Episode 82: Answers to Your Biggest PR Outreach Questions
Your biggest PR outreach questions shouldn’t stop your small business from getting heard, seen, and valued.
Whatever query or doubt you may have about PR, trust me, they all have their corresponding answers.
And the best thing you can do right now is to shift your mindset into focusing on the untraditional yet proven strategies for PR marketing that we emphasize in the Small Business PR community.
That’s because the first step really to having your questions answered is being confident that your PR outreach will work out and that you can be of service to other people.
Most importantly, you have to give pitching a try. The more you pitch, the more answers you’ll get from connecting with the journalists.
But don’t you worry! I won’t leave you with just some broad ideas on how to do your PR outreach.
So, whether your question is about finding journalists, using press releases, or taking opportunities from HARO—I got you covered!
That’s why in this special episode, I’m giving you access to my exclusive interaction with the community’s small business heroes. I give them answers to some of your biggest PR outreach questions so that these insights may help your business grow with the help of PR.
“Remember, this is a $10,000 an hour task that we are building. A skill that we are building, knowing how to communicate our brand with relevance to get that 'Hell, yes!' from anyone on the other side. So PR is something that builds long-term ROI for your business. It's a long-term asset, unlike social media that's not searchable. And that is why it's so important to do this work.”
-Gloria Chou
Find out the answers to your biggest PR outreach questions by tuning in to this episode. You’ll get inside access from my exclusive interaction with small business heroes who are using proven PR strategies that help them get seen, heard, and valued.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
How to research journalists and press release tips
Follow-up tips to always keep in mind when pitching
How to use HARO in PR tips
How to find niche journalists and media outlets
How to increase open rates of your emails
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:
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community: Small Biz Pros: By Gloria Chou
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): https://www.gloriachoupr.com/41
Episode 42: How to Write, Publish, and Leverage a Press Release to Get PR and SEO for Your Business With E-releases CEO Mickie Kennedy (Part 2): https://www.gloriachoupr.com/42
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
[01:53] A lot of them are freelance writers, which means that they are not full-time with anyone, which is a good thing because it means that if you plant the seeds with one journalist and if you get an interview, chances are they will write for many other outlets.
[04:33] Different seasons. Different reasons. How can you adapt your pitch and maybe just adapt it a little bit and tweak it to like the new season that we're in.
[05:41] Write your solid pitch with three or four bullet points. Keep getting the subject line super concise. And with that pitch, you'll find that you're actually able to respond to HARO by just using that pitch.
[08:58] Install an email tracking device. Also do not send a mass email. Email them one by one by first subject line testing, I would send 10 emails with one subject line, and then another 10 emails with a variation of the subject line.
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Gloria Chou 0:00
What's up small business heroes? I'm so excited for this unique episode. So as you know, I am so proud of our signature PR program I built for small businesses. It's called the PR Starter Pack. And the most important element is community. Every month I get on an in-depth coaching and workshop style call with our members. And I even sometimes have top-tier journalists come on as well. Through these calls, questions are being answered, or getting pitch reviews, feedback and learning from each other is really spectacular, right? So I've compiled some of the questions that I get on actual coaching calls, in hopes that I can help you start your PR journey. Remember, this is a $10,000 an hour task that we are building. A skill that we are building, knowing how to communicate our brand with relevance to get that 'Hell, yes!' from anyone on the other side. So PR is something that builds long-term ROI for your business. It's a long-term asset, unlike social media that's not searchable. And that is why it's so important to do this work. I hope that this episode or some of the questions in the actual call will inspire you to start your journey. And if you want to come on these calls and meet me and our other members to get your questions asked, go to prstarterpack.com. Or just do a search for PR Starter Pack. I cannot wait to welcome you into our community so that you can ask your questions. Now let's get into the episode.
Gloria Chou 1:14
Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chou, 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.
Gloria Chou 1:46
If one journalist from media outlet doesn't respond, when should you reach out to another journalist?
