.
And they gave me a littleRolodex of like 150 numbers to
fax to.
And so I did that.
And it's a full-time job, youknow.
Just you know faxing it,programming a fax machine and
(01:18):
hitting send and waiting for theerrors and the prints and all
that.
It was a waste of an entire dayjust sending them.
And so when nothing happened, Ijust felt like I'm doing
something wrong.
And the owner's like oh no,nothing ever really happens with
press releases and I was likethen why do it?
And so I said is it OK if Iresearch a little bit more?
(01:41):
And they were like sure, and Inoticed that we publish a lot of
data and the media generallylikes data, I've found out, but
what we weren't giving them islike the context, the story
behind the data.
And so we had just published,like the Caribbean traffic, and
there was one country that hadmore traffic to and from the
(02:02):
United States and basically allthe others combined, and when I
looked into it I found out thatthat country was like the call
center for 1-900 numbers at thetime and they were really big in
the US, where you would call apsychic and speak to someone
live for $2 or $3 a minute andit would be billed discreetly to
(02:24):
your landline bill and youcould also get a recorded, you
know, astrology or pet adviceand tips, and it was just like
the wild, wild west of 1-900numbers out there.
And so when I revised the pressrelease and sent it out,
talking about that context, itgot got picked up by the
(02:46):
Economist, financial Times, wallStreet Journal, washington Post
and about three telecom tradepublications, and I was like you
know, this is worth spending awhole day faxing, you know it
worked out really well, and so Itended to try to figure out
what the media was interested inand I found that I got really
(03:06):
good at it, and so that reallygot me wanting to do that for
other small businesses.
I was aware of PR firms andpeople who were just like, oh, I
can't afford to spend $20,000to $30,000 a year for a PR firm,
but I would like to get arelationship with the media
going and get some media pickup.
(03:28):
And so I sort of just got outthere and started my business
sending releases via email.
And that was a big changeover.
Every time I would fax, I wouldget journalists calling and
saying, hey, in the future,could you email them?
And that's what gave me theidea for email releases,
e-releases.
(03:48):
At the time and over the years,as I was emailing PR Newswire,
I reached out to us and said hey, we'd love to support you, we'd
like you helping entrepreneursand startups and small
businesses.
And what do you say aboutadding a city or state
distribution?
And I held out and said youknow, my clients really are
(04:09):
looking for national media.
And eventually we were able tocome to terms so that every
release that goes out througheReleases today goes out
nationally through PR Newswire,goes to the appropriate trades
and there's local saturationavailable.
But you know, you don't have topay $1,600.
And I think it's around $1,650to move a press release
(04:32):
nationally through PR Newswire a600-word press release and
through us it's like about aquarter of that.
So it's a big price savingsgoing through us directly and
then going directly through thewire.
And the good thing that hashappened is email is now
probably the worst way tocontact journalists.
That was how I originallystarted.
But email databases have comeout, media databases and there
(04:58):
are people who pay anywhere from$5,000 to $20,000 a year for
access to these media databasesand they just talk themselves
into spamming so many peoplethat are not interested in what
they're doing.
You know golf club company says, hey, there's 1600 golf
contacts in here, but there's,like you know, 125,000 banking
(05:22):
and 250,000 business journalistsand banking and business people
like golf clubs.
So let's just send them toeverybody.
And so, as a result, email isthe wild wild west with a lot of
journalists.
A lot of them are having verydifficult times trying to keep
that in and control what they'regetting, and so the newswire
(05:43):
has become even more importantfor busy journalists that they
can log in.
It's very clean.
They see their industry feed bydefault and they can customize
it so that it's just the typesof releases that they're
interested in, and so it'sbecome a very effective way for
people to get their message outeffective way for people to get
(06:08):
their message out.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Okay, so I can tell that, yes, you're an amazing
storyteller, because the way youtold your story just kept me on
the edge of my seat.
I'm like, oh my gosh, that's socool.
And you pulled out importantinformation that related to me,
that made me want to be like, ohwow, that's so cool.
I lean in and I think thatthat's so powerful with someone
who's in any type of publicrelations type position.
(06:29):
So thank you for sharing thatstory.
