Episode 16- Press Release with Mickie Kennedy

In this episode of "Small Business, Big Moves,". Thomas Bennett  is joined by guest Mickie Kennedy to explore creative strategies and innovative approaches that have propelled small businesses to new heights. Discover the power of press release.

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Small Business Big Moves is a podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. Join Tom Bennett as he explores all things  business growth! From business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses!

Transcript

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Welcome to Small Business, Big Moves, the podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Tom Bennett, and we'll explore all things business growth from business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses. Welcome to the show. My guest today is the press release ninja, Mickey Kennedy. Mickey, I'm excited to have you on the show today. If you could introduce yourself. Sure. So I'm Mickey Kennedy. I run e releases press release distribution. We celebrated 25 years this past October, and I feel like I know all things press release and PR specifically in regards to pitching media. Exciting stuff. No, and like I said, I'm excited to have that on the show. I know a lot of people can get value out of that. So today's episode, as you can imagine, we're really gonna focus all in on press release and really how important PR is to your business. But, before we jump into that, I know you mentioned you've been in the business or had the business for 25 years now, so that, that's exciting stuff. But wanted to take you back to the beginning of time, really what got you into this industry where you really realized that this is a area that you can help a lot of businesses thrive. Right. So I guess around 26, 27 years ago, I was finishing up a MFA in creative writing with emphasis in poetry. And I didn't really have a professional career plan. I was going to wait tables and write poetry. And I did that after I graduated for a summer. And just realize that being on your feet, especially concrete for 10 hour days is brutal. And I decided I needed to find a safe office job. Got hired at a telecom research startup as employee number three. And because, you know, I had experience with writing I'll be at creative writing. They wanted me to figure out press releases and send them out to the media. So I did that. We would send it out via fax and I got really good at determining what the media was interested in. We published a lot of data and numbers and they were really only interested in the stories, the anomalies, the, you know, the weird things, the, the things that were just sort of outliers. And so I would, you know, flesh out those stories. Talk about and discuss them. And the media responded with lots of pickup. We got you know, picked up routinely in The Economist, Financial Times Washington Post, Wall Street Journal lot of, you know, a lot of telecom trade publications, which were our bread and butter. We generate a lot of sales and really established a huge reputation for, you know, a small company of like three employees being asked to, you know lead workshops and, and just really just you know drive what we had, which was the data that we sold at the time the owner of the company didn't know how to price this data. So he started when I was there charging 600 and today it's over 30, 000 a year for a person to have access to the data rather than a book, it's now electronic through a database. But you know, the data is really valuable. And I think that. We, you know, did a really good job of educating the marketplace that we're the only ones that have this data and put it together and really are able to tell the stories of the data. And I think that wouldn't have been able to do that without PR. I love that. I'm glad you shared that all with us. And I just want to kind of highlight that one of the last things you said, they really stuck out to me when you got into it and you guys were charging around 600 and now you're at the point where you're able to get 30, 000 for that, and I just want to highlight that because it is, it's one thing that I hear a lot with business owners, I think almost all business owners go through it. You get into the business and you don't want to overcharge for the services, but I think oftentimes we see people are kind of undercutting themselves in the business, and I find that's typically the difference from them getting to the next level is just charging what they're worth or what the services may be valued at. So I'm glad you guys were able to make that significant jump and Sounds like you're doing a great job at helping a lot of businesses with that. I just want to obviously give credit there as well. I know you said you've been doing this for 25 years, which is incredible, right? I know a lot of people don't typically get to stick with the same thing or Be able to start it out and then just watch it continue to grow and grow. I know you've obviously Seeing the statistics of how many businesses and small businesses go under. So just wanted to give you guys some credit for that over 25 years strong is incredible. But along with that, I'm sure there's been definitely been some failures or hiccups in the road that you guys had to go through. I wanted to see if anything specific that jumped out at you there that you had to overcome. Yeah, I think for me, it's getting out of the, you know, my, my own way. I had terrible turnover at the company. Most employees would come in and stay a year. And I was always complaining about that. And I was part of a marketing mastermind. And one of the people in the marketing mastermind was an HR consultant. And she doesn't work with small businesses, but she just said, Hey. You've come here for two years and complained about your employees. You pay a lot of money to belong to this marketing mastermind. And I just feel like I could solve this by figuring out what it is. So she interviewed my staff. She interviewed some of my customers. And then she circled back and said the problem is you, you're a micromanager and the staff feels like they can never do anything good enough and you're constantly nitpicking everything they do. And so I. Took that and you know tried to stop it, but I couldn't, I couldn't help myself. I think that that same afternoon I was standing behind one of the employees after she got off the phone and said, Hey, next time you do a call like that, instead of saying this. Try to position it as this. And then I just realized, you know, I'm not going to learn. So that was April of 2015. I gathered everybody in the lunchroom and just said, I'm going home and I'm going to focus on marketing and strategy and Allison's in charge of you. And if you have any questions, you know how to reach me, but I'm not going to be here anymore. And so you know, that was a while ago and most of the people that were there at the time are still there now. So, you know, I've definitely, you know, figured out that the problem with the high turnover was me. And you know, I, I'm not a. A business major. I didn't know marketing. A lot of people said, wow, you were just able to leave. