Imperfect Marketing
Imperfect Marketing
281: Uncover Your Company's Hidden Stories for Press Release Gold
Are you struggling to get your business noticed in a crowded marketplace? Press release marketing might be the solution you've been searching for. In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down with Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, to explore the power of strategic press releases and how they can elevate your brand.
Mickie shares his journey from aspiring poet to PR expert, revealing how he transformed the art of press release writing. His insights will change the way you think about media outreach and help you craft compelling stories that journalists can't resist.
Key Takeaways from This Episode:
- Why most press releases fail to generate earned media
- The secret to creating press releases that journalists actually want to read
- How to leverage AI in press release writing (without letting it take over)
- The types of press releases you should avoid sending
- Strategies for uncovering your business's unique story angle
The Power of Strategic Press Releases
Discover why Mickie believes that only 3% of press releases generate earned media, and learn how to position your business to be part of that elite group. We discuss the importance of focusing on strategic ideas and how to craft press releases that stand out in a sea of mediocrity.
AI and Press Releases: A Delicate Balance
Mickie offers practical advice on using AI to streamline your press release writing process without sacrificing quality or authenticity. Learn how to guide AI to create more powerful headlines and compelling content while maintaining your unique voice.
Crafting Your Business Story
Uncover the elements that make a press release truly newsworthy. Mickie shares tips on how to audit your business history and uncover the emotional threads that can captivate journalists and readers alike.
"Media like to be seen as curators and they get the most shares and accolades of articles when they put the spotlight on a product or software or a solution that no one in the industry is aware of yet." - Mickie Kennedy
Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a small business owner looking to boost your visibility, this episode is packed with actionable insights to enhance your press release strategy. Don't miss Mickie's free masterclass, available at ereleases.com/plan, where he dives deeper into strategic press release ideas that can transform your media outreach.
Ready to take your press release marketing to the next level? Listen now and discover how to craft stories that will make journalists and readers sit up and take notice.
Connect with Mickie
Website: https://www.ereleases.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/publicity/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ereleasespr/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ereleases
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. Today we are going to be talking about press release marketing. I am super excited because I love marketing, but I'm not a fan of PR because it's so time consuming. But that's why we have Mickey here who's going to be talking to us all about it. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So okay, how did you get into press release marketing and what is press release marketing?
Speaker 2:Right. So I got started working at a telecom research startup after finishing my master's of fine arts and I was originally going to be a poet and wait tables. And I did that for a summer and realized that, you know, being on your feet 10, 12 hour shifts is not something I was built for. So I got hired at that telecom research company as employee three, as a startup, and because I had writing as my background, I'll be at creative writing. They said you know, figure out press releases and send them to the media. And they gave me a little Rolodex of like 150 numbers to fax to. And so I did that. And it's a full-time job, you know. Just you know faxing it, programming a fax machine and hitting send and waiting for the errors and the prints and all that. It was a waste of an entire day just sending them. And so when nothing happened, I just felt like I'm doing something wrong. And the owner's like oh no, nothing ever really happens with press releases and I was like then why do it? And so I said is it OK if I research a little bit more? And they were like sure, and I noticed that we publish a lot of data and the media generally likes data, I've found out, but what we weren't giving them is like the context, the story behind the data. And so we had just published, like the Caribbean traffic, and there was one country that had more traffic to and from the United States and basically all the others combined, and when I looked into it I found out that that country was like the call center for 1-900 numbers at the time and they were really big in the US, where you would call a psychic and speak to someone live for $2 or $3 a minute and it would be billed discreetly to your landline bill and you could also get a recorded, you know, astrology or pet advice and tips, and it was just like the wild, wild west of 1-900 numbers out there. And so when I revised the press release and sent it out, talking about that context, it got got picked up by the Economist, financial Times, wall Street Journal, washington Post and about three telecom trade publications, and I was like you know, this is worth spending a whole day faxing, you know it worked out really well, and so I tended to try to figure out what the media was interested in and I found that I got really good at it, and so that really got me wanting to do that for other small businesses.