I love it.
And I love that insight aboutPR, newswire and how that's
breaking through a bit with orthe newswires, I should say and
how that's breaking through withjournalists, because I hate
sending them emails.
They don't know me, like theydon't, and I I'm guessing that
(06:50):
they're interested.
I mean, and I'm sending themindividual one offs.
I'm guessing that they'reinterested based on the seven
articles that they wrote that Iread that sort of relate to what
I want to send them.
But, um, but it's yeah it.
Pr is time consuming.
That's like the one thing that,like people are like, do you do
PR?
And I was like, no, but I'llwrite a press release and that's
(07:14):
about it.
Um, cause that, it it reallycomes down to relationships or
having the right angle, and Ilove that story about how you're
like.
We have data and the 1-900numbers.
That's just funny because letme just take a little bit of a
segue off of that.
I remember I used to I workedin sales reporting and I would
(07:36):
call different people and leavethem messages to ask them
questions about their salesreporting.
Back when I worked at DaimlerChrysler back in the day it was
Daimler Chrysler, it was notStellantis or Chrysler Actually,
I did work at Chrysler itself,but it wasn't FCA or anything
like that and I was there andthis one guy goes Kendra, I'm
like what he goes.
(07:56):
I was listening to yourvoicemail to me on speakerphone
and somebody walked by andthought I called a 1-900 number.
So that's how long ago I wasdoing that.
But that's so funny that peoplewere calling and that one
wasn't the astrology one that hewas thinking that I was leaving
messages from.
But okay, so very cool oncustomizing your message to meet
(08:21):
your audience, which is what Ialways say right, and delivering
it in the way that they want toget it delivered, which sounds
fantastic.
So kudos to you for what you'vecreated.
All right, let's talk about AIand press releases, because I
think anytime we're talkingabout anything that's the
written word, we have to talkabout AI now, right, sure, how
(08:46):
do you and how don't yourecommend people use AI to
create press releases?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
So I believe AI can write a press release very well
and I have no problem withpeople using AI to write a press
release.
That being said, I feel thatgiving AI the the runway to come
up with what you should writeabout is a bad idea.
(09:12):
The reality is that probably97% of press releases out there
don't generate earned media, andthat's what we call it.
When you get the articleswritten about you, a lot of
people look at what other peopleare doing and they're like oh,
competitor X did a press releaseon them speaking at an event,
(09:34):
or they got a new HR director orsomething, and so they do press
releases based off of that.
And AI is trained on all thebad press releases that are out
there, and by bad not howthey're written, but what
they've chosen to write about.
And so I feel like you knowwhat I've learned is to be very
strategic with the types ofpress releases that you're doing
(09:57):
.
So anytime you approach AI, youshould know certainly what
you're going to write about.
You know what that idea is.
And then I approach AI anddon't give AI full reign.
Don't say, write a 600 wordpress release on this topic,
because AI is kind of lazy iswhat I found.
You tell it to come up with,you know, rattle off a hundred
(10:18):
ideas for a brainstorm orsomething like that, and they're
just kind of weak.
But you know, sometimes if youtell AI to stop, slow down,
pause, or every 10 ideas, stopand think about how the next 10
ideas can be more strategic orjust better, or just get AI to
(10:41):
stop and pause, and I find thatAI will give you a better result
.
It doesn't stop for very long,but it does give you a more
measured result.
And so what I do is I say, hey,how would you structure a
600-word press release on thissubject?
And then it would give me theoutline.
And then I'd say, okay, give methree headline variations and
(11:06):
between each one, think abouthow you can make the next
headline more succinct, morepowerful, and almost have a call
to action.
And boom, I get three goodheadlines and generally the
third one's better.
And I find if I just say, giveme three headline variations on
that, they're all pretty muchthe same.
But when I tell it to stop andto make the next one a little
(11:31):
stronger, think about how youcould make it more powerful,
maybe involve a call to actionin a way.
You know AI can do that and sowhy would you ever approach AI
and just give it, you know, thesame measured type of headline?
(11:51):
And so then I say, okay, nowgive me an opening paragraph.
And I look at it.
