Successful PR and Press Release Strategies for Small Businesses with Mickie Kennedy

Larry Roberts [00:00:09]:

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:00:11]:

And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

Larry Roberts [00:00:16]:

And on this episode of the podcast, I think we're going to talk about something that's. We've heard of it, but I think it's rarely used, and that is press releases. I've been fortunate enough over the last several months get some what they call earned media, and that's helped out tremendously. And I'm sure that with leveraging press releases, we could probably open ourselves up to similar opportunities for our own businesses and our own brands. So we invited Mickie Kennedy to join us on this episode, and he's an expert at helping small businesses, authors, and startups increase their visibility and credibility through tier one. So we're going to talk about what those different tiers are, because that was kind of new to me. I didn't realize it was designations or tiers of press releases, but we're going to talk about how to get those. Tier one press release distribution.

Larry Roberts [00:01:08]:

Mickie founded Ere leases 25 years ago after realizing that small businesses desperately need a press release distribution service that they can actually afford because they can get pretty pricey giving access to the media and to a national newswire with a personal touch. And, you know, in looking at Mickie's background, and I've actually heard Mickie speak and a mastermind that I used to be a part of, and that is definitely where he comes into play. Super creative guy, definitely adds a personal touch to everything he does, and we hope that he adds a personal touch to this episode of the podcast. So, Mickie, that was the longest intro ever. Welcome to the show.

Mickie Kennedy [00:01:44]:

Thanks for having me.

Sara Lohse [00:01:46]:

Also, the best glasses we've ever had on the show.

Mickie Kennedy [00:01:49]:

Thanks.

Sara Lohse [00:01:50]:

Definitely best glasses.

Larry Roberts [00:01:51]:

Okay. But we did have it. We did have a bet because I was looking at your headshot, and now, right now, they look like they have lenses. But in the headshot, it looked like there weren't any lenses. They were only frames.

Mickie Kennedy [00:02:04]:

They do have lenses.

Larry Roberts [00:02:06]:

Okay.

Mickie Kennedy [00:02:07]:

It may have just been the shot. These are some different lenses. I'm trying, but I'm not loving them. But we'll see.

Sara Lohse [00:02:15]:

Is it the ones that you like? They just have a cover and you just take off the covers and switch them?

Mickie Kennedy [00:02:20]:

No, this isn't. I know that company, but these are just Zeni optical is what makes these.

Sara Lohse [00:02:26]:

All right, zeny optical sponsor us.

Larry Roberts [00:02:28]:

Yeah. There you go. I love them. And the only reason that it even jumped out at me is because I'm a huge glasses guy. I wore glasses before I even wore glasses. I mean, back in high school, I would go to Walden books and buy, like, the fake glasses back in the mid eighties, right? And I would wear, until I finally had to wear glasses, like, well, this kind of sucks. But I embraced it. And I have been known to wear just frames just for the look from time to time.

Larry Roberts [00:02:51]:

So I was like, I wonder. I wonder.

Mickie Kennedy [00:02:54]:

But anyways, unfortunately, they're legitimate.

Sara Lohse [00:02:57]:

Well, we like that you've gone creative and rainbow with it. So I love that you're in the PR space, and that's something that we really haven't talked about yet. I have a background in PR. I used to be a PR writer way back in the past. But what is, how is it that you do things differently? How is it that, like, small businesses, like entrepreneurs, can really use PR and press releases?

Mickie Kennedy [00:03:20]:

Right? So I founded earleases many years ago, a little over 25 years ago, actually. And at the time, I just got journalist email addresses. I sort of stalked them on message boards, and they were, email addresses were on the website, so I'd reach out to them. And I did ask if I could send them releases. And when I launched, I'd spent a year doing that and had about 10,000 journalists, and I was just a matchmaker. I would send press releases to these people, and a lot of them would pick us up. Over the years, we were approached by PR Newswire, which is the oldest and largest newswire in the US, and they said, hey, we really like what you're doing. Why not add a local or state distribution to each of these clients? And they're just like, you know, they're really all looking for national attention.