Speaker 2:I was aware of PR firms and people who were just like, oh, I can't afford to spend $20,000 to $30,000 a year for a PR firm, but I would like to get a relationship with the media going and get some media pickup. And so I sort of just got out there and started my business sending releases via email. And that was a big changeover. Every time I would fax, I would get journalists calling and saying, hey, in the future, could you email them? And that's what gave me the idea for email releases, e-releases. At the time and over the years, as I was emailing PR Newswire, I reached out to us and said hey, we'd love to support you, we'd like you helping entrepreneurs and startups and small businesses. And what do you say about adding a city or state distribution? And I held out and said you know, my clients really are looking for national media. And eventually we were able to come to terms so that every release that goes out through eReleases today goes out nationally through PR Newswire, goes to the appropriate trades and there's local saturation available. But you know, you don't have to pay $1,600. And I think it's around $1,650 to move a press release nationally through PR Newswire a 600-word press release and through us it's like about a quarter of that. So it's a big price savings going through us directly and then going directly through the wire.
Speaker 2:And the good thing that has happened is email is now probably the worst way to contact journalists.
Speaker 2:That was how I originally started. But email databases have come out, media databases and there are people who pay anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 a year for access to these media databases and they just talk themselves into spamming so many people that are not interested in what they're doing. You know golf club company says, hey, there's 1600 golf contacts in here, but there's, like you know, 125,000 banking and 250,000 business journalists and banking and business people like golf clubs. So let's just send them to everybody. And so, as a result, email is the wild wild west with a lot of journalists. A lot of them are having very difficult times trying to keep that in and control what they're getting, and so the newswire has become even more important for busy journalists that they can log in. It's very clean. They see their industry feed by default and they can customize it so that it's just the types of releases that they're interested in, and so it's become a very effective way for people to get their message out effective way for people to get their message out.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I can tell that, yes, you're an amazing storyteller, because the way you told your story just kept me on the edge of my seat. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so cool. And you pulled out important information that related to me, that made me want to be like, oh wow, that's so cool. I lean in and I think that that's so powerful with someone who's in any type of public relations type position. So thank you for sharing that story. I love it. And I love that insight about PR, newswire and how that's breaking through a bit with or the newswires, I should say and how that's breaking through with journalists, because I hate sending them emails. They don't know me, like they don't, and I I'm guessing that they're interested. I mean, and I'm sending them individual one offs. I'm guessing that they're interested based on the seven articles that they wrote that I read that sort of relate to what I want to send them. But, um, but it's yeah it. Pr is time consuming. That's like the one thing that, like people are like, do you do PR? And I was like, no, but I'll write a press release and that's about it. Um, cause that, it it really comes down to relationships or having the right angle, and I love that story about how you're like.
Speaker 1:We have data and the 1-900 numbers. That's just funny because let me just take a little bit of a segue off of that. I remember I used to I worked in sales reporting and I would call different people and leave them messages to ask them questions about their sales reporting. Back when I worked at Daimler Chrysler back in the day it was Daimler Chrysler, it was not Stellantis or Chrysler Actually, I did work at Chrysler itself, but it wasn't FCA or anything like that and I was there and this one guy goes Kendra, I'm like what he goes.
Speaker 1:I was listening to your voicemail to me on speakerphone and somebody walked by and thought I called a 1-900 number. So that's how long ago I was doing that. But that's so funny that people were calling and that one wasn't the astrology one that he was thinking that I was leaving messages from. But okay, so very cool on customizing your message to meet your audience, which is what I always say right, and delivering it in the way that they want to get it delivered, which sounds fantastic. So kudos to you for what you've created. All right, let's talk about AI and press releases, because I think anytime we're talking about anything that's the written word, we have to talk about AI now, right, sure, how do you and how don't you recommend people use AI to create press releases?
