5 Things That Are Working Right Now in PR

In this minisode, Lexie Smith discusses five PR strategies that are actively yielding success for her agency, GROWTH MODE, and coaching clients at THEPRBAR Inc.

From pitching podcasts to landing TV segments, Influencer Marketing wins, and more, tune in to learn new PR strategies you can implement today!

Here’s What You’ll Learn:

• Discover why Pitchcraft is a valuable platform for lifestyle and hospitality PR professionals.
• Learn how pitching TV hosts, rather than producers, can increase media coverage and sales.
• Understand the benefits of founder-led outreach in influencer marketing to avoid large influencer fees.
• Explore how LinkedIn follow-ups with podcast hosts and producers can improve response rates.
• Get tips on utilizing the Quoted platform by responding quickly to PR queries.
• Hear insights on how being among the first to pitch in PR platforms can lead to higher success rates.
• Find out how TV appearances can impact sales and brand visibility within a short time frame.
• Learn creative ways to adapt your outreach when encountering email deliverability issues.
• Gain insights on building genuine relationships with influencers through personalized outreach.
• Explore how PR best practices evolve and why experimenting with new tactics is crucial for success.

• Sun Moon Rising Wine - the world's first astrology-inspired wine brand - is offering all Pitchin' and Sippin' listeners 10% off their first purchase. Visit sunmoonrisingwine.com and use promo code PITCHIN10 at checkout.

• Sign up For Lexie's Weekly Insider to Receive Insider Tips, Invites, & More at: https://theprbarinc.com/newsworthy/
• Ways you Can Work with THEPRBAR: https://theprbarinc.com/private-workshops/
• Learn about Growth Mode Agency: https://www.growthmodeagency.com/
• Connect with Lexie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexie-smith-pr/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theprbar_inc/
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Transcript

Lexie Smith  

Hello, hello. It's been a minute since I have recorded a minisode, and my producer slash our schedule reminded me that I need to do so. So I sat down. Like, okay, okay. Like, so you have to do this. You got to check this off the bucket list, not the bucket list, the to do list. What can you talk about that people want to actually hear that is relevant? And what my brain went to was the fact that my agency is so freaking busy right now and my coaching practice, the only thing I can talk about is what's working. What is working right now? What is working for my coaching clients? What is working on our agency side? What are five things that we are doing, that we are seeing that is causing success? So to say so, some of these are connected. Some of these are random, but I'm going to give you five, and maybe it'll inspire a new tactic or an idea or two. Okay, first up, I recently onboarded a hospitality client, and I was really, really excited to do so for more than one reason. First, it taps into my roots. Secondly, it's wine. Third, it allowed me the perfect moment to finally join pitch craft. Now if you're a long time listener, I had Kelsey on this show, who is one of the co founders of pitch craft, a season or two ago, and at the time of that recording, I It wasn't really relevant for me to join her platform because all of my clients weren't related to lifestyle, lifestyle or hospitality pitch craft we've been in there for about a month has been absolutely insanely valuable. So if you are someone who is lifestyle or hospitality adjacent so food and beverage,

Lexie Smith  

consumer goods, hospitality, client hotels, anything of that nature, like stop what you're doing and go the platform that Kelsey has curated, not only is full of phenomenal publicists, but you're getting such direct access to Information and journalists that are game changing. She posts insider scoops and source requests. She hosts Live Office Hours, which I equate to like a mini desk side with top tier editors. It has been incredible. The only only downside about it all is that I need to find more time to go in and really tap all of it. So she did not ask me to do this. This is very genuine. Pitch craft is one thing that is working well, and I'm very glad that I am investing in the second thing is for TV. Post pitching just had a client on a segment yesterday in New York, came through the host. So sometimes it can feel like we want to go straight to the producer, both in the past and literally in the past couple weeks, my coaching clients and my agency has had a lot of success pitching the host. The host thing goes and pitches the producer, but it's been a great path in and I will say we've been, mind you, I'm recording this only 24 Yeah, about 24 hours after the segment, we're seeing sales, we're seeing traffic, we're seeing all the metrics we want from that segment, proving, at least for this client, TV is a great channel. So we're going to double down third. Okay, so those are two right pitch, craft and host, pitching three founder outreach for influencer marketing. Stay with me here. This is actually for agency. So another client, we decided to do an influencer marketing campaign, and we're really focusing on Instagram. It makes sense for this client, that's where they're at. And at first, we did a little bit of pitching as an agency, and we were being met with a lot of influencer fees, which I completely understand, and especially creators, where that's their job, they deserve to be paid. The reality of the client. In this case, however, she doesn't have, or they don't have a large influencer budget. Okay, so we decided to change our approach a little bit and come to the influencers, come to the creators, really authentically from her as the founder. Now, this is an agency client, so one could think right here, so isn't that making your founder do a lot of work? What we're doing is we're drafting the pitches for her. Okay? So of course, she reads them, of course we know her tone of voice. It's still coming from her, but we're taking off the workload. So we're we're going, here's an email, here's a pitch, press send, and there are.