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm not the business expert. So when someone tells me that's a business expert that I'm the problem, I'm just like, I'm going to get away from it. I'm not going to. You know, be the problem any longer. It was the same thing with, you know, learning how to run ads and, you know, do all these other aspects of the business, I wasn't an expert. So I joined a marketing mastermind and I learned best practices from other people and I just put them in place and you know, learned what statistical relevance was I used to change my ads out based on how I felt that day and I realized that you really have to have conversions and you know, be able to do a B split testing and things like that. So I've learned a lot as a poetry guy in business, but, you know, one of the biggest things I learned is, you know, my skill set is a certain. Thing, but it's not really good to be in a leadership position and managing people. So you know, I, just diverted and let someone else handle it. Who's obviously much better than I am. That's incredible. I appreciate you sharing that too, because that's. That's huge that you were able to do that and kind of seek someone that can find out where that issue is, right? You mentioned that it seemed like you knew that, or kind of came to the conclusion that turnover and retaining these employees was the challenge, and you were able to, it seems like, pretty quickly be able to get over that bump and have someone else take over, which I know as a business owner, it's not easy to kind of hand those, hand those reins over to someone else, but, It's At the same time, like you said, now you're able to really focus more on growing the business and let someone else make sure the employees stay with you. So that that's huge. And then I was going to ask, too, about like, if they're on top of that, like the reverse effect, if there was anything that's really. Helped you all move faster in the business. Obviously it sounds like having Allison take over if the employees was a huge piece, anything else that's really caused the business to continue to grow and continue to get to that next level. I think that the, just having a good experience with, you know, for customers you know, if you look at, you know, our metrics of where new customers come from it, you know, everybody who's ever looked over our shoulder, it's just like, wow, it's like more than half of them. We don't know where they came from. And I, I'm like, I do, I do know it's, it's word of mouth. You know, we, we have so many people that when we ask them, you know you know, where did they come from? Someone recommended them to, you know, to us. And you know, that, that, that's, that's great because people are having really good experiences with us. You know, they like the service that we provide. They like the customer service that they get. And you know, that, that's. That that's really surprising and and yet not because I've done a really good job. I think of in stealing you know, a high touch with a new customer and onboarding them in a particular way. And so I think that people are having good outcomes with us because, you know, we really do value them and we really do want to help small businesses. That's huge. Yeah, I know that it's an important piece. It's the when you really get that purpose to help these businesses, it's that's when you can really succeed, which obviously you're seeing. And I wanted to take kind of this second half to really cover a little more about. He are some things that go into that. And one of the questions I was curious about is for you guys. When do you when does a company and maybe they don't realize that maybe that's where you guys kind of come in and hold their hand a little bit. When should a company or like a small business start looking to get into PR, or maybe have someone help them get to that level that's holding them back. I think that a company should consider PR when they're willing to commit to a PR campaign. We do have a lot of people who come in and try one press release and then move on. And, you know, it's, it's like, you know, trying one ad, Google ads and not getting a conversion and saying, well, Google ads obviously isn't going to work for me. It, you know, it really isn't. A proper test. You really need to do a PR campaign of six to eight releases. You don't have to do them all in one year. You can spread them out over a year and a half, two years. But you really have to try several different hooks and approaches. And of course, you're going to have natural milestones that pop up, like maybe a new product or a new release of a product or service that you have. And it's really important to you. So you want to position that. So, you know, I, I understand that, but there's also, you know, Types of releases that you can do that are a little more strategic. You know one that I always recommend for people is to do a survey or study within your industry. You know, those do extremely well. Usually when I've coached customers through that, they usually get between eight and 14 articles written about them. And you know, we call this earned media. And, you know, that's a really great way of establishing yourself and in your industry. You know, a lot of people who come to me feel like we're just too small. We don't matter enough to do a survey, but there's no rules as to who, who can do a survey. It can be done by anyone. And it's just a matter of claiming it and, you know, going forward you know, it's literally coming up with 16 interesting questions that are timely, like what's going on right now you can brainstorm what you would ask colleagues that you know, a conference or a trade show. And those might be good questions. You know, what's going on trends in your industry you know, are people having difficulty establishing a