Gloria Chou 1:50
So honestly, at this point, because of the budget cuts, a lot of them are freelance writers, which means that they are not full time with anyone, which is a good thing because it means that if you plant the seeds with one journalist and if you get an interview, chances are they will write for many other outlets, right? And you can say where did the other outlets go? So I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with emailing someone else. Unless it's like an exclusive that you're trying, like a worldwide exclusive that you're trying to only like sell to one media outlet, if you will, right. So if it's not something that's super high-stakes, I don't think there's anything wrong with reaching out for another journalist.
Gloria Chou 2:22
Now remember, in your database, right, you have all of their information. Make sure you to click on their bio, because it'll give you more information. A lot of times they do move around, right, there's no way that I can have a super updated one. And how you can get around that is by literally just looking at their Twitter and clicking on their Twitter or LinkedIn. And you can see immediately where they are right for now. Right? I hope that makes sense.
Gloria Chou 2:42
Is it appropriate to send a press release on your crowdfunding campaign to press contacts? Should they be in business publications or customer focused industry publications?
Gloria Chou 2:50
So I have a whole training on press release. I also have two episodes on my podcast about press releases. So for me, the best way to utilize a press release is to say that you're the first or only to do something and you can do that in conjunction with the fact that you've raised. So if you look at all the press releases I've written. You can go to gloriachoupr.com/services. I've written stuff for FinTech, for AI, for NFTs, for books, and you don't have to be the first to do XY and Z. But you might be the first to do XY and Z in your city, or in this way, right? And then you can couple that with the crowdfunding campaign to be like, Hey, we're the first to do XY and Z. And we've launched and we announced that we raised right. So this is one that I just wrote recently. It's an NFT social app. And I do this on my VIP day, by the way, it's a six hour writing day. So we talked about how it works, why it's different. It's talking that it's announcing, right that it's launched in NFT. But like why? to empower users to own their data. And then the sub headline talks about the how. The headline is the what. The sub-headline is the hoW. So talk about how you're the first to do something. I wouldn't do a press release announcement just to say that you've, you know, launched your crowdfunding campaign, because it's not cheap to release a press release. Right? So if you can couple two or three different things in there, that would be really good.
Gloria Chou 3:59
What do you say in a follow-up? After following up, I'm out of things to say.
Gloria Chou 4:02
So I guess my question is, what are your open rates? And what what is a DM open rate? So you know, I would definitely email and test your subject lines. Go with the winning subject line, and then DM right away, right. And I would follow up probably once a week. And if they're opening it multiple times, it means that they're interested they just don't have a place for it right now. If they're not opening at all, it means that you're, they're not getting through their spam filter, or you need to just refresh your angles. Right. So and Dr. Noor know this as well. I'm sure she has followed up a couple of times. But then the news cycle is always changing, right? The different seasons a different reasons. How can you adapt your pitch and maybe just adapt it a little bit and tweak it to like the new season that we're in? Right. And Dr. Noor, Dr. Greta, if you want to comment here as well, I'm sure you've had your fair share of following up and people don't respond. Right. But there's so many journalists out there's literally hundreds, thousands. Right.