Speaker 2:So I believe AI can write a press release very well and I have no problem with people using AI to write a press release. That being said, I feel that giving AI the the runway to come up with what you should write about is a bad idea. The reality is that probably 97% of press releases out there don't generate earned media, and that's what we call it. When you get the articles written about you, a lot of people look at what other people are doing and they're like oh, competitor X did a press release on them speaking at an event, or they got a new HR director or something, and so they do press releases based off of that. And AI is trained on all the bad press releases that are out there, and by bad not how they're written, but what they've chosen to write about. And so I feel like you know what I've learned is to be very strategic with the types of press releases that you're doing. So anytime you approach AI, you should know certainly what you're going to write about. You know what that idea is. And then I approach AI and don't give AI full reign. Don't say, write a 600 word press release on this topic, because AI is kind of lazy is what I found. You tell it to come up with, you know, rattle off a hundred ideas for a brainstorm or something like that, and they're just kind of weak. But you know, sometimes if you tell AI to stop, slow down, pause, or every 10 ideas, stop and think about how the next 10 ideas can be more strategic or just better, or just get AI to stop and pause, and I find that AI will give you a better result. It doesn't stop for very long, but it does give you a more measured result. And so what I do is I say, hey, how would you structure a 600-word press release on this subject? And then it would give me the outline. And then I'd say, okay, give me three headline variations and between each one, think about how you can make the next headline more succinct, more powerful, and almost have a call to action. And boom, I get three good headlines and generally the third one's better. And I find if I just say, give me three headline variations on that, they're all pretty much the same. But when I tell it to stop and to make the next one a little stronger, think about how you could make it more powerful, maybe involve a call to action in a way. You know AI can do that and so why would you ever approach AI and just give it, you know, the same measured type of headline? And so then I say, okay, now give me an opening paragraph. And I look at it. I'm like you know, in journalism we learn the most important aspects are the who, what, when, where, how and why. And I look at that paragraph and I said is it answering most of that? Is it really, you know, putting the idea that I have at the forefront? And if I'm happy with it, I'm like that's great. I may ask, hey, give me a couple more variations of that opening paragraph. Or I could say, hey, I like this, but I'd really like you to incorporate this thing that you didn't mention. And so I sort of get my paragraphs and my information piecemeal from it using that outline.
Speaker 2:And one area that I find that AI is not great at is a quote, and that's probably overall. Quotes that are in press releases are probably one of the biggest missed opportunities, because an amazing quote can save you. Because an amazing quote can save you. If a journalist is looking at two possible story ideas and they're like to them, equal newsworthiness. If there's an amazing quote. They know at the end of the day, they're gonna have an article with a really strong quote in it and if it's a weak quote they're gonna say, hey, it'll end up being an okay article, but there's nothing really strong there that elevates the article. But a really great quote can do that.
Speaker 2:And by really great quote, you know you're saying something that is succinct or powerful that if they were to take it out, you'd sort of ache for the loss of what was there. You know, previously you just said it perfectly. You know there are people who are wordsmiths and they can say something beautiful, but you really don't need that. I mean, a great quote can include that, but I think that just getting down to the root and saying something powerful and succinct and with authority is is really what journalists are looking for. So spend a lot of time on that quote and, you know, feel free to beat up AI, but maybe that's a place where you might have to go in and, you know, toughen it up a little bit, make sure you're using the most active verbs, that you're saying something that'll really get people on the edge of their seat and like, well, you know, maybe even be a little contrarian. That's a place where your opinion is going to be, you know, put in quotes. So feel free to say something that just sort of like will shock the industry a little bit and you know, just go that approach and at the end of it you'll end up with a great press release.
Speaker 2:I've done these and modeled them for other people. The most I've ever spent on an AI press release going back and forth, the way that I do is like 22 minutes and so it's not as quick as getting it out in three or four minutes, but at the end of the day on average 15 minutes I come out with a really well-written press release that's going to do really well, and I'd mentioned that I don't let it come up with the ideas for the press release. That's my bread and butter is coming up with strategic ideas. I have a free masterclass where I go into what these ideas people should consider doing for their press releases and the best thing, it's completely free and it's about an hour long video and so, if anyone's interested, I have that at ereleasescom slash plan P-L-A-N, and I think that's a great place for anybody who's new to PR or who have done it and it didn't work for them to sort of start there. Because if you focus on the 3% of press releases that journalists are picking up on and you build a PR campaign of six to eight releases and they're all strategic, you're going to see two or three of those press releases do extremely well.
