Episode 41: How to Write, Publish, and Leverage a Press Release to Get PR and SEO for Your Business with E-Releases CEO Mickie Kennedy (part 1)
Press releases are a great way to get your company in the news. But what makes them so special?
Why would businesses spend so much time, money, and energy crafting a 500-word statement just to announce something?
Finally, why are some press releases more ‘attractive’ and ‘attention-grabbing’ than others?
In this digital age, press releases are everywhere. They’re considered the start of some landscape-changing activities in the industry. In other cases, press releases could contain information that succinctly reports some minor changes in a business but is deserving of that industry's attention.
Today, press releases serve their importance to businesses and individuals because they have tested activities for building credibility, uplifting the brand, and potential acquisition of clients.
Well-reputed media outlets, social media personalities, and even the ordinary individual want to get ahead of everyone in terms of the latest developments in a business. Hence, press releases are strong starting points to pitch new content that the target audience can consume.
However, creating a press release is not just as straightforward as reporting facts. Some specific skills and arts are required to make a press release more attractive and worthy of the people's attention.
Furthermore, the prevalence of digital platforms for press releases has changed how businesses may want to gain more traction at reasonable prices.
That is precisely where Mickie Kennedy, founder and president of eReleases, comes in. His company helps businesses, startups, and authors get website traffic and better quality customers through coverage in the media.
“Some of the things that are really important is owning your own story, being authentic. Sometimes, it's like, who's your hero? Who's your enemy? That story that you can certainly build in a press release. There are things like researching your industry for blind spots.”
-Mickie Kennedy
Mickie Kennedy is the founder of eReleases. He created the company after observing the challenges of small and medium-sized businesses to have access to newswire with a personal touch. Mickie earned an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University.
If you are new to press releases or have attempted to use press releases for your company’s benefits with little success, this episode will help you gain new insights into leveraging language, tradition, and technology.
Start attracting all the attention that you truly deserve! That press release may be the catapult your business is missing.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Understanding press releases and newswire
Using press releases as leverage
Exploring unique forms and types of press releases
Finding the ‘right’ timing for your press releases
Using your unique selling proposition to gain media attention
Crafting the elements of an effective press release
Check out how Gloria can help you maximize your announcement and write your entire press release on a VIP day at www.gloriachoupr.com/vip
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Check out eReleases website at: eReleases.com
Follow Mickie Kennedy’s LinkedIn account: Mickie Kennedy
Press Release Topic Ideas: the Ultimate Collection
Additional Resources:
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
[19:38] When you're providing an exclusive to someone, you're basically saying I want you to have first dibs at going to press with a story. There is a value to it.
[26:24] Rather than being tripped up on the perfect type of press release, I think what you should do is just sort of build your argument, what it is you're announcing and why you matter. Try to reverse engineer from what a journalist would be looking for. How are you compelling? How are you answering that person's questions and giving them something they just want to share with their audience?
[29:31] In marketing, I've come across the USP which is unique selling proposition. What is it that you do it's so unique? think that even from a PR standpoint, you have to really hone what your USP is, and if you don't have one, if you're not doing something different than everybody else in your industry, then, maybe you should try to create one and refine what your USP is to differentiate yourself.
[31:44] I think that anything that you do that makes you unique is fodder for PR. And, you know, you just have to get behind it and communicate it in a way that they'll understand and see why there's a story there.
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Mickie Kennedy 0:00
Some of the things that are really important is owning your own story being authentic. Sometimes it's like who's your hero? Who's your enemy? That story that you can certainly build in a press release. There's things like researching your industry for blind spots. We've been very successful with clients who engage me and work one on one where we look at what do people talk about your industry, but nobody seems to report it and your trade publications don't seem to report it.
Gloria Chou 0:23
Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chao, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional, yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self. You're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast. What's up small business heroes welcome back to another episode of the Small Business PR Podcast. I'm super excited about today's episode, because press releases is something I get asked all the time. But we still have yet to do an episode on it. So today we have the president and founder of EA releases. It's the number one place for small businesses to get their news announcements out there. So welcome to the show, Mickey Kennedy.