culture out of the pandemic people, you know, still wanting to work from home, you know, things like that. So, you know, what is it that, you know, people would. But when I ask others about and, you know, get get 16 interesting questions together. I like using like a survey monkey for questions, a page someone quits halfway. You've got half the responses. Hopefully you front loaded the most important questions first. And then you just reach out to a, sort of like an industry trade association in your industry. There's probably hundreds in every industry. A lot of people don't realize that, but there's a lot of smaller and independent ones that may have like a thousand, 2000 members. You know, they're ripe for approaching because they don't get any media themselves. And so if you reach out to them and say, Hey, could you send this link to your members in exchange? I'll mention you in a press release I'll be issuing over the wire. They see that as an opportunity for them to get some recognition as well. I have had, I've had some of them counter and say, could we co brand the survey? I don't see a downside to that. It's just aligning yourself even more with them. But you know, the large trade associations, they never cooperate like this. They'll, you know, they don't want to work with you. They get enough media attention. It's the small and independent ones that are really ripe for doing this. And You know, by crafting it sort of as a win win, they'll, they'll often do it. You're looking for a hundred or more responses for it to be kind of be statistically relevant. And you're going to analyze the results and figure out what were the biggest surprises of the survey. You know, focus a press release on two to three questions. Maybe build out a page on your website with all the questions and responses. So that all the data is there and journalists might go there and. You know, be able to find a different story or take a have a different take on the results. And you're going to put some quotes in your press release about why you felt the numbers skewed a particular way. And then you're going to, you know, put that release out there. And like I said everybody I've coached through that has gotten, you know, between eight and 14 articles in their industry, which is just a phenomenal. Result because you know, I've had many people who've paid 20 to 40, 000 to work with a PR firm and got no media pickup, and they guarantee no media pickup. And yet, you know, here's one approach that everybody I've coached it's worked for. I had one person who got four. Earned media articles and, you know, they didn't do as well as some of the others but everybody else has been eight or more. And so I, I really feel like if, you know, you're willing to put a little bit of effort in there, you can really come up with a strategic press release that works well. You know, other types of things to, to look for are, you know, are there industry blind spots that you know, your trade publications. Don't really cover. But every time you are at a conference, people talk about it, you know, I call these blind spots and I've had them work very effective leave for some of my customers you know I had a local carpet company, New Jersey that I told them. You are not newsworthy. You are not doing anything that I think media is going to work for, but if you're open to it, I'll work directly with you you know and, and sort of coach you through it and try to find a way for this to work. And after they'd done a few releases with no media pickup you know, I was just going through a list of questions that I ask and I asked them who their biggest enemy was and just expecting it to be Al across the street. It was the big box home improvement stores. And they talked about how it's just so frustrating to, to, to, you know, compete against them because it's all on cost. And often, you know, the people that install carpets at for Home Depot and Lowe's. have never installed carpets before. They call people who are licensed in the state to do home improvement and they say, we have an install available tomorrow between 11 and four. Are you able to do it? And if you're calling a home improvement person who has no work tomorrow, All of a sudden they're going to be on YouTube and trying to figure out how to install carpet and they're doing it, they're going to take the job. And so there's been a lot of horror stories. And so yeah, we, we, we put together a press release sharing how, you know, they have to compete against the big box, some improvement stores and what they do to differentiate themselves, and it was sort of a David versus Goliath approach. But it did phenomenally, it got picked up in over a dozen trade publications as well as their local newspaper. And eventually New Jersey magazine wrote an article about them. And over, you know, the remainder of the year that we worked with them you know, they got over 30 clips of earned media and what they did. Because as I pointed out, a lot of these trade publications, their customers don't read those. And so they put all of these clips together into what they call a brag book. And when they go into someone's home and give them a quote for carpet installs, they go, look, we've been around for X number of years. All of our installers are salaried. They've worked with us for you know, a long time. They know what they're doing. Rarely do you ever have to come and have the carpets restretched or seams repaired. Which happens all the time at the big box home improvement stores. And here we've been featured in floor trade weekly. Here we are in this publication. Here we are in New Jersey magazine, the local newspaper, and all of a sudden, you know, even though they didn't come up as the cheapest person they started converting around 14 to 17 percent more of these sales and You know, just by adding that brag book, which shows the importance of media. You know, it really is third party corroboration or social proof when a journalist writes about you, it sort of acts as like an implied endorsement, giving you a boost of credibility and you know, that's the one thing that you can't replicate with advertising. Absolutely. No, it's huge. Right? I mean, I really just thinking now that most business owners, small business owners don't even have, they may have one, but most of them don't even have one press release article. Or if you look up Joe Smith with ABC flooring, you're probably not going to find anything. But that's why it's exciting what you get going on where you're talking about six to