Speaker 2:And I have one type of press release in my arsenal that never fails, always generates earned media and usually about half a dozen articles from that one press release.
Speaker 2:And so I tell people that's the area where I would never trust AI and I would really focus on these strategic types of releases and sort of go through them with a lens of your business and you would be surprised at the types of strategic and important press releases you could be doing about your company that you didn't even think about. And I think that that's a way in which a lot of people don't realize that you may feel that you're not important and that you're not newsworthy, but everybody can do a survey or an industry study and by you authoring that that elevates you, whether you're an author or you have a business. You putting out an industry survey and publishing the results and having amazing quote, analyzing the results and why they swayed a certain way, really makes you stand out and if you've asked really timely questions. People in your industry want to know and, like I said, you know that one generates usually about half a dozen article pickups every time we do it with clients.
Speaker 1:So, wow, okay, there's a lot there. First off, I will be watching your free masterclass for sure, because, again, I've got the love hate relationship with press releases. A lot of times, though, it's because my clients come to me and they're like, hey, let's write a press release on this, and I'm like nobody cares, just us. That's it. Can you give me three examples? If you don't mind, I'm going to put you on the spot here of things that are not newsworthy in general.
Speaker 2:A personnel new hire, unless it's a new CEO or executive, or you've taken an industry veteran that everyone in the industry knows and you've brought them in. Outside of that, no one cares. No one cares that you have a new HR person or a VP of sales. You'd be better off. Just, there's usually an email address or a contact form at your trade publications for an on the move section and you send the photo and a couple sentences and maybe the same thing with your local paper. Maybe, if you're lucky enough to have a business magazine or business newspaper in your city, you could do that as well, and it will go directly to that segment where a low level intern is just looking for oh, these people have moved positions, and that's probably all you would have gotten, and you know it's not worth spending money to go out over a wire for those types of press releases, other types of releases that I feel don't work very well, that I see a lot of. We get a lot of product launch press releases and what they fail to do is the same thing that I figured out at that telecom research company is they don't have the elements of a story and it's here's our new product, here's a list of features and here's a page to learn more or buy it. And a journalist is like what's there? You know, I have an audience to protect and I have to make sure that what I'm sharing with them either entertains or educates them, or both, and here it's just dry features. And so what I tell people to do is go back, and I'm sure you've had people review this product or this software solution and you know what were their results. You know you put a use case study in there, say, hey, we have this new logistics software solution and we took a trucking company that was losing 11% a year since they started three years ago and they're on the brink of failure and all of a sudden them producing invoices and quotes based on real results that the software was able to extrapolate. They're now projected, 90 days in, to post a five percent profit at the end of the year for the first time. And you're like wow, that's a meaningful outcome that they saw. And you could actually even point that, hey, here's a publicly available number 63% of new transportation companies fell in the first five years because they don't achieve profitability. So you took a publicly available quote and you put it in there and that sort of just showcases, even more importantly, why your solution can solve one of the biggest problems with people in the industry. And again, you know the media loves numbers, but they love it with context and so make sure you include that. And then you can also include some of the features and things like that.
Speaker 2:It allows a journalist who's looking at trying to compose a story arc to say, hey, I have the ingredients for a story now because I can share a journey of a client who used this and what their outcome was. And that's a much more meaningful thing to share with an audience, because they can sort of come along for the ride of what this journey was. You know of what this journey was. And it's one of the reasons that if you look at anybody that goes on Shark Tank, they don't start with here's my shiny logo and this is the product and will you invest? I think we can do three, you know three, $3 million a year.