Mickie Kennedy 1:18
Oh, thanks for having me.
Gloria Chou 1:19
So first and foremost, for people who don't really know what a press release is, can you tell us what it is?
Mickie Kennedy 1:26
Yeah, it's basically a third person announcement from a company or an organization. It could be an author or a speaker, basically promoting themselves or their company. And it's transmitted to the media in hopes that they will turn it into an article or an original story. It could also be a jumping off point for requesting an interview and more information. And they're largely sent in the US over a newswire, there's the three major wires in the US. And that's PR Newswire Business Wire and little less so globe. newswire.
Gloria Chou 2:03
So can you tell us what you mean by a newswire? Because I talk about organic media by you pitching. But what do you mean by newswire?
Mickie Kennedy 2:12
Right. So in the case of the newswire, these are organizations that have set up feeds that go directly to certain newsrooms and other cases, there's logins for journalists to go in, and they can really tailor the type of feeds. So if you cover, say, fashion, as a journalist, you can get in there and create filters, so that press releases that maybe mentioned ready to wear or certain retailers, you can exclude those. And you can also do inclusion so they can capture the types of press releases that are more likely to be relevant to what your beat is, as a journalist. And the news wires are a really good way to get your content out broadly. But you know, they don't replace pitching and PR firms and the services that they provide. It's just a supplemental tool that sometimes a journalist or a PR firm will pay the extra money to have a release go over the wire, because they think that it might resonate with a more general audience.
Gloria Chou 3:08
Yeah, so for my audience of small business entrepreneurs, they've heard of me writing these, I do this on my VIP day when I you know, when I do a lot of like, you know, whether it's someone who raised money, or maybe they have a new product, right, it's, it's what I call like, owned media. So it's coming from the voice of the company who's writing it. But I think for me, especially in the age that we're in now, it's really about the SEO power. So every major company, and any legitimate company, I Google, if you click on the News tab of Google, you'll probably see their press release. So can you tell me about another reason why people should consider press releases, even though they're not like a NASDAQ listed company?
Mickie Kennedy 3:49
Right. So I think that in a lot of cases, it's the ability of leverage. And for example, you know, if you have a really hot press release, and we did one, little over a year ago, for an initiative during the pandemic, to help restaurants that were closed down, it got over, we stopped counting at 150 media pickups, it got picked up by Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, all the food trade publications picked it up. And over 30 newspapers, ended up running with it. And it was something because of the initiative, being very short lived and needing to get out the message now, and it being very timely. And also there was a lot of negative news about the pandemic and things like that here was something that was positive here was something that the average person could actually help out their local restaurant that's closed. And so, you know, I'm not surprised it did so well, to have done that through direct pitches would have been much more difficult. And there were some direct pitches that were done with it. But you know, those numbers are much smaller than you know that that broad leverage that you potentially could get. Now that's an extreme example, I've only had two press releases ever do that successful, on average, a really good press release might get between four to maybe six media pickups per per successful press release. And usually they're doing a campaign of several releases, I always recommend that if you're going to test press releases to do a campaign of six to eight press releases, you know, trying different strategic approaches and being strategic. And you know, what you're trying to send out in the hopes that you can see whether the media will engage with you.