Mickie Kennedy [00:04:14]:

Why can't we give them a national distribution? And I knew the answer. They charge $1,600 to move a 600 word press release. So I knew that I was charging my clients, I think, 299 or 350 at the time. And so I knew that the price points weren't going to work. But they also knew that these weren't customers that their salespeople would ever reach out to. Their sales guys are looking for people that will buy ten of these $1600 releases a year. One, they might add an asian market with translation for an extra $6,000, and then say, oh, yeah, we would like to have a multimedia newsroom for $30,000 a year. And so they're looking for a big corporate clients.

Mickie Kennedy [00:04:58]:

And so these people, I told them, some of them graduate, we work with a lot of startups, and eventually they may want translations and things that we don't have. And so wouldn't it be nice to have this? And so we continued to kick the can along, and I went to meet them, and one of the things they discussed was the fact that their overnight editorial team doesn't do very much, but they kind of have to be there in case there's breaking news or a recall or you wanted to get something to asian markets overnight, but there's a lot of hours of downtime. And I said, hey, I could schedule all of my releases by default for next business day. That way you could set them up overnight and it wouldn't cost you additional labor. And they're like, oh, I like that. So that's when we finally decided to do it and make it work. So all the releases today, the e releases issues, gets a national distribution over PR newswire. It's probably a third to half the price of going directly to the newswire.

Mickie Kennedy [00:05:58]:

So it's a huge savings and a huge opportunity. But getting to what is a tier one newswire, PR Newswire and business wire are the, the two oldest and largest newswires. They are basically a duopoly in the United States, you know, and they probably will remain a duopoly for forever because journalists are asked to do more with less now. And so they don't have the ability to go fish in three, four ponds. So right now, they fish in two ponds. They go to PR newswire, they log in, they look at their feed, which is customized for their industry. They can also do some tailoring of that, like excluding keywords and stuff like that, or making sure it includes certain keywords so that they're looking at exactly what they're interested in. And right now, they go to two places, and they've reached most places.

Mickie Kennedy [00:06:56]:

Outside of that, they also get email. But that's one of the reasons they love the wire now today, more than they ever have, there has been media databases introduced over the last 25 years. And when people pay 1015, $20,000 a year for a license to a media database, and you're a golf club company, and you've got that database with a million contacts in it, and then you see that people who report on golf is like 3200, you go, wow, I wonder if we could send to more. And they start talking themselves into, we could send it to banking journalists, because bankers, they play golf. And, you know, people who read business publications, they play golf, but what they don't realize is a journalist in the banking world only writes about banking issues. They're going to see that and delete it. And get frustrated. And that's what their email inbox is full of today.

Mickie Kennedy [00:07:51]:

They are. So many off target press releases because of people psyching themselves up into. This isn't too big of a stretch, is it? And I'm telling you, it is because there are so many complaints online from journalists just saying their email is almost useless. And, and that makes it difficult for even people they have relationships with, like PR firms and, you know, when they signed up with e releases. So it's, it's really unfortunate that that is going to happen. I think a lot of PR firms are having to just pick up the phone and say, did you get our release? And they're having to do an email search and pull it up and find it if they're willing to do that. But it is very difficult. Outside of that, there are other companies with newswires and their names.

Mickie Kennedy [00:08:40]:

I really think the only bonafide other one that's out there is Globe Newswire. They really tried to attract journalists and they just haven't. So they sort of pivoted and they focus mainly on publicly traded companies who don't really care about getting media pickup. I mean, to be honest, a lot of journalists don't want, I mean, a lot of publicly trade companies don't want journalists looking too closely at every little thing that they do. So for a lot of them, they're just looking for compliance with the SEC, and that's what they provide at a cheaper price. Again, it's just not a place that they've had a good record of getting journalists to move over and checking those types of releases. In addition, there are a lot of players in the marketplace that do what's called syndication. They don't call it syndication.