Gloria Chou 4:53
Can you provide guidance on the best way to respond to HARO requests? We have provided concise responses. By the way, there's a HARO training in the Starter Pack portal. lengthy responses and everything in between. However, we have noticed I've never opened the email at all and read it. It's a lot of work to detail a response to never have it read. Is it best to just keep it vague and say, 'we are experts on this?' So thing is if you have a PR Starter Pack, especially if you have done any kind of deep diving, then I would start with the pitch first. I think a lot of people think it's, you know, we always do like the easy things. I always have this metaphor when I have something that is really intense. Like if I'm doing a work call, like if I'm doing this, I started vacuuming, because that's like a quick win for me, like I'm so procrastinating, but I'll just like start vacuuming, right. So we are trained as humans to do something that is easy. And so like responding to a request is so much easier than actually doing the work of writing a really solid pitch. So what I would do is actually write your solid pitch with the three or four bullet points. Keep getting the subject line super concise. And with that pitch, you'll find it that you're actually able to respond to HARO by just using that pitch and maybe just rewriting one or two sentences. But I would definitely start with the pitch first. There's no substitute for that. I know it's so much easier to just respond to HARO and be on HARO all day. But you cannot delay the inevitable, right. your message is your message. So we have a lot of people actually have a interview with Chris Vaughn, who got onto like five plus outlets using HARO. And but if you Google like Chris Vaughn, it's like how to get into HARO. She talked about how using the CPR method, she did her pitch first. And when she's scanning through HARO. She just did a ctrl+F and anything that like corresponded to her industry, she just was able to repurpose it. I would not spend all day doing HARO, especially if you're in the PR Starter Pack. You have the media database. You don't really need to do it. However, if you do write a really good pitch your HARO is going to be 10 times more effective right? So if- Does anyone here have any great experience with HARO, please raise your hand. I know we have a lot of people in the Facebook group who actually have gotten featured using HARO.
Gloria Chou 6:46
Joan says how do you do a mass mailings?
Gloria Chou 6:47
So journalists really like one on one communication. They've we've surveyed journalists in research has shown they like one on one. So it makes sure that you spend the time to just like, you know, even if you're copying and pasting the pitch I wrote for you, right, their pitch that I wrote for Raphael. I don't think that she's mass emailing everyone. It's about having that one on one communication, but with the pitch that we wrote. So I have a final checklist before you press send, make sure you download that before you start copy and pasting in one millisecond. And then having like weird errors and formatting, it just takes 30 seconds. So that's also that's also in the portal. Yes, individually, Joan individually. Because if again, they want to know that it's a collaborative relationship that you're building, and you're not just like mass mailing so so Raphael, she just started sending out the pitch siderophore. She says, one hour a day, I split test the subject lines to 30 a day. So you know how you know, Joan, you know how I wrote the subject lines for you on our one on one, I want you to test that. And so with that data, you'll be able to send the rest of the emails with the best subject lines, because your open rates are all about your subject lines, right?
Gloria Chou 7:48
Someone says, How can I determine journalist have a more mature audience?
Gloria Chou 7:51
So again, we don't know. Right? Like, we don't know what their audience is. But you can kind of Google their name and see some of the articles that they've written. They don't share, like what their audience is with us. Like there's nothing that I can know like, oh, well, these people write their emails, but you can just look at the outlet name and see if that would move the needle for you. And there are some outlets that you might think trend towards older and you can do some research on that too. But they don't give us information about like exactly what their audiences unless they're like self selected and do a survey, right?
Gloria Chou 8:21
What is a good email open rate?
Gloria Chou 8:22
I mean, you have an incredible email open rate. You said you had like almost 40%, from the email we wrote. So that's really pretty good. Industry average is anywhere from like 15 to 25%. But again, open rates with iOS privacy blockers, it's getting harder and harder to get that data. So it's harder to harder to attribute what the mail tracking device says to the actual, like objective thing, because of all the privacy filter. So again, it's just getting harder and harder to measure it. However, you know, you can still have a general sense of it, you know, again, I'm not a technologist. So I really don't know like the back end of it, I just know that it's not 100% accurate. For anyone out here, please install an email tracking device. And also do not send a mass email, email them one by one by first subject line testing, I would send 10 emails with one subject line, and then another 10 emails with a variation of the subject line that says something similar, and then see which one has the highest open rates, and then send the remaining of the emails on that so that you can really increase your chances of getting that email open. Because if your email is not being opened, it's not being read. Right. And this is something we do on our one on ones is I actually write for you three to four subject lines that I want you to test.
Gloria Chou 9:27
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're not yet launched, or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods 1000s of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get them 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. Register now at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chou c-h-o-u pr.com/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.