Gloria Chou 5:33
Yeah, I love that. I think leverage is important. And I also think there's something to be said about writing in the position of the actual company, right? Because when you do pitch to an editor or a journalist, it's their editorial discretion how they want to do the story, but there's nothing as powerful and as authoritative as your company announcement. So for anyone that's listening, we're really talking about something less, a little bit more time sensitive, whether you're launching, you're announcing you have funding, you have a celebrity spokesperson, I mean, you know, something that's very specific when you say, yeah, absolutely,
Mickie Kennedy 6:05
I think that the more specific you can be, the better. I think that, you know, some of the things that are really important is owning your own story being authentic. Sometimes it's like, who's your hero, who's your enemy? You know, that story that you can certainly build in a press release. You know, there's things like researching your industry for blind spots. We've been very successful with clients who engage me and work one on one, where we look at what do people talk about your industry, but nobody seems to report it. And your trade publications don't seem to report it. In some cases, there's a reason for it. But in a lot of cases, it's just an opportunity. It's a gap. And if you come in with that conversation, a lot of the trade publications will often pick it up, and it'll do very well. Other things that work very well are surveys and studies. I've never had anyone do a survey or study with my my coaching, and not get media pickup. And in general, it's usually between six and 12, maybe as many as 14 original articles coming from one survey. And I know A survey sounds really daunting, and I always encourage people that it's not a lot of work, it's developing the survey questions, putting them in something like Survey Monkey, and then getting the link and sharing it with an audience. And a lot of people get hung up on that part. But it's easy to partner with a trade association, the smaller independent trade association in your industry would probably very likely send it to their members, especially if you say I'm doing a release over the wire. And I'll mention you as part of the survey. And so it creates a win win, it actually stacks your credibility when you're doing the press release as well to be tied to that trade association. And, you know, you'll likely get a lot more results and have it more interesting. I always suggest that you throw in a couple of oddball left field questions, you can put them towards the end. But sometimes those are the ones that yield the most surprising results and, you know, really go viral with the media.
Gloria Chou 8:08
So can you give me an example? I know you talked earlier about the kind of restaurant pandemic recovery, what are some of the other survey based ones that did really well.
Mickie Kennedy 8:17
So we did a survey for an auto repair shop in Pennsylvania, they came through with an A from an SEO guy who said, We need to get auto industry trade links fast because they had a new website, their old website went dark, and they couldn't recover it. And so they had a new domain name. And they wanted to get rankings and they said, since you're in the automotive industry, auto industry, trade links would do very well. So I told them, the only way that I could think, to get media pickup would be doing a survey. And so they partnered with the independent auto repair trade association. I think they got almost 800 responses. And in there, we asked, What's the strangest thing a person left in their car while being repaired? Now the results were not statistically relevant, but they went viral. It was it was every story that they got was about that question. And the odd little responses that we got, we left enough room to write two or three sentences. And we just got all these really interesting anecdotes, you know, a boa constrictor, grandma left in an urn, and they had to retriever after hours for memorial service. Just lots of little quirky things like that. And from a fascination standpoint, you know why the media responded to it, they were great little quips and things that happened. And so those those questions came towards the end, I always recommend that you break up your survey multi page so that if someone stops the survey mid process, you still have their results from the first part half that they did. And towards the end, you can throw out some little strange questions and things like that. And it's also a way to brand you as well, at the very end, you could put you could send them to a page your website, you could send them to your about page You could talk a little bit about who you are as the author of the survey, and you just, you know, got in front of in that case 800 other auto repair shops in the US that might be valuable for networking purposes.
Gloria Chou 10:12
Well, I, there's so much I hope whoever's listening, you're taking notes because Mickey is dropping some real gems. So you said, so many things about leveraging data being wacky, a little whimsical, because that's what how, how people go viral. And then also partnering with a trade organization. So I know, for me, a lot of my female there are female founder founders or mompreneurs. So for example, would like a military wives Association? Would that be like a good partner?
Mickie Kennedy 10:39
I think, yeah, I think anywhere that you, you feel an affinity towards that group that that group represents part of your potential customer base, is a really strong place for you to be able to get those opinions. And right now is a really great time to take a survey in any industry, because there's a lot of flux right now. You know, we're coming out of a pandemic, I think, I hope, you know, how do people feel? Are they spending more on advertising? Are they wait taking a wait and see approach? Are they spending less? How's their hiring, you know, we've heard so much about the job market being very difficult. Some questions about that would be very timely. So if you did a release, that touched on several of those subjects, and came up with some responses, and some great analytical results that you sort of maybe put in quotes or things like that, I can see that do very well in almost any industry. And the thing about it is only lives for a short time. So if you were to take that survey in six months, that new survey would be very relevant for the same reasons, because we're, we're moving and evolving. And we really don't know without taking our temperature at several different times how the industry feels about a certain thing. And that's why I think surveys are so valuable. And they're so repeatable, because they, you know, just because you took a survey today doesn't mean that six in six months, the same questions would be answered the same way.