Speaker 2:It's not that it's their journey. It's like, hey, I got laid off and I remembered I used to make these things with my dad and I was like could there be a business there? It's always these elements of what it was. That is their story and you know, again it goes into a story arc. People love stories and all of a sudden, when someone shares a vulnerability of I just got divorced and I was alone and I wanted to create this. I wanted to own something that was meaningful that I could pass along to my children, it's like all of a sudden we're along for the ride and we care and it really gives immediate empathy, because these human interest elements are probably the most powerful things.
Speaker 2:And it's one of the biggest mistakes that I see small businesses do is they try to take all the humanity out and appear ultra corporate and bigger than they are.
Speaker 2:And generally, if you just take all that away and just share your authenticity, be vulnerable, share your journey, don't be embarrassed that the media contact of your press release and the quote in your press release is you, because right now the business is just you.
Speaker 2:The media doesn't care and, as a matter of fact, I've had a lot of people tell me I'm not ready yet for media because I'm just too small and the media really only wants big companies. And that's not true at all. Media like to be seen as curators and they get the most shares and accolades of articles when they put the spotlight on a product or software or a solution that no one in the industry is aware of yet. They might have to cover the Microsofts and the Ciscos and the big giant companies, because, because you know, in the industry, these people are there and they have to be covered. But they get the most shares and the most accolades and the most recognition when they put the spotlight on someone that no one has heard of, and often these are solo businesses, sometimes they're side businesses, where it's someone who still has a full-time job and they're doing this on the side and for that reason you, being small and unknown, is a superpower when it comes to getting PR.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So stop writing these press releases. Just do an announcement. You can do a I'll call it a marketing press release that you put on your website when you hire a new person. It doesn't mean you don't have to announce it, but it's not going to run in the New York Times. Odds are. So save your time, right. And then, no product releases unless you've got a story angle Right.
Speaker 1:Talk about how it came to be or the problem it solves in a unique and curious way, or talk about that pain that you were going through before you created it, right, like that's what the whole thing is. Spanx is that story, and that's one of the things again, when you were doing your intro as to how you got into this and where you were going with it, you told a story. You drew me in. It comes natural to you. I struggle sometimes with that. What is there a question that people could ask to really get, if anybody else cares about what they're doing, or how to get that empathy or that story angle or the story arc out of where they're going, because I think some of it's that they're not just trying to pretend that they're bigger than they are. I don't think they know how.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that doing an audit of the history of your business and talking about that and finding patterns that are there. I talked with one person and she shared when she started the business and there was nothing really magical, it wasn't like a moment, it was like she was. She approached it very professionally and had ideas and brainstormed and stuff like that, and then later she's like, yeah, she goes. My mother was so proud because she told me that her biggest regret was just she was a housewife her whole life and she never did anything that was important. And I was like I think that that something around that is your story. That you came from a mother that inspired you and nurtured you to go to school and to push yourself and part of it was why it was because she never felt fulfilled personally and you know not saying anything negative to people that aren't, you know, coming out of that and not feeling fulfilled but for the mother she wasn't fulfilled and she wanted something different for her child and I think that incorporating elements of that and that inspiration from her mother allowed her to craft the story. But sometimes it is doing an audit and looking at the emotional stuff around starting the business and you may not even be aware of some of the things that were there Me talking about me starting my company and the mistakes that I made, and the journey and challenges of facts and all that stuff got me to sort of realize some of the aha moments that I wasn't really aware of at the time.
Speaker 2:I mean, the secret sauce of, you know, telling a story. It was there, but it wasn't as obvious and sort of planned out until I've thought about it in retrospect and realized that is one of the reasons that I sort of tell people to sort of you know, go for the story, try to give the building blocks for a story and a press release, and that's sort of where that came from and what I immediately discovered starting. But it wasn't as obvious there that the threads needed to be pulled a little bit and sometimes talking about it and just sharing your story will get you to those moments that will coalesce and then you have that story that you can give out anytime, that you're talking about your motivation and the things that sort of were there in the beginning.
