Episode 86 - 3 Reasons Why Your PR Efforts are Not Working
Reaching out and pitching for press coverage, media features, and podcast appearances is a money-making activity. So much so that I’d consider it a $10,000/hr skill.
Why?
Because it…
Amplifies your voice, your brand, and your business more than any social media hack or engagement method could
Builds credibility, authority, and trustworthiness (making your audience’s purchasing decisions an ethical and easy choice one)
Gets your business in front of thousands, if not millions of eyes!
So if you’ve ever tried reaching out for these opportunities to no avail, you’re going to want to listen up. Because I’m breaking down the 3 reasons why your PR efforts are not working.
If you’ve tried reaching out through resources like HARO, or DMing your favorite podcast on Instagram, only to be met with crickets (and a bruised ego), you’re not alone. And if you’ve always dreamed about seeing your name in magazines like Oprah, Allure, and Elle… but you never felt like you knew what to say or where to even begin pitching if you did…
I want you to grab a pen and paper and tune into this short but mighty episode. Because the mistakes I share in this episode are so common, knowing what NOT to do will give you the confidence boost you need to stand out from the crowd.
Plus, I also share what to DO instead so you can start pitching correctly, start getting seen, and start getting your name out there.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
How to troubleshoot and improve your pitches
How to start seeing PR opportunities all year round
Why you shouldn’t rewrite an entire pitch to land more press
Why knowing relevant news and seasonal trends is important
Why every “no” is an opportunity to turn it into a “yes”
How PR and media coverage helps you serve more people
Why learning great PR pitching practices is a $10,000/hr skill
P.S. If you want your small business to go from invisible to visible, seen, and valued, register for my FREE PR Secrets Masterclass. Soon enough, your credibility and visibility will skyrocket. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community: Small Biz Pros: By Gloria Chou
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
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00:00 - Introduction
00:34 Gloria Chou: The way that you really need to CPR through is not a one and done is to think about how I can refresh my angles?
How can I build upon this really, really to me a $10,000 an hour skill of knowing how to pitch and it's just simply tweaking and editing it for the relevance because remember relevance is really what makes something new.
00:55 Background Music
01:02 Gloria Chou: What's up small business heroes? Welcome to the small business podcast where we talk about all things PR and making it accessible so that people of all lived experiences can get seen in the media.
Every week we share tips and strategies that are proven to work from even the earliest bootstrapping entrepreneur to a seasonal startup. We interview PR students. We interview journalists to really peel back the current and reveal to you how you can get your own PR.
So this episode is called three reasons why your PR efforts may not be working. Now, if you have watched my PR secrets masterclass or are familiar with my community, you know that I have a very, how should I say that a very specific way of writing pitches, right? This is a proprietary method that I came up with called the CPR pitching framework and it's worked for so many founders in hundreds of different industries, both product and service based.
So this episode is really about once you've grasped the art of writing a pitch. You know what it looks like. Maybe you're in my PR program and you've seen it, but it's still not getting as much traction as you would like.
02:05 Gloria Chou: So here are three ways to troubleshoot it and think about it differently if you are doing the pitching, but it's not working. So the first reason why your PR efforts may not be getting as much momentum as much as you would like is that you are seeing it through the lens of one and done. I will say this over and over again. Unlike social media or ads, that's kind of one and then you have to keep feeding the machine. PR to me is knowing how to communicate your message, planting the seeds of connection, so that you can make a journalist you can make a connection with a journalist who is going to be in the position to write about you over and over again.
And especially now with staff budget cuts and journalists being freelance and writing for many different outlets, it means that if you make a connection with one and you really see that relationship as building something for the long term, there is really no limit to the amount of articles or places that you can be seen, right? But a lot of times people might be approaching it as well, I just need this one thing, this one shot because I am launching this season.
03:08 Gloria Chou:
And I really don't think that that's the right way to look at it, right?
That's a very kind of ephemeral short term way of looking at your business.
There are so many opportunities all year round to stay relevant to freshen up your angles.
So for example, if you have actually sent a pitch and it didn't work out, think about what's happening in the news.
The news cycle is 24 7. There are always things happening. I don't care what industry you're in. There's trends on social media, there's things that big companies are doing, there's celebrity trends, there's things that are just exploding in the news all the time. So how can you refresh your, your angles? It doesn't mean to rewrite every single pitch.
But once you have the pitch now, using my CPR method, you can easily swap out subject lines and different bullet points. So for example, Jessica Santander, who was on this podcast, said that she was able to get into Buzzfeed and Allure and Vogue and all of those places.
She didn't just send one pitch and say, OK, that's it. I'm done, right? She knew that her little Jew jewelry business that she was selling at different farmers markets on local stands. She knew that she needed that visibility and that traffic and she didn't want to pay for ads.
04:14 Gloria Chou:
So what does she do? She put together different types of pitches for different seasons. So for summer time, it might be the best jewelry for summer and resorts and then for the winter time, Q four, it might be a bundle collection to give as a gift, right? And so if you are in the product business, think about your product again, it's about highlighting one or two products, not giving the journalist your whole brochure.