Gloria Chou 12:05
Yeah, I mean, surveying and data, it puts you a step above because it not only does the legwork for the journalist who's not going to be doing that it automatically establishes you as an expert, more than the other person who's pitching without data. And so a lot of times people ask me, Well, you know, how do I get people to do a survey, you know, you can offer $5, Starbucks card on LinkedIn. But this is actually genius, because I can just write to the association,
Mickie Kennedy 12:29
right? Yeah, the small independent trade associations, they don't get the love that the large ones do. So if you approach them and and just say, send out my link, and I will mention you in the press release I'm doing that works like 80% of the time. And then the remaining part of the time, you may have to be creative. I had a few clients who they ended up CO branding the survey so that they got equal billing for it. But again, I said you're stacking your credibility that I don't see that as diminishing any bit that you're not the sole author of the survey.
Gloria Chou 13:02
Yeah, I love that. So there are so many different types of press releases, which is something that the company or yourself that you issue, can you kind of just do a quick rundown of the different types of press releases.
Mickie Kennedy 13:15
Right, so I just see, I think I have a page on my website, I just like to throw out if I can find it. It's e releases.com/ideas. And it runs through a lot of like the typical types of releases that we see a new or updated product or service partnership with another company or organization, speaking or presenting at a major event. Of course, winning an award is always good, or being singled out for an accomplishment. Community involvement is something that I wished worked more, I see a lot of really creative and cool stuff that organizations are doing with their communities. And when you know, unfortunately, those press releases, I don't see get a lot of media pickup. And for the same reasons, I think sponsorships and charitable contributions don't do very well with press releases, other types of ones that I see office relocation or expanded facilities, we did a lot of press releases during the pandemic, of companies basically wanting to speak to their industry and to their potential customers, and existing customers that were still in business. And this is how we're pivoting, we're able to fulfill your needs. And if there are any changes in the workflow, you know, they might make them in the press release. So it's very important for them to communicate that and they felt a press release was a really good way to do it so that people doing searches for them, especially in Google News and stuff like that would find them. You know, a patent filing is something or being awarded a patent is something that could be really valuable, especially among trade publications. They seem to do really well with that because they talked about the implications of the past. and how it could be used, you know, free information teleclass, a seminar or white paper that you have. Those are also opportunities. But again, I think if you write the press release too much like you like you're just looking for leads, you could turn off the journalists. So it's very subtle how you have to bridge something like that. I think I mentioned to you before we began that I had a client in the security business. And he basically just had a checklist for small ecommerce companies. And it was very informational. And he did very well with that, because he wasn't he wasn't leading with that he was leading about this is a problem in the industry. And are you aware of whether you have the same vulnerabilities? If so, here's a checklist that we recommend. And I think positioning like that it does very well. But there's basically press releases on probably over 100 different things that you could do, you know, arranging from celebrity endorsement to stock offering, tradeshow exhibits, trends, expert opinions, and I love expert opinions for my clients, because so many people have sort of an impostor syndrome. And they don't want to get out there as an expert. I'm like, But you say you've been in the business for 30 years, and you know everything? Well, yeah, I would agree with that. And I said, Well, you are an expert. And so once we overcome that, they're much more willing to put their positions out there. And I always recommend, you know, taking an audit of your positions in your market. And are there areas where you differ from what the majority says. And if you do, that's a great way to be the friendly jerk, or aka the contrarian, where you're positioning something, and giving the other side to what most people are usually seeing. And for that reason, if you are the person with a rational argument as to why you're contrarian on a particular subject, you stand the chance of every time a journalist in your industry writes about that subject, that you could be included, because, you know, the journalist wants to cover both sides of an argument. And if you're the only one speaking on the con side of something like that, you're much more likely to be that go to person for discussing that.