Mickie Kennedy [00:09:24]:

They give you the impression that they're reaching journalists, but they don't. For 20 years, I heard PR web is great for reaching journalists. I was like, no, it's not. PR web doesn't reach journalists at all. It used to say on the website, this is online visibility only, and it's owned today by Sishin and it's owned by the same people who own PR newswire. And so, you know, it doesn't reach journalists, but it used to provide what people felt was good visibility, and they used to send a roundup of the clippings to the people who were sending them so you could get eyeballs there, but just be other people, other, you know, business owners and stuff like that. So, yeah, and, and today there's also this instance where they put the press release on a bunch of websites and that's what the syndication part of it is. Your release, when you send it out through PR Newswire.

Mickie Kennedy [00:10:18]:

Businesswire also gets a little bit of syndication, largely because of publicly traded clients who want to appear on Yahoo finance and stuff like that. So most of these are financial type websites like Market watch and things along those lines. But there are people out there that today for, you know, 100 or $200 will get you on as many as 700 websites probably.

Larry Roberts [00:10:40]:

Let me, let me jump in there. Let me just because we didn't talk much in the green room, but we hit that record button and we're off to the races. But let me jump in there and go, what's the value of that then? I mean, who sits there and reads those?

Mickie Kennedy [00:10:53]:

So there's zero value to it. 700. 700 websites and probably got seven eyeballs because these are subdomains on a website that aren't picked up in Google News or Google Web. If you go to that news site and do a search for that company, that press release won't show up because it's not part of their content management system. It's completely just made up to give you a link so that you see their logo and what looks like their website with your press release in it. It has no meaning whatsoever. It shouldn't help you for SEO benefit because they're all no follow tags because that's the guidance from Google. Despite that, I'm told, oh, you don't know what you're talking about.

Mickie Kennedy [00:11:36]:

I got a little bit of a bump when I used a certain syndication site and things like that. But it's all just noise and it is confusing and it is, one of the biggest questions we get is like, hey, why are you guys like a few hundred dollars? And this other company is like, dollar 89? And I'm like, well, the other company has a reach journalist. It really just syndicates your page to a few places that don't matter. That being said, 97% of the people that use PR, Newswire and Businesswire had the exact same experience as the people who pay the $89. Nothing happens. They get no earned media. And so one of the things that I do, because I see 10,000 to 12,000 releases that we issue go out each year, and I get to see the successes, is I see patterns. And I'm like, hey, let's focus on the 3% of press releases that do get pick up and see if we can learn some lessons there that you can apply and therefore generate press releases that do get earned media.

Mickie Kennedy [00:12:39]:

Because when you get earned media. It's huge credibility. It often can lead to sales leads. Even taking that link of that article and putting it in front of your own leads increases your conversion rate. Sharing it with your customers, reduces churn. It is a huge indicator signal of trust. When a journalist writes about you, it's like third party corroboration. And so, you know that certain customer that's maybe saying we should shop around this year and make sure we're using the right company, they see that it gets shut down, at least for this year.

Mickie Kennedy [00:13:12]:

And so it is very valuable. And it's not unusual for some of my customers to tell me, hey, we got 400 visitors from that article, and it looks like half of them converted. Is that possible? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, it's usually a consumer product that's pretty, you know, click friendly. You just want to buy it instantaneously. And so, yeah, that's not unusual. I do tell them that probably more people saw the article than click through or went to your website. But the people that did, they had that emotional response, you know, this amplification of trust that happens, and they just want to do business with you. They don't open another browser and say, can I get this cheaper on Amazon or you? You know, is there something that's similar? They really get invested, and that's the real value of earned media.

Mickie Kennedy [00:13:57]:

I mean, we have people who just have testimonial fatigue. Now, earned media still works, and it still works very effectively. I had one client who put all the clippings together. They were a carpet company in New Jersey, local carpet company in New Jersey. They wanted to do a media campaign and get earned media. And I, I used my recipe book to help them get that. But most of it was trade publications, which I pointed out their customers didn't read, but they, they loved it. They put it in the brag book.