I'm like you know, injournalism we learn the most
important aspects are the who,what, when, where, how and why.
And I look at that paragraphand I said is it answering most
of that?
Is it really, you know, puttingthe idea that I have at the
forefront?
And if I'm happy with it, I'mlike that's great.
(12:12):
I may ask, hey, give me acouple more variations of that
opening paragraph.
Or I could say, hey, I likethis, but I'd really like you to
incorporate this thing that youdidn't mention.
And so I sort of get myparagraphs and my information
piecemeal from it using thatoutline.
(12:36):
And one area that I find that AIis not great at is a quote, and
that's probably overall.
Quotes that are in pressreleases are probably one of the
biggest missed opportunities,because an amazing quote can
save you.
Because an amazing quote cansave you.
If a journalist is looking attwo possible story ideas and
they're like to them, equalnewsworthiness.
(12:57):
If there's an amazing quote.
They know at the end of the day, they're gonna have an article
with a really strong quote in itand if it's a weak quote
they're gonna say, hey, it'llend up being an okay article,
but there's nothing reallystrong there that elevates the
article.
But a really great quote can dothat.
And by really great quote, youknow you're saying something
(13:18):
that is succinct or powerfulthat if they were to take it out
, you'd sort of ache for theloss of what was there.
You know, previously you justsaid it perfectly.
You know there are people whoare wordsmiths and they can say
something beautiful, but youreally don't need that.
I mean, a great quote caninclude that, but I think that
(13:39):
just getting down to the rootand saying something powerful
and succinct and with authorityis is really what journalists
are looking for.
So spend a lot of time on thatquote and, you know, feel free
to beat up AI, but maybe that'sa place where you might have to
go in and, you know, toughen itup a little bit, make sure
you're using the most activeverbs, that you're saying
(13:59):
something that'll really getpeople on the edge of their seat
and like, well, you know, maybeeven be a little contrarian.
That's a place where youropinion is going to be, you know
, put in quotes.
So feel free to say somethingthat just sort of like will
shock the industry a little bitand you know, just go that
(14:21):
approach and at the end of ityou'll end up with a great press
release.
I've done these and modeled themfor other people.
The most I've ever spent on anAI press release going back and
forth, the way that I do is like22 minutes and so it's not as
quick as getting it out in threeor four minutes, but at the end
of the day on average 15minutes I come out with a really
(14:45):
well-written press releasethat's going to do really well,
and I'd mentioned that I don'tlet it come up with the ideas
for the press release.
That's my bread and butter iscoming up with strategic ideas.
I have a free masterclass whereI go into what these ideas
people should consider doing fortheir press releases and the
(15:07):
best thing, it's completely freeand it's about an hour long
video and so, if anyone'sinterested, I have that at
ereleasescom slash plan P-L-A-N,and I think that's a great
place for anybody who's new toPR or who have done it and it
didn't work for them to sort ofstart there.
Because if you focus on the 3%of press releases that
journalists are picking up onand you build a PR campaign of
(15:30):
six to eight releases andthey're all strategic, you're
going to see two or three ofthose press releases do
extremely well.
And I have one type of pressrelease in my arsenal that never
fails, always generates earnedmedia and usually about half a
dozen articles from that onepress release.
(15:50):
And so I tell people that's thearea where I would never trust
AI and I would really focus onthese strategic types of
releases and sort of go throughthem with a lens of your
business and you would besurprised at the types of
strategic and important pressreleases you could be doing
about your company that youdidn't even think about.
(16:14):
And I think that that's a wayin which a lot of people don't
realize that you may feel thatyou're not important and that
you're not newsworthy, buteverybody can do a survey or an
industry study and by youauthoring that that elevates you
, whether you're an author oryou have a business.
(16:34):
You putting out an industrysurvey and publishing the
results and having amazing quote, analyzing the results and why
they swayed a certain way,really makes you stand out and
if you've asked really timelyquestions.
People in your industry want toknow and, like I said, you know
that one generates usuallyabout half a dozen article
(16:54):
pickups every time we do it withclients.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So, wow, okay, there's a lot there.
First off, I will be watchingyour free masterclass for sure,
because, again, I've got thelove hate relationship with
press releases.