Gloria Chou 17:19
Yes. And I always say this in my PR masterclass is like, they want to interview experts, right? And experts have a point of view, it doesn't mean you need to be controversial just to ruffle feathers. But you probably have the insight that you don't always agree with what the other gurus are teaching. What about Okay, so that's another thing is, um, what about predictions making a prediction about
Mickie Kennedy 17:40
predictions work really well, I find that they do extremely well towards the end of the year and beginning of the new year, because it's just like, I don't know, there's something about the calendar cycle that people like to have. They're more open to ideas, and, you know, outlooks about certain things at those times. And I think that you can do really well with those.
Gloria Chou 18:05
Yeah, I love that I always say end of the year is a great time to do an end of the year recap. So like trends, things like that. And the beginning of the year is a great, great way to do predictions, right? So like, five hot beauty, clean beauty, ingredients, things like that. We have a lot of beauty and wellness entrepreneurs, but also even if you're service based, right, it might be personal development tools or anything. So there's so many ideas, I'm gonna have to actually rewind, because you just gave us so many good ideas. There's like,
Mickie Kennedy 18:33
speaking of ideas, anytime you can number something like top 10 works really well. Top five also works. But top 10s of anything works well. So if you have top 10 predictions, the it just makes it so much easier for the journalist to consume it and write it because so many features and articles are around top 10 list and things like that.
Gloria Chou 18:54
Yeah, top 10 wellness trends, top 10 Parenting things top 10 homeschool remedy. I mean, we could just go on for hours about this. Which brings me to my next question is, you know, obviously I teach an organic, you know, pitching method, and I really see press releases as a tool. And I always say, you know, don't put the press release on the newswire, you want to save it and kind of shop it around and you almost use it as like a kind of like a carrot and say, see if anyone bites on it. And then if you can offer a journalist an exclusive, preferably you know, at a top tier outlet, then you would time the press release to go out at the same time they write a story so can you kind of unpack what that process is because a lot of people don't really understand that the nuance of that.
Mickie Kennedy 19:38
Right? So when you're providing an exclusive to someone, you're you're basically saying I want you to have first dibs at going to press with a story. And you know it there there is a value to it and they do value it because it makes them stand out because they're going to be the first and they're going to you know, it's probably going to attract more people who are going to check out The story and it's going to create more waves, whoever sort of promoted it first, and publish it first. And so if you are doing the press release, and you're looking for getting exclusive, yeah, you definitely want to do that yourself or have someone who handles your your media contacts reach out to someone and offer it to them as exclusive. And then once they've published it and given given you a publishing date, then you could send out the release subsequent to that. And what a lot of people will find is that, you know, after that initial launch, you know, the press release will result in really good pickup generally, as a result of that. Other places will pick it up. I, I always, people worry about with exclusives like well, if this person got the exclusive, everyone else is going to not want to do the story because they they're, you know, they didn't get there first. And the real truth is news is news. And all of these journalists are trying to produce really good content. And if they see really great content on another website, and then they see a press release that they can work from, it makes it easy for them to pull a similar, you know, develop a similar story. And I think that that's not going to hurt you, it actually helps you by getting that initial exclusive.
Gloria Chou 21:12
Exactly. I always say, Well, there's a couple of things because a lot of people always stop themselves and say, Well, what if I have more than one person who wants an exclusive and I'm like, That's a great problem to have. If more than one person wants to date you. That's a good problem to have, you know, and it's only going to make you more valuable. So let's say for example, I did a press release years ago for this really bootstrapping, like precede FinTech and we got financial times to do the exclusive. Now, what Corina, what you're saying is like, well, somebody already covered it, nobody else wants to, but then we ended up getting them on Wall Street Journal in New York Times, and CNBC. So I'm validating what you're saying is that just because somebody wants to cover it, it doesn't mean that's like, oh, it's done. Now, it's only going to make it even more powerful.