Mickie Kennedy [00:14:28]:

At the end of the year, they had 30 clippings. They had New Jersey magazine, their local newspaper, and the rest were all trade publications. But when they went to someone's home and gave them a quote, they said, hey, we're not going to come in the cheapest, but we've been around for x amount of years. We do it right. Uh, you don't have to call, you don't have to move all your furniture in two years and have us restretch the carpet or fix the seam. We do it right from the beginning. And here we've been picked up in floor trade weekly. Here we are in floor coverings today, and they just go through that adds an extra minute to the conversation.

Mickie Kennedy [00:15:00]:

They don't read the articles, they just look at it. And based on that, it increased their conversion rate at 17%, which is almost one out of every five cells. They were losing. They were now winning. And that's a huge win and application of earned media, just showing you the credibility of exposure for just a minute, browsing headlines and logos.

Sara Lohse [00:15:22]:

We talk a lot about vanity metrics in podcasting, because a lot of the numbers that people look at, things like download numbers and stuff, those really are vanity metrics. And this almost sounds like the PR version, but in a really effective way. The vanity metrics actually are converting. But I want to go a little bit back to basics for people who aren't super familiar with the whole concept. What is considered earned media.

Mickie Kennedy [00:15:52]:

So earned media is when a journalist writes an article about you, you didn't pay for it, you didn't control what it says. That's the thing. It's like, as marketers, we know how we would best position a product launch article, but at the end of the day, they get to write it, and we don't have any say in that. But that's media that we've earned. And if it was an ad, it would say exactly what we want, but people's eyes would just glaze over. Advertising is hard, you know, conversion rates are low from ads, but actual organic articles, you know, that appear. The conversion rates are very, very strong. And people notice that this is earned media.

Mickie Kennedy [00:16:38]:

It's written. There's usually a byline or a journalist attached to it, and it really does convey to them that this is legitimate. There's still this feeling of legitimacy when it comes to the press.

Larry Roberts [00:16:51]:

So what makes a good press release?

Mickie Kennedy [00:16:54]:

So what makes a good press release is what you're writing about, and it's all the strategy of it. I used to think that the most well written press release would stand the biggest chance of success. My first book was the Beginner's guide to writing powerful press releases. And I really believed that the best press release would win, and it didn't matter. And so I have learned now that it's what you're announcing, and so many people do not realize that what they're announcing is coming from what they want. You have to sort of reverse engineer for what could I give a journalist that they would want that would make them want to share it with their audience? You know, at the end of the day, that journalist has to write about things that will either educate or entertain their audience, and ideally both. So what are elements that you could add? For example, one of the most popular releases, we get a release. This is a product launch release.

Mickie Kennedy [00:17:58]:

And here's the formula new product. Here's a list of features. Here's a buy button or a page to learn more. And it's like a journalist looks at that and it's like why would that really educate or entertain my audience? Probably not. And even more importantly, it's, it doesn't follow a story arc. Journalists like to be storytellers. Even in the smallest little articles there is a little bit of a story arc. And so the things I go back and tell these people to do, if they ask me, I no longer volunteer that I get my head bitten off, but I will volunteer that, hey, I'm sure this product didn't come out without customers or people in the field using it.

Mickie Kennedy [00:18:39]:

Let's put a use case study in there. What was their problem before? What was the outcome? Hey, you have a logistics software solution for transportation industry. This person was losing 11% a year. They implemented it and within 90 days they were attaining a net profit of 4%. Doesn't seem like much, but they went from negative to profit just by a 90 day implementation. Then you have a quote by them talking about, hey, this is really good. I feel like we now are starting to pay attention to the things that matter in the business and are getting our cost under control. Whatever it is that they say that builds the story, it's like, hey, here's a new product, here's a company's experience through it.

Mickie Kennedy [00:19:23]:

This is what the outcome was. This is their, you know, their statement on that. And if you want to learn more, you know, here's a, here's a link and that fulfills more of what a journalist is looking for. And so that's one of the first things is, you know, don't do it as like what's in it for me, it won't be. And also, you know, marketers love to put tracking URL's in a press release. Journalist is never going to keep that. You know, if it ends up on your website, they're going to just take the website address. They're not going to include that.