How can you highlight something that is seasonal? That is really the standout item for the time that we're living in, right? It could be, if you are in food and wine, it could be a, a various taste palette or an ingredient if you are in fashion or apparel, it might be a style or a way that something is shaped or cut or colors, right? If you are a coach, it might be a skill set or topic that people are talking about, right?
All of these things are constantly changing. So the way that you really need to see pr through is not a one and done is to think about how I can refresh my angles. How can I build upon this? Really? Really, to me, a $10,000 an hour skill of knowing how to pitch and it's just simply tweaking and editing it for the relevance.
Because remember, relevance is really what makes something news, right? You're not selling to the journalist and the more that your pitch sounds like a product brochure or an order form or a marketing deck, the more it's going to get ignored.
05:30 Gloria Chou: Why? Because then you can just go to their ads department and buy an ad. And if we want to bypass that, if we want to get the journalist's attention so that we can get featured for free, which to me is the holy grail. It's the earned media, which is what we do here at Gloria Chou pr you need to be relevant because news is relevant. So think about that.
Now in the pr setter pack, I have an entire checklist of all the different relevant news and seasonal trends for every single quarter, right? But you can start to think about it too. By thinking about what month we're in. Maybe there's some holiday, install a Google news alert and think about all the different things that are happening in your industry that are breaking news.
How can you maybe add your little piece? How can you add a little bit of context of perspective? And don't think that everything has already been said before because I promise you there are people who need information at every level.
We had Ivory Howard who's in our pr program. She got featured on us world news like many times and on all these yoga and Pilates blogs. She is a Pilates instructor and I kid you not, she was in an article in 2022 called What is Pilates boom shocking, right? Just when you think everything has been said and done there, guess what?
06:41 Gloria Chou: There are people who need different information at different levels. So that's really what I mean by when you shift your perspective to see everything as an opportunity or a chance to turn that no into a yes, the opportunities start flowing and this is true in life. This is true in energy and spirit. It's the same thing is true in pr right?
It's never a one and done if you view meeting a journalist and even if they say no, right? In the D MS, if you say OK, well, they said no by you're cutting off that source of opportunity. But if you're saying, OK, I know this pitch might not be for you right now.
How can we call core or collaborate on a story later this year? Because I saw that you wrote about the same topic last year. Do you see how that's turning something that's seemingly like a rejection into an opportunity?
07:28 Gloria Chou: We had T’nisha Simone, who's one of our O G pr members. She got featured in like PopSugar Bustle, you know, Vogue and Shape Magazine and she just turned all of those, those no into a yes. She even said in the DMS. Hey, it seems like you read my pitch but you're not responding to, you know, like who this might be good for now. Not everyone responded.
But guess what? That actually led to a shape feature because that journalist said, oh my God, thank you so much for following up with me. Yeah, you're right. Like I'm no longer with the publication, but you might contact this person, right?
The beauty of what we're doing here with the CPR method and pitching is that it's not a sales angle. And so because we're turning your sales into something that is value driven, something that is topic, insight, solution driven. You don't feel sleazy about following up because you know that it's just about adding to the conversation.
08:21 Gloria Chou: So that's really what I mean is number one, the reason why your PR efforts may not be working is that you're not seeing it as a long term thing. So how can you shift your perspective and turn those notes into opportunities and refresh those angles for seasonality? Right.
That's number one. Number two, for, in terms of the reason why your pr might not be working is that you are not following up, you're not committed to the follow up, follow up game. And I always say this, I've never had anyone get featured without follow up because journalists get hundreds of emails a day and it's nothing personal that they don't read yours. It's just they literally are getting pulled in so many different directions. So my pr students know this, right?
I want you to install an email tracking device. You can just Google it. I don't care if you have Chrome or Outlook, but there are different software that you can use to track your open rates. So you're not making up assumptions out of no data and saying, oh, well, the journalist hates me, which is just an illusion, right? Because the data will tell you whether or not your email has been opened.
And I I obviously have a full training on that in the starter pack and, and subject lines because your open rates are all about your subject lines. But the follow up game is something you must commit to when you commit yourself to pr when you commit yourself to leveling up and showing up in a bigger way because you have to believe that you're, you are offering something of service, a solution to people, even if you're selling face creams, right?
09:45 Gloria Chou: The beauty of what we're doing here with the CPR method is you're not pitching your product like an infomercial, you're pitching it as a solution to someone with a specific problem. And so with that energy, I just want you to be committed to following up. right?
I've really never had a journalist and I've interviewed a lot of them on this show and I've also had them in our pr program where they actually come in into our small group and you get to meet them and you get to talk to them and they actually show you their inbox and all of, of the things. It's kind of like having a journalist as your mentor.