Mickie Kennedy 21:55
You can also sort of capture exclusivity by country, for example, when I worked at a telecom Research Institute, about 28 years ago, and that's what got me into press releases. We would do exclusives with the I think they're like the economist Financial Times, but we would just give them you know, other countries, we would say, domestically, we're not gonna give you an exclusive but we'll give you international exclusivity.
Gloria Chou 22:24
That's awesome. And it could just be in a very simple email, right? Like, hey, we're announcing this your top choice outlet? Let me know if you'd like to, if you'd like me to send you the embargoed press release. Absolutely. Yeah. So embargoed. For anyone that's listening, it just means that it's kind of it's kind of a, you're agreeing not to kind of release it. And honestly, unless you're doing, you know, salacious celebrity gossip or some kind of political news, I don't think your people are going to be releasing it. Is there something else that people should know about kind of using a press release as a tool to start connections and conversations with journalists who otherwise might not give them the time of day?
Mickie Kennedy 23:03
Well, I think that there's it, it's not easy to get media pick up from press releases. And I think I mentioned to you that before we began that a statistic that I hate is that 95% of the press releases that we issue with the releases resulted in nothing other than syndication of the press release on various websites. But it doesn't result in earned media. And I think that so many reasons why that is, is because the stories that they're telling aren't compelling. They are approaching it in the Me, me me approach rather than what's in it for the journalist, the journalist, you gotta realize as a gatekeeper, and what can you do to make their job easier, so that they would want, they would find you irresistible, and want to share you with their audience. And, you know, if you can approach the release, from that standpoint, I think you're going to end up with a product that does much more favorably, when you do issue it over a wire and out to the media. There, there are other things that you can keep in mind, you know, just knowing how the media sort of works. You know, if you're going to have a quote, in the press release, make it really compelling, make it so that if they were to paraphrase that quote, there would be a loss to the press release or the story. And so many people don't write, they write safe language, and just safe quotes, and they don't really stand out. So I've had a juror, a client, inspire a story. And journalist writes the story. And then the managing editor cuts that business company out of the press release. And he didn't realize that they inspired the story, but what he just saw was, here's a company that I don't know, and you know, and the only quote in there was really weak. And so I cut them and if there had been a small unknown company in there with a really great quote, you know, the managing editor or probably would have just put an exclamation mark in the margin saying great quote, you and let it run. So you know, you do yourself a disservice by playing it safe, you know, if you be want to, to be artistic or creative, the the quote is a really great place to put something that's so succinct, and compelling and really interesting. And I recommend people spend a lot of time with that, and the headline, what it is you're pitching, and what that headline says,
Gloria Chou 25:22
I love that you said that, because when I, you know, I do press release writing for, you know, on my VIP days. And I always say that, because a press release, you know, you do charge more if you go over the workout, which I'm glad you do, because it teaches people to be succinct to think because it takes a lot more skill to say things in a more concise way. So I'm glad there actually is, you know, like a limit. But a lot of people do play it safe. And they really waste the precious real estate of that quote by saying something like, I am so proud of this announcement. And like Nothing's worse than that. Right? So think about like how you can position yourself as different or I always like to say like, what is the what is the problem? And why are you in a new, unique position to solve this particular problem?
Mickie Kennedy 26:08
Yeah, I think that's really good.
Gloria Chou 26:11
So now let's get into the nitty gritty of like, the actual press release writing, because I think a lot of people think there's this like, really formal official way of doing it, and it has to look a certain way. Do you agree with that?