Speaker 1:Okay, so definitely start with an audit after you've watched the masterclass. Where's the masterclass again? It's at ereleasescom. Forward slash plan Correct Right.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Right, okay.
Speaker 1:So definitely check that out and don't be afraid to use AI. Right, but AI is not the idea generator. You are the idea generator. You're going to give it the story after you've done the audit. You're going to give it the information. It's just going to help you structure it and you're going to do it piece by piece by piece and you're going to give it the information. It's just going to help you structure it and it's going to. You're going to do it piece by piece by piece and you're going to give it enough information that it's going to pause and reflect.
Speaker 1:One of my, my success I guess I'll call it successes with AI was when I was working on a review for a client. Someone had given them a negative review and and I respond to all their negative reviews and so I was working with AI, because there's only so many things that you can say and I'm like, how do I say that's really not true without saying it's really not true? So, anyway, I was like, how about, if I did this and it's like I've trained it and gave the project, because it's in Claudeai I gave the project enough information that I said go ahead and question me and don't be afraid to push back, and I gave him all the values of the company and all the other things and it goes. Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm like. Yes, I'm like because I didn't either, and I was on the fence and I wasn't quite sure. I didn't think it was a good idea and it wasn't, and I was much happier with it. But, yes, ai can do that. It's not going to come up with anything new. But if you give it enough information, if you want you to pause, reflect, consider, review the information that's in this custom GPT or in this cloud project, you know before you start responding, and then you know all of a sudden, it's like I'm pausing and reflecting and I'm like, okay, and I do get better stuff, which is crazy. So again, don't be afraid to use AI.
Speaker 1:Ai can definitely write stuff, but it has to come from you, and that story has to come from you. And I love that. You gave us both sides of AI, which is it can write it. It can write it in pieces. You have to push it and you have to customize it. And if you're not getting the results that you want, you have to push it and you have to customize it, and if you're not getting the results that you want, you have to push back on that. And then don't forget about your unique quote.
Speaker 1:This has been an amazing conversation. I love it. I'm actually excited to give it a try, playing around with some of it, and definitely check out your masterclass, because, again, pr it's scary. It's a lot of work to invest to get nothing, and so I think if you start with those storylines and you start with um, those those topics and types of press releases that you're going to talk about in that masterclass, I think that that can hopefully make it less scary and less of a waste of time. So that is awesome. Okay, before I let you go, though, I do have to ask you the question that I ask all of my guests, and that is that this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Marketing is anything but a perfect science, hence why we marketing people have taken press releases and PR underneath our umbrella. We've just co-opted 90% of the business. I think finance is the only thing we didn't take under us, but knowing it's not a perfect science. What's been your biggest lesson learned in marketing?
Speaker 2:I think for me. I didn't come from a business background, so I sort of learned everything as part of a marketing mastermind that I joined and stayed part of for over a dozen years, and it was just to measure everything and don't necessarily go with assumptions but test it. And I started split testing landing pages. But I realized you could split test processes in your business and if you have two alternate versions you can test that and determine which of those processes leads to a better client outcome. And for me, I used lifetime value of a customer and I've looked at how I onboarded customers and tested out a completely different way and realized that one way was at the two-year mark, giving me four times the lifetime value than the other one. And so measure as much as you can in your business and, you know, don't be afraid of split testing and trying different things. Just, you know, measure it and pick a winner once you have statistical relevance.
Speaker 1:All right, and marketing is definitely part art and part science. It's a lot of experimentation. It's not perfect. That's why we move forward, imperfectly, right. So thank you so so much for all of this information. This has been a fantastic conversation and I'm really excited actually to go check out your masterclass. So I'm going to plug that again, because if I'm excited enough to take time out of my day to watch a masterclass, then it's going to be worth it.
Speaker 1:I can tell and I can tell just by what you've shared that it's going to be worth my time. So thank you again for joining me. Thank you all for tuning in and listening or watching wherever you're listening or watching. Thank you for helping us spread the word by rating and subscribing wherever you're listening or watching, and until next time, have a great rest of your day.