A lot of times, though, it'sbecause my clients come to me
and they're like, hey, let'swrite a press release on this,
and I'm like nobody cares, justus.
(17:19):
That's it.
Can you give me three examples?
If you don't mind, I'm going toput you on the spot here of
things that are not newsworthyin general.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
A personnel new hire, unless it's a new CEO or
executive, or you've taken anindustry veteran that everyone
in the industry knows and you'vebrought them in.
Outside of that, no one cares.
No one cares that you have anew HR person or a VP of sales.
You'd be better off.
(17:51):
Just, there's usually an emailaddress or a contact form at
your trade publications for anon the move section and you send
the photo and a couplesentences and maybe the same
thing with your local paper.
Maybe, if you're lucky enoughto have a business magazine or
business newspaper in your city,you could do that as well, and
it will go directly to thatsegment where a low level intern
(18:14):
is just looking for oh, thesepeople have moved positions, and
that's probably all you wouldhave gotten, and you know it's
not worth spending money to goout over a wire for those types
of press releases, other typesof releases that I feel don't
work very well, that I see a lotof.
We get a lot of product launchpress releases and what they
(18:36):
fail to do is the same thingthat I figured out at that
telecom research company is theydon't have the elements of a
story and it's here's our newproduct, here's a list of
features and here's a page tolearn more or buy it.
And a journalist is like what'sthere?
You know, I have an audience toprotect and I have to make sure
(18:57):
that what I'm sharing with themeither entertains or educates
them, or both, and here it'sjust dry features.
And so what I tell people to dois go back, and I'm sure you've
had people review this productor this software solution and
you know what were their results.
You know you put a use casestudy in there, say, hey, we
(19:20):
have this new logistics softwaresolution and we took a trucking
company that was losing 11% ayear since they started three
years ago and they're on thebrink of failure and all of a
sudden them producing invoicesand quotes based on real results
that the software was able toextrapolate.
(19:42):
They're now projected, 90 daysin, to post a five percent
profit at the end of the yearfor the first time.
And you're like wow, that's ameaningful outcome that they saw
.
And you could actually evenpoint that, hey, here's a
publicly available number 63% ofnew transportation companies
fell in the first five yearsbecause they don't achieve
(20:04):
profitability.
So you took a publiclyavailable quote and you put it
in there and that sort of justshowcases, even more importantly
, why your solution can solveone of the biggest problems with
people in the industry.
And again, you know the medialoves numbers, but they love it
with context and so make sureyou include that.
And then you can also includesome of the features and things
(20:26):
like that.
It allows a journalist who'slooking at trying to compose a
story arc to say, hey, I havethe ingredients for a story now
because I can share a journey ofa client who used this and what
(20:47):
their outcome was.
And that's a much moremeaningful thing to share with
an audience, because they cansort of come along for the ride
of what this journey was.
You know of what this journeywas.
And it's one of the reasonsthat if you look at anybody that
goes on Shark Tank, they don'tstart with here's my shiny logo
and this is the product and willyou invest?
I think we can do three, youknow three, $3 million a year.
It's not that it's their journey.
(21:07):
It's like, hey, I got laid offand I remembered I used to make
these things with my dad and Iwas like could there be a
business there?
It's always these elements ofwhat it was.
That is their story and youknow, again it goes into a story
arc.
People love stories and all ofa sudden, when someone shares a
vulnerability of I just gotdivorced and I was alone and I
(21:32):
wanted to create this.
I wanted to own something thatwas meaningful that I could pass
along to my children, it's likeall of a sudden we're along for
the ride and we care and itreally gives immediate empathy,
because these human interestelements are probably the most
powerful things.
And it's one of the biggestmistakes that I see small
businesses do is they try totake all the humanity out and
(21:54):
appear ultra corporate andbigger than they are.
And generally, if you just takeall that away and just share
your authenticity, be vulnerable, share your journey, don't be
embarrassed that the mediacontact of your press release
and the quote in your pressrelease is you, because right
now the business is just you.
(22:16):
The media doesn't care and, as amatter of fact, I've had a lot
of people tell me I'm not readyyet for media because I'm just
too small and the media reallyonly wants big companies.