eight different press release strategies. And I know one of them you talked about was obviously the industry surveys and someone being able to get anywhere from like eight to 14 different press articles just off that, just off that one is huge. Right. And then you talked about the industry blind spots, maybe five or six other different campaigns that they can run. And now you have a. Laundry list of press release. And anyone's looking up your company, they realize this is a true professional that knows what they're doing. And like you talked about. I think that's huge, especially with like the home remodel space or any sort of space when you can really show that you may be a small business, but you know what you're doing and that that's powerful, right? And the same thing, when you get like an article pickup, you can take that link, share it with your social media, share it with your customers and share it with your leads. And, you know, people always ask why bother sharing it with your customers? And I'm like, Hey, you know, there's always churn. There's always customers that feel like they have to try someone new just to make sure they're with the right company. And, you know, if they read that article and they get that, you know, good feeling you know, that you, you, you, you've really, you know, you're, you have this huge boost of credibility there. They're not going to shop around that year. They're going to be like, where were the right person? And, you know, with leads, I don't know what everybody's conversion rate is, you know, but, you know, I, I do know that some people, 80 percent of their leads just never convert, and maybe you put that in front of them and they read it and they get that warm feeling. You know, that, that, that social proof corroboration that happens, maybe you start converting a few more that you wouldn't have necessarily converted. And so it really can be meaningful, you know, as well as bringing you customers directly. You know I talked about the, you know, the, the telecom research company, how we just drove cells with PR. There are a lot of industries where a good PR can directly drive cells. And you know, it can be you know, really strong. I had a client a while back say, Hey, we got 400 people coming from this article and it looks like over 200 of them bought and it was consumer product. And they're like, is that possible over a 50 percent conversion rate? And I pointed out probably a lot more people saw the article than click through. Yeah. To you but the people that did, you know, they had that warm feeling that you get from earned media and they clicked and yeah, I don't think it's unusual if you have a price point, that's like, you know, good for just purchasing something that, that they will convert at that high. I, I've seen lots of Kickstarter. Campaign articles myself and had this great feeling and click through and just backed that, that, that campaign, I didn't go and open a new window and say, is there something similar I can get on Amazon? You know, I wanted to support these people. I just read about, you know, I really wanted to be part of that, you know, and that doesn't happen with ads, but it definitely happens with earned media. Sure. No, I agree with that completely. And anything else that we didn't cover that you wanted to leave some of these listeners with that may have maybe something along press release or anything that you've gone through in business that would be beneficial for them? Yeah, I think one of the biggest mistakes I see with people who do press releases is that they don't realize that journalists are storytellers you know, we get a lot of product launch press releases and Those are certainly newsworthy. But a lot of times they're written from here's a new product Here's a bunch of features and here's a page on it and you can buy on this page as well And you know journalists who are storytellers, it's hard for them to create a story arc from just the that So you got to remember you got to provide enough ingredients for a journalist to put together a story. So the things that I would suggest is to go back and say you know, is there a use case study someone who tried the product you know, what were the results of their experience using it ideally with some numbers and get a quote from them. So that has more elements of a story like you know you know, this, this client was experiencing. This problem and they saw a 17% you know, reduction in costs related to logistics, using your service. And here's a quote from them. You know, that, that really, it can really, you can build a whole, whole article around a really great story. And so keep that in mind that journalists are storytellers. And also, you know, I have a lot of people who just have an imposter syndrome and feel like they don't matter enough to get media. They think that it's really for the large companies. And the truth is that journalists like to be appreciated and they rarely get appreciated for covering the new addition of Microsoft office. But they will often get accolades for a small tool or service or product that people just didn't know about. And for that reason, journalists are much more likely to cover a mom and pop or a small startup. Or someone that just really isn't known well in your industry. And for that reason, you know your, your size often is an advantage when it comes to getting media pickup. It generally is easier for people that are small and you know, dare I say insignificant in the way that they feel you know, getting media attention. So I, I really, you know, to challenge people to, to give PR a try. And you know, I, I talked about having a bunch of strategic ideas for building out strategic press releases. I have all of those in a free masterclass and it's available to your listeners at e releases. com slash plan P L A N, and it's completely free. It's less than a hour long video. And it really would give you a good audit of your business and service. And what are the strategic types of releases you should be focusing on if you do build a PR campaign. Mickey, I appreciate you sharing that. That's been extremely valuable and glad you were able to join us on this episode. That's going to be a wrap for this episode of Small Business Big Moves. If you enjoyed this episode, what would really help us is if you shared this podcast with someone you think could get value out of it and like and review the podcast. You can also hit me up on social media at Thomas Bennett, and we look forward to seeing you all in the next episode.