Mickie Kennedy [00:19:53]:

So, you know, marketers hate press releases because it's hard to measure ROI and it's not as clean as other things. But if you, you can make it work for you. If you just are strategic and doing those strategic types of press releases. And that, that is, you know, what I do now. I've, I've gone away from the day to day operations is educate people on the types of releases that you should be doing.

Sara Lohse [00:20:18]:

So you said that earned media is talking to journalists and having them cover it. But I'm seeing a lot of overlap with podcasts and podcast guesting. And like, when you said before, like, what the press release needs, it can't just be information about you. And I see that all the time with podcast guest pitches, and they're just like, hi, this is me. This is what I do, and I'm supposed to bring them on my show. It's like, that's not what I'm looking for. It's like, what are you bringing to the show? What value do you bring? So that feels like very much the same situation. And now that things are changing, the way that media is changing, are you seeing a big shift? Is it still focusing on articles, or do you do work with new media?

Mickie Kennedy [00:21:05]:

So we do, as a matter of fact, we do new products, uh, like snacks in grocery stores for a few clients. And, uh, there is a TikToker called Snack, a later on Tick tock, who, uh, each week does a roundup of new snacks hitting, uh, grocery store shelves. He also does one for fast food, new fast food stuff coming out that week. But we don't really work with a lot of fast food places, but, uh, the grocery snacks, we do, and often they will end up there. And, uh, he, he often says, I can't tell if this is a glaze because this is just a image from the press release that they provided, but it'll be interesting to see. So he readily admits that he's pulling these for press releases, and so people are using it. I was pleased to find out on PR newswire that a lot of Instagram influencers, in the fashion arena in particular, have been given journalists access to the wire because they want to pull press releases and specifically images and b roll video footage from certain designers and places like that. And again, they get it.

Mickie Kennedy [00:22:14]:

The moment it's announced, the moment it's available, they've got it, they put it on their Instagram, and they're ready to go. And so it is evolving what we consider the media. I think over 15 years ago, bloggers became really big, and now it's evolving. And I love it that the newswire is so welcoming, because 15 plus years ago, they were not very welcoming to bloggers. I really made an appeal on behalf of a couple bloggers to get access to the wire because I pointed out that they had more web traffic than the leading trade publication in that industry. And finally, they allowed it and they've done a completely 180. Now. They're just very welcoming of people who are looking to use that content in ways that are transformative and creating original articles, videos, audio, lots of different things.

Larry Roberts [00:23:12]:

That's really kind of inspiring because as you were talking about that, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Because I'm doing an AI podcast. Because that's kind of my area of expertise outside of branded. Here is the AI revolution that we're all experiencing. And I'm thinking I could access the PR news wire to get the latest AI releases and technology and insight. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I got some value out of this episode.

Mickie Kennedy [00:23:40]:

Excellent.

Sara Lohse [00:23:41]:

And when you're talking about the, like the TikTokers, I used to work in board games years ago, and I would have to send boxes of games to small children who have YouTube channels that are crazy successful. And I always felt so silly, just like, hi, six year old child, will you please review this? Because my career depends on it. Thank you, six year old child. Like, I felt so silly. But it's almost like anyone with a podcast, with a TikTok channel, with a YouTube channel, whatever it is, they're almost the new journalists.

Mickie Kennedy [00:24:15]:

Yep, absolutely.

Sara Lohse [00:24:17]:

That's crazy.

Larry Roberts [00:24:18]:

So. So, Mickie, let me ask you this. As a entrepreneur is someone that has a small business and is really looking to leverage the power of press releases. What could be an example of, like, your very first press release?

Mickie Kennedy [00:24:34]:

Right? So if you're looking for an easy win, I always tell people to do a survey or study within their industry. This is the one type of press release I've never seen fail. It's, you know, you're going to come up with twelve to 16 meaningful questions that you ask your industry today. You know, think about if you were at a conference, what is there a question you would like to ask someone else saying, are you experiencing this as well? That could potentially be a question. Sometimes those are like, have you noticed that, you know, people are really not paying net 30 anymore? It's like, you know, follow up, follow up, it's turned into net 60, net 90. That could be an indication that funds are drying up in your industry or even nationally. And so that that's important, you know, to get people's take on it. So, you know, what else has trended recently in your industry? You know, post pandemic, you know, work has changed and, you know, is, are you finding it difficult to maintain a work culture or not even sure you have one? You know, are people resistant to work in the office.