And that's not true at all.
Media like to be seen ascurators and they get the most
shares and accolades of articleswhen they put the spotlight on
(22:40):
a product or software or asolution that no one in the
industry is aware of yet.
They might have to cover theMicrosofts and the Ciscos and
the big giant companies, because, because you know, in the
industry, these people are thereand they have to be covered.
But they get the most sharesand the most accolades and the
most recognition when they putthe spotlight on someone that no
(23:03):
one has heard of, and oftenthese are solo businesses,
sometimes they're sidebusinesses, where it's someone
who still has a full-time joband they're doing this on the
side and for that reason you,being small and unknown, is a
superpower when it comes togetting PR.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
That's fantastic.
So stop writing these pressreleases.
Just do an announcement.
You can do a I'll call it amarketing press release that you
put on your website when youhire a new person.
It doesn't mean you don't haveto announce it, but it's not
going to run in the New YorkTimes.
Odds are.
So save your time, right.
And then, no product releasesunless you've got a story angle
(23:46):
Right.
Talk about how it came to be orthe problem it solves in a
unique and curious way, or talkabout that pain that you were
going through before you createdit, right, like that's what the
(24:23):
whole thing is.
Spanx is that story, and that'sone of the things again, when
you were doing your intro as tohow you got into this and where
you were going with it, you tolda story.
You drew me in.
It comes natural to you.
I struggle sometimes with that.
What is there a question thatpeople could ask to really get,
(24:47):
if anybody else cares about whatthey're doing, or how to get
that empathy or that story angleor the story arc out of where
they're going, because I thinksome of it's that they're not
just trying to pretend thatthey're bigger than they are.
I don't think they know how.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, I think that doing an audit of the history of
your business and talking aboutthat and finding patterns that
are there.
I talked with one person andshe shared when she started the
business and there was nothingreally magical, it wasn't like a
(25:25):
moment, it was like she was.
She approached it veryprofessionally and had ideas and
brainstormed and stuff likethat, and then later she's like,
yeah, she goes.
My mother was so proud becauseshe told me that her biggest
regret was just she was ahousewife her whole life and she
never did anything that wasimportant.
And I was like I think thatthat something around that is
(25:49):
your story.
That you came from a motherthat inspired you and nurtured
you to go to school and to pushyourself and part of it was why
it was because she never feltfulfilled personally and you
know not saying anythingnegative to people that aren't,
you know, coming out of that andnot feeling fulfilled but for
the mother she wasn't fulfilledand she wanted something
different for her child and Ithink that incorporating
(26:11):
elements of that and thatinspiration from her mother
allowed her to craft the story.
But sometimes it is doing anaudit and looking at the
emotional stuff around startingthe business and you may not
even be aware of some of thethings that were there Me
talking about me starting mycompany and the mistakes that I
(26:34):
made, and the journey andchallenges of facts and all that
stuff got me to sort of realizesome of the aha moments that I
wasn't really aware of at thetime.
I mean, the secret sauce of, youknow, telling a story.
It was there, but it wasn't asobvious and sort of planned out
(26:57):
until I've thought about it inretrospect and realized that is
one of the reasons that I sortof tell people to sort of you
know, go for the story, try togive the building blocks for a
story and a press release, andthat's sort of where that came
from and what I immediatelydiscovered starting.
But it wasn't as obvious therethat the threads needed to be
pulled a little bit andsometimes talking about it and
(27:19):
just sharing your story will getyou to those moments that will
coalesce and then you have thatstory that you can give out
anytime, that you're talkingabout your motivation and the
things that sort of were therein the beginning.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay, so definitely start with an audit after you've
watched the masterclass.
Where's the masterclass again?
It's at ereleasescom.
Forward slash plan CorrectRight.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Right, okay.
So definitely check that out anddon't be afraid to use AI.
Right, but AI is not the ideagenerator.
You are the idea generator.
You're going to give it thestory after you've done the
audit.
You're going to give it theinformation.
It's just going to help youstructure it and you're going to
do it piece by piece by pieceand you're going to give it the
information.
It's just going to help youstructure it and it's going to.