Lexie Smith  

Response rate that we have been getting has been freaking phenomenal. We haven't spent $1

Lexie Smith  

we plan to. So we absolutely plan to invest back into these influencers once the sales are there, but the founder outreach has proved really phenomenal for this account. So that's something to consider.

Lexie Smith  

Number four is for podcasts. We have another client that is really, really interested in podcasts, and I'm going to be fully honest, I'm having a little bit of deliverability issues with my email right now. It's something to do with my domain. I'm on it. I'm figuring it out, hopefully by the time this airs, it is a non issue, but this led us to start doing some follow ups to host and producers and booking agents via LinkedIn and again. Boom, wins. Okay, so rather than just sticking to the email inbox follow ups, which we still do, and honestly, I do advise is still best practice, we've been going to LinkedIn honestly with the question of if our email has even been making it through, and it's really accelerated the response rate. So that's been cool. I don't know if I'd advise this across the board, but just something to keep in mind in changing the way you're doing follow ups or if you're not getting an email response, thinking about other platforms you can follow up on. Is it? Is it Twitter or, I guess x? Is it, you know, LinkedIn? Is there? What's another Instagram? Be careful. Be careful with that. And definitely, if in their bio, it says no, DMS, don't DM but again, of the five things working right now, that is one of them, and the fifth one is related to the platform quoted. Again, I've had the quoted team on the show. If you are unfamiliar with the platform, go and listen to that episode. It is a really great tool. A couple disclaimers. I do pay for quoted premium. I think that's worth noting. Okay, and again, I have, I have a small but mighty agency. It's a platform we we look at daily. We are having a lot of success when we're in the first three responses. So we're starting to pull back. If we've seen a given query already has 15 or 17 people who've already pitched it. That is something we can see. Because we have a premium account, we don't really waste our or our clients time. However, if we see a really fitting query and the stars align that enable us to get that pitch in first or second or third, then we're seeing a really phenomenal response rate, which I've talked about on the show. We had Peter Shankman on, who was the former or not the former, the founder of the original HARO, he now has SOS. He really emphasized the need of speed, and that is proving very, very true. As of late, a couple of our recent wins have been because we were the first to respond. Okay, so let me recap one more time. What are five things that are working for us right now? Pitch craft, great platform. Highly suggest check it out. Host, pitching for TV has been working well for us. Founder, led outreach for influencer marketing again, make sure you aren't making like you have to still take on the work there if you're in an agency relationship, but coming from the founder has proved really, really helpful. LinkedIn follow ups with hosts and producers for podcasts and quoted when we are the first free to respond, okay, so very niche things, but you know, as our industry continues to change and evolve, I sometimes joked, slash cry about the fact that we're really in a wild, wild west area where best practices are being flipped upside down. Something that worked even a year ago doesn't always necessarily work today. So I hope that you took something from today. There's something cool, not cool, if there's something unique or different that has been working for you, I'd love to hear it. You can also pitch me if you want to come on the show and share it with a more broad audience. Otherwise, slide into my DMs. Honestly, these days I'm mostly on LinkedIn. Go find me there. I still have my Instagram, but LinkedIn is where I'm hanging out right now. So thank you guys for tuning in and until next time on the pigeon and sibin podcast. Cheers. You.