Mickie Kennedy [00:25:47]:

Are you having trouble hiring or are you considering laying off? All these things could evolve into being interesting questions that you could ask for a quick, quick survey. I like twelve to 16 questions with four questions per page and surveymonkey. And that way if they stop after one page, you've still got the most important questions answered in the first response. Because sometimes people lose steam as it goes with the survey. And then you're going to take that link to the survey that you've created and you're going to approach, because I assume nobody has a mass of other people in their industry contacts that they could just easily, readily send that to. So I find one of the easiest things to do is to reach out to a trade association in your industry, but stay away from the big ones. Go to the smaller and more independent ones. There are a lot of them.

Mickie Kennedy [00:26:41]:

I had a podcast with someone in PR saying, well, Mickie, that wouldn't apply for us because there's only public relations society of America. And I said, well, there's over 470 other trade associations in the United States for public relations people. And she was shocked. And I was like, the reason is they don't get any publicity and no one knows about them. And some of them are too small.

Sara Lohse [00:27:01]:

And they need a better pr person.

Mickie Kennedy [00:27:03]:

They do, but some of them are very regional or small, you know, like they're just like Florida or whatever, but there's some of them that are quite appropriate, like small PR firms of, you know, ten employees or less. That represents probably 90% of the, the industry. So the only opinions you won't be getting are the big guys who you don't really care anyways. It's not, it's hard to get an answer out of them, out of anything. So I would, you know, pick one, approach it and say, hey, could you send this link to your members? We're doing a survey. We need to get at least 100 responses. And in exchange for your cooperation, we'll put you in the press release we'll be issuing over PR newswire. And so all of a sudden they see it as a media opportunity for them to be mentioned in a press release.

Mickie Kennedy [00:27:49]:

Again, no one knows about them for the most part, but they do exist and they do a valuable service. And a lot of people feel an allegiance to these associations they belong to. So when they get a request like that, they often will complete it. And if you don't get the hundred, if you circle back with them and just say, hey, here's the problem, we don't have a hundred. I really don't want to have to abandon you and move on to someone else. They'll usually send it out through social media or email again to get the numbers back up. And then when you get the responses, you're going to analyze it and pick one, maybe two of the biggest aha moments of the survey. What's going to be most shocking and surprising to the industry, and that's the lead, and that's going to be the focus of the press release.

Mickie Kennedy [00:28:35]:

You're going to have an amazing quote by you analyzing while the numbers swayed a certain way. A little bit of analysis. You know, like, let's say you asked, you know, graphic designers if they believe, you know, AI is going to replace their business in ten years and 90% say yes, you could say something to that would be like, wow, this is really, you know, unfortunate or blah. But you can also just say something like, while I don't think that this fear is going to be realized, I do believe that the people in ten years who don't know how to supplement their graphics designing with AI are probably going to be without a job. That's an interesting spin and a good quote that I could see a lot of people running with. So try to be a little strategic with your quote, make it sort of meaningful. But again, you're the expert and author of the survey, so you're going to be front and center. That quote is going to get included in any articles and they're going to cite you and your business.

Mickie Kennedy [00:29:31]:

And that's a great way to get media pickup. Generally, when these go out, it generally results in eight to 14 articles of earned media. And it's a win that always happens, but it is a little more labor intensive. But if you're looking for a win, and right off the bat, it's one that works really well. I wished I had thought of it, but it was one of my clients had been doing it for over five years. They have a lot of little mini verticals, and I hate to say it, but I kind of considered them a link farm. When they began, they started doing these surveys for each of these verticals. They were doing like 30 surveys a year, and they did them for several years.