(28:07):
You're going to do it piece bypiece by piece and you're going
to give it enough informationthat it's going to pause and
reflect.
One of my, my success I guessI'll call it successes with AI
was when I was working on areview for a client.
Someone had given them anegative review and and I
respond to all their negativereviews and so I was working
with AI, because there's only somany things that you can say
(28:29):
and I'm like, how do I saythat's really not true without
saying it's really not true?
So, anyway, I was like, howabout, if I did this and it's
like I've trained it and gavethe project, because it's in
Claudeai I gave the projectenough information that I said
go ahead and question me anddon't be afraid to push back,
(28:53):
and I gave him all the values ofthe company and all the other
things and it goes.
Yeah, I don't think that's agood idea.
I'm like.
Yes, I'm like because I didn'teither, and I was on the fence
and I wasn't quite sure.
I didn't think it was a goodidea and it wasn't, and I was
much happier with it.
But, yes, ai can do that.
It's not going to come up withanything new.
(29:14):
But if you give it enoughinformation, if you want you to
pause, reflect, consider, reviewthe information that's in this
custom GPT or in this cloudproject, you know before you
start responding, and then youknow all of a sudden, it's like
(29:38):
I'm pausing and reflecting andI'm like, okay, and I do get
better stuff, which is crazy.
So again, don't be afraid touse AI.
Ai can definitely write stuff,but it has to come from you, and
that story has to come from you.
And I love that.
You gave us both sides of AI,which is it can write it.
(29:59):
It can write it in pieces.
You have to push it and youhave to customize it.
And if you're not getting theresults that you want, you have
to push it and you have tocustomize it, and if you're not
getting the results that youwant, you have to push back on
that.
And then don't forget aboutyour unique quote.
This has been an amazingconversation.
I love it.
I'm actually excited to give ita try, playing around with some
of it, and definitely check outyour masterclass, because,
(30:22):
again, pr it's scary.
It's a lot of work to invest toget nothing, and so I think if
you start with those storylinesand you start with um, those
those topics and types of pressreleases that you're going to
talk about in that masterclass,I think that that can hopefully
(30:43):
make it less scary and less of awaste of time.
So that is awesome.
Okay, before I let you go,though, I do have to ask you the
question that I ask all of myguests, and that is that this
show is called ImperfectMarketing.
Marketing is anything but aperfect science, hence why we
marketing people have takenpress releases and PR underneath
(31:03):
our umbrella.
We've just co-opted 90% of thebusiness.
I think finance is the onlything we didn't take under us,
but knowing it's not a perfectscience.
What's been your biggest lessonlearned in marketing?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think for me.
I didn't come from a businessbackground, so I sort of learned
everything as part of amarketing mastermind that I
joined and stayed part of forover a dozen years, and it was
just to measure everything anddon't necessarily go with
assumptions but test it.
(31:39):
And I started split testinglanding pages.
But I realized you could splittest processes in your business
and if you have two alternateversions you can test that and
determine which of thoseprocesses leads to a better
client outcome.
And for me, I used lifetimevalue of a customer and I've
(32:01):
looked at how I onboardedcustomers and tested out a
completely different way andrealized that one way was at the
two-year mark, giving me fourtimes the lifetime value than
the other one.
And so measure as much as youcan in your business and, you
know, don't be afraid of splittesting and trying different
(32:22):
things.
Just, you know, measure it andpick a winner once you have
statistical relevance.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
All right, and marketing is definitely part art
and part science.
It's a lot of experimentation.
It's not perfect.
That's why we move forward,imperfectly, right.
So thank you so so much for allof this information.
This has been a fantasticconversation and I'm really
excited actually to go check outyour masterclass.
So I'm going to plug that again, because if I'm excited enough
(32:52):
to take time out of my day towatch a masterclass, then it's
going to be worth it.
I can tell and I can tell justby what you've shared that it's
going to be worth my time.
So thank you again for joiningme.
Thank you all for tuning in andlistening or watching wherever
you're listening or watching.
Thank you for helping us spreadthe word by rating and
(33:15):
subscribing wherever you'relistening or watching, and until
next time, have a great rest ofyour day.
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