I've, I always ask him the same question which is, have you ever blocked somebody or said like, oh my God, this person is so annoying from following up and the answer 9.9 out of 10 times is no because they just simply get so many emails. And I know this is such an unnatural act for a small business to all of a sudden be like, oh my God, I'm pitching to a journalist like we're not taught this growing up.
10:40 Gloria Chou: So I understand that it's daunting, it's frustrating, it can seem difficult and intimidating and that's what the PR industry wants you to think so that they can charge 10,20, $30,000 right? Because they know that no one's teaching you this and no one's giving you this information.
So if you are committed to advocating for yourself and rewriting the narrative, which is what we're all about here at Gloria Chou. Pr I want you to be committed to the follow up, which means that you are diligently tracking who you're sending messages to following up every 7 to 10 days. And like being a good steward of the news, like turning on your notifications.
11:16 Gloria Chou: Journalists are writers who comment on their latest article and say, hey, I really love that. Like, actually care about what they're writing about and that's really kind of the energy exchange because if you're gonna just like throw all these pictures at journalists and you don't really care about them or respect them as a writer, like, why would they write about you right now?
I'm not saying that you necessarily need to be all the time online complimenting them because that can come off as fake. What I mean is when you are committed to follow up on all of the activities you know, seeing their writing online and maybe liking it or sharing it all those things, show a commitment to follow up.
It shows a commitment that again, not only are you following up, you are building a long term relationship and you see this as a long term relationship, this relationship can pay off in so many different ways, like I said, in point number one. So the sooner you can start seeing it as that, trust me, your PR efforts will start to get going.
12:09 Gloria Chou: Now, the third one is more about the strategies and the tools that you're not using. So it might be that you're simply not tracking your emails, right? It might be that you are sending emails on a day that is not optimal, like the weekend or the day before holiday.
Now, I teach this M I PR program exactly when to send, how to send, how to follow up. But think about it this way, if you're sending emails in random hours and you don't really have a system to do it, then it's never gonna get done. Right. If you can systematize things and know exactly when you're sending it, who you send it to and who you follow it up, that system will start to produce results. It just works. It's like a machine or a car.
When you build the system, the system runs. And so that's really what I've been trying to tell my pr students. And the reason why I started my program is that pr is not a one and done. It's not like something you maybe have time to do on top of everything else. It really is a foundation and a system that you build within your business so that you can not only get organically needs and traffic and visits and credibility, but it also, it also allows you to become a better communicator and take skills with you for life that is no market or competitor can take away from you, which is knowing how to get to those opportunities, knowing how to be seen, knowing how to leverage people's audiences, whether it's a podcast or whether it's a top tier outlet that reaches 30 million people, right?
13:34 Gloria Chou: It's all about working smarter, not harder and that's the power of pr it has that reach, it has that leverage point. So for every one hour of work you're doing, you, the, the payoff could be huge where it's, yeah, maybe you can get a quick little win on social media by making all these reels or posting.
But the algorithm the other day is not gonna like you, you're gonna get maybe 10,20, 30, or even heck 200 people viewing it. That doesn't necessarily translate to people who are actually gonna buy themselves, right? Because they're on social media, they could be discovering you and they're not really in your audience. But the thing about pr is that if you are in an article called, you know how to become a better speaker or how can learn better or whatever it is, right?
14:14 Gloria Chou: Best products. People are actually reading it because they're interested like they choose what they're seeing. So that is why pr is so amazing. It checks all the boxes of meeting your direct audience where they want you. It allows you to get a hell yes from them because you have that credibility, right?
You've been vetted and then it also checks the boxes of S C O and traffic because you're like being on one platform, you can be visible to millions of people without paying that in ads. So I just really want you to take a long form perspective, mindset, mindset mindset usually and for my experience and the experience of so many people is usually 90% of the game, right? It's usually 10% of it is like a logistical or a software thing.
But you have to have the right mindset, the right perspective to see this as compounding and know that no, nothing is wasted, not even the rejection because it all accumulates, right? Every experience is accumulated. There is no nothing, no such thing as wasted because you take that within you. So hopefully with that, I've given you some motivation, some inspiration.
15:19 Gloria Chou: And if you're interested in checking out our pr program, you can go to pr starter pack dot com. And if you know anyone who is a small business and looking to advocate for themselves and really learn the skills in community with others on how to grow our business on our terms, then have them join you and maybe show this podcast to them as always, I'm cheering for you. And until next time.
15:41 Gloria Chou: Hey, small business hero, did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, the New York Times, Marie Claire, Pop Sugar and so many more, even if you are not yet launched or if you don't have any connections. That's right.
That's why I invite you to watch my Pr Secrets Master class where I reveal the exact methods. Thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own pr and go from unknown to being credible and sought your industry experts.
Now, if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig or just reach out to that very intimidating editor. This class will show you exactly how to do it.
16:21 Gloria Chou: Register now at Gloria Chou pr dot com slash masterclass, that's Gloria Chou cho U pr dot com slash masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies.
Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.
16:40 - Outro