Mickie Kennedy [00:30:13]:

They became annual surveys. And today their reputation industry is crazy. And they get called for their quotes by them for all these different verticals. Now they are now considered experts and people pay a huge premium to be part of what I used to consider just a link farm. And I saw that every time they did a release, they would get eight to 14 articles. They built out a page, and I recommend this build out a page on your website where you put all the questions and answers, because a good journalist will go there and say, oh, I might want to write an article about a different question that you asked, because my expertise tells me there's an article there. They got links from a lot of these articles that they got, and, again, the ranking of their site went up, and it just became a valuable resource for a lot of people and gave them so much legitimacy. And I'm just like, wow.

Mickie Kennedy [00:31:07]:

I mean, that really did a lot for that company, and it gave me the idea, could I do this with my clients? And it works. It works every single time.

Sara Lohse [00:31:17]:

Now, I have two questions. First, I use the term nut graph all the time. That's still a real thing, right?

Mickie Kennedy [00:31:26]:

I don't know if I've heard that, really.

Larry Roberts [00:31:29]:

I have not heard it in regards to press releases.

Sara Lohse [00:31:32]:

So the Nutcracker is, like, the first paragraph of the press release that it's, like, everything in a nutshell, so people don't have to read past it. It's a nut graph. Is that not real?

Mickie Kennedy [00:31:42]:

I haven't heard it, but I don't know. It's interesting.

Sara Lohse [00:31:46]:

Everything I know is a lie. Lindsey, I'm coming for you. You talk.

Larry Roberts [00:31:50]:

That definitely sounds like a slang term to me.

Sara Lohse [00:31:53]:

I thought. I use it all the time, and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. This must be Lindsey's fault. She taught me everything I know about pr. All right, cool. Now I'm sad. Second question. A lot of people that we talk to, they are the small, like, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs.

Sara Lohse [00:32:10]:

They don't necessarily have the budget to pay someone to create these press releases. And I know press releases are so specific in how they have to be, like, structured. And they start with a nut graph. It's real. I'm gonna. I'll die on this hill.

Larry Roberts [00:32:24]:

Can we just call that the hero clip or something? No, no.

Sara Lohse [00:32:28]:

It's a nut graph.

Larry Roberts [00:32:29]:

A nut graph.

Sara Lohse [00:32:30]:

It's a paragraph with everything in a nutshell.

Larry Roberts [00:32:33]:

Okay?

Sara Lohse [00:32:33]:

It's real. Google it. Okay?

Larry Roberts [00:32:37]:

I don't even want to.

Sara Lohse [00:32:37]:

You might end up on a Google images corner of the Internet, but it's fine.

Larry Roberts [00:32:42]:

End up in a deep web, dark web.

Sara Lohse [00:32:44]:

So I know you're not supposed to use, like, any emotion. It has to be very, very objective, because journalism is supposed to be objective, and it's just supposed to be like, the. Like, who, what, when, where, why? But with the story, are there any other, like, specific tips of how someone can write that write a press release, format a press release so that it is likely to get picked up if they don't have the budget to hire someone like you.

Mickie Kennedy [00:33:10]:

So the good news is there's lots of templates and examples on my website. There's a lot online. So I also feel like journalists are pretty forgiving today where they weren't 20 years ago. So I think people are looking at the story now more so than anything else. I also think that a lot of people who aren't great writers, you couldn't use AI.

Larry Roberts [00:33:38]:

Oh, you just stole my question. I had my question primed.

Sara Lohse [00:33:42]:

So how is AI affecting this?

Mickie Kennedy [00:33:44]:

Right. So I don't think, you know, this is a perfect thing for the end product is not the press release, it's the article the journalist writes. So I feel very comfortable sending out a press release with no follow tags. And who cares if it gets syndicated on some websites? It's not going to hurt you. I would never put a blog post written by AI on my website, but, you know, in this case, we're not doing that. So I think it's completely appropriate to lean on AI, especially if writing's not your strong suit. The one thing I would never do is ask AI to write a press release and give it free reign. I also don't really like giving it a subject matter.