Mickie Kennedy 26:24
I do not. And I I'm coming to you, as someone who over 10 years ago wrote the Beginner's Guide to Writing powerful press releases, I really felt that having the best well written press release was the answer to getting media pickup. And I learned over time, that it matters, not too much. The newswire used to be stringent at APA style. And now if you sent a press release, that was all cap headline, there's a chance they would run it like that, because they're not really adhering to those standards anymore. I think that we become more relaxed in language and expectations. Microsoft Word does a really good job of checking grammar and punctuation for a lot of people. And I think that rather than being tripped up on the perfect type of press release, I think what you should really do is just sort of build your argument, what it is you're announcing and why you matter. And, you know, sort of try to reverse engineer from what a journalist would be looking for, how are you compelling? How are you answering that person's questions and giving them something that they they just want to share with their audience. And I think that that approach will yield a better press release, than, you know, taking a template or looking at some competitors press release. So many press releases are just written by press releases, they see that are already out there and say, Oh, let me just, you know, make this mine by changing the industry or, you know, making a couple little tweaks here. And what they really should be doing is rather than deciding, that's the press release, you want to do, what is something more strategic that you could be doing, like the survey that we talked about, or you know, any anything along those lines. You know, newsjacking is one of those things that people always talk about, but I find it fail miserably. So many times, that's where you just jump on a trending news story, and enter your opinion. And on that, and I'd have success with people who do newsjacking when they elevate the conversation or make it very specific to a specific subgroup. And so that if you can elevate a conversation by drawing more nuance within it, or focusing on one's very narrow audience that's affected by that news, you're you're going to open yourself up to media that want to to basically enlarge the conversation. And sometimes that's by making it smaller and more niche oriented.
Gloria Chou 29:00
Yes, I always say in terms of finding your angle is peeling the layers of an onion, the top one is the most obvious COVID pandemic one. Let's get beneath that maybe we cry a little bit, you know, but let's peel the onion and talk about how it affects a certain specific subset of people, whether it's moms or moms with autistic kids, or whatever it is, right. So I really love what you said about it. We're not reinventing the conversation, Everything is a Remix. But what is your one piece was your tiny little puzzle piece that without it the conversation is not complete.
Mickie Kennedy 29:31
Right. And I know in marketing, I've come across the USP which is unique selling proposition. What is it that you do it's so unique? And I think that even from a PR standpoint, you have to really hone what your USP is, and if you don't have one, if you're not doing something different than everybody else in your industry, then you know, maybe you should try to create one and refine what your USP is to differentiate yourself but As a differentiated company is going to have an easier chance of getting media attention because they they stand out as being different and odd. And I, you know, about a third of the people that appear on Shark Tank, do releases through E releases to announce their episode. The producers tell them to promote it through a press release beforehand. And, you know, I think the the reason those works so well is yes, it's a national show that people seem to like and love of startups. But I think the reason these companies get picked is because they're doing something a little different than everyone else, it's, we often are surprised and captivated with what that company is doing, what they're launching what they're, you know, what they're selling, how they're selling it. It's, it's, it's unique. And I think that if you can sort of refine your USP and develop that, then you stand a stronger chance of differentiating yourself and getting media attention. You have to remember journalists don't like promoting big giant companies, rather than do an article on Microsoft, or Google, they would much rather you be seen as a curator, picking some obscure company or startup that no one knows about, and really highlighting what they're doing and why they're doing something that matters. And what what's different about them.
Gloria Chou 31:19
I love that I love that you're, you know, you just validate the fact that journalism is not dead. It's not like it's just the influencer of the week who gets free product or the Microsoft's of the world. But I do think there is a triplet and I do teach this as well on my masterclasses, you can name drop, right? And you can mention, maybe what Microsoft is doing, that's not as good as what you're doing. I don't think Microsoft is necessarily gonna come after you.
Mickie Kennedy 31:44
Sure. No, I don't think so. And I think that a lot of times, you can just talk about, you know, industry standard products and services, and not even mentioned the competitor, and everyone knows who it is. So, you know, there's ways of accomplishing it. And I think that anything that you do that that makes you unique, is as fodder for PR, and you just have to get behind it and communicate it in a way that they'll understand it and see why there's a story there.
Gloria Chou 32:16
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