Mickie Kennedy [00:34:28]:

I find, hey, I'm writing a press release on this subject matter. How would you structure it paragraph by paragraph and then get it, then you. I would approach it like that. Also kind of beat up AI. AI is just a machine. So if you don't like the third paragraph it wrote to ask it to give you seven different versions of it, you know, or 20 versions of your headline, or, you know, just, just keep at it until you get something that you like. The one area that I feel like I personally haven't gotten great copy from is the quote you had mentioned. No emotion in a press release.

Mickie Kennedy [00:35:05]:

A quote is written by a human, so you can invest a lot of emotion there. You can really go for people on emotional level, or you can just be very powerful and say something very succinctly and very tight. So it just has a strength on its own that if a journalist paraphrased it, it would be longer and sort of placid against the strength of that strong quote. And then the third thing that you can do is you can be a little creative. You know, if you have a poetry background like me, you can be a little bit of a wordsmith or something there. You know, there's no one rule of what a great quote is, but I can tell you what a great quote isn't. It's like the quotes that we get every day that look like they've been written by committee. They're safe.

Mickie Kennedy [00:35:47]:

No one's gonna be fired by that, but no one's gonna be inspired by it. And a journalist who paraphrases the equivalent and puts it in the article, there'll be no loss. If someone was to take your quote away. You want there to be an ache of like, oh, it was so much better when it had that quote. So spend a little time on that. I don't think AI is completely there yet, but maybe it could help you bridge a little bit. But I feel like, really tighten it up and say something as tight and as strong as you can, because that's a place to shine. And the great thing is, if you have an article and there's a quote in there, you are going to be there.

Mickie Kennedy [00:36:22]:

You and your company will be named, but they're going to source the quote. Sometimes articles get written in a way that they take out the company, but if that quote is amazing, they won't take it out, and you will definitely remain in there.

Sara Lohse [00:36:35]:

I think the lesson here is nobody likes a flaccid nut graph, man.

Larry Roberts [00:36:40]:

This is an explicit episode right out of this. Did not see that coming at all.

Sara Lohse [00:36:47]:

I did. Just Google nut graph. And it exists. Thank you.

Larry Roberts [00:36:49]:

No, it doesn't.

Sara Lohse [00:36:50]:

No, it does. A nut graph, also known as a nut graph, spelled differently, is a paragraph in journalism that summarizes the main points of a story and explains its context. Thank you.

Mickie Kennedy [00:37:00]:

You taught me something.

Larry Roberts [00:37:02]:

Where was that? Where'd you get that?

Sara Lohse [00:37:05]:

It was. It was on Google. Google would never lie to me.

Mickie Kennedy [00:37:08]:

All right.

Larry Roberts [00:37:09]:

Anyways. Well, Mickie, man, this has been great. I actually learned a lot, and I think there was tremendous value in this episode, so hopefully those listening got some value as well. Tell everybody where they can reach out and find you. And you mentioned some templates that were on your website. So we'll hit that website one more time and. And we'll wrap this thing up.

Mickie Kennedy [00:37:24]:

Sure. So my website is ereleases.com. all my social media is on the lower right. There's a new customer special in the footer, as well as a link to the press release samples. I had talked about doing strategic releases, and I mentioned the press release survey or study. I have a whole video masterclass that's very short. It's about an hour long. It's completely free, and I do recommend people check it out.

Mickie Kennedy [00:37:47]:

It's a great place to sort of take an audit. And if you do a pr campaign of six to eight releases and you stick to this, you'll be doing the 3% of releases that get picked up and you'll have good outcome. And that's [email protected]. plan, plan. And again, completely free and less than an hour long, because I know the last 20 hours course that I paid for, I didn't watch it. It's too much. So I really condensed it to make it very understandable and straightforward.

Larry Roberts [00:38:16]:

Very cool. Very cool. We really appreciate it. Again, really enjoyed the conversation. Very, very insightful. I appreciate you sharing everything because you really, you brought a lot to the table here for us to digest. So, hey, everybody, if you enjoyed this episode, do us a favor, hit that subscribe button so we can continue to bring you amazing guests just like Mickie each and every week. And with that, I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:38:38]:

I'm Sara Lohse. We'll talk to you next week.