A (8:26)

So I think the information, like from a data set standpoint, like bad information in is bad information out. And certainly when you're trying to hit numbers, yeah, it skews the data and you start spreading it out and then it skews the engagement. Right. And so press releases have changed a lot now. I love press releases just like I love podcasts. It's one to many, right. You're, you're syndicating something out and you're putting it in front of a lot of eyeballs now, to your point. I think that a lot of people see press releases or they skim them, right? And they're looking at like the subject line. So you got to have a good hook, you got to catch them of having them look more, and then you got to help them do their job because they're trying to hit whatever their numbers are, their metrics or the story they're writing or visibility or whatever. And if you can give them quotes, if you can give them stories, if you can give them data that they can't go grab somebody else, they're going to reference you, right? And so it's super helpful to just help them do their job better and write it in a way that, hey, a lot of people are going to see this. What are they going to do with it? And I like that writing from their perspective, utilizing the case studies that they can incorporate some kind of data into what they're doing. Because, yeah, if you're just publishing it out there, it's really just like, you know, if it's just about yourself, if someone's searching for you, they find it, but it's not gonna. You're not going to get the benefit of, of those journalists or bloggers sharing it. And that's where the real SEO benefit comes in. It's not from the press release service. It's what people do with it after that. And if people are not doing anything with it, it's not really that helpful. And so you got to really think about it from a copywriting standpoint. So I love that.

B (10:10)

Right? So I do about 10,000 plus press releases a year for my clients. And today all of our releases go out through PR Newswire, which is owned by Cision. PR Newswire is the oldest and largest newsw press releases. And so I had to walk away from email because email became really ineffective for reaching journalists. And, you know, even the, you know, PR firms that pitch people through email, they have to follow up by phone often to say, hey, it's buried in there. Can I walk you through how to find this thing I emailed you? And so what the great thing about the Wire is a journalist can log into the wire and they can see a feedback that's specific to their beat that they cover, but they can also tailor it. So maybe, you know, they cover fashion, but maybe they don't cover, you know, a lot of common retail stuff. So they can exclude keywords and just see stuff that's really relevant to what they're about, and that's the real value of it. At the same time that journalist inboxes have exploded and are nightmares. The Newswire is very clean and it makes it very easy for a journalist to see very tailored feeds that are specific to them. And you know, the Newswire is not going to take those golf club releases and send them to the feeds of financial analysts and people who cover banking news and data. So that, that's the real value of reaching a wire. In the US it's basically a duopoly. There's business wire and PR Newswire. Outside of that, there used to be Globe Newswire making inroads, but they pivoted and said, hey, if you are publicly traded, you can meet SEC disclosure. And do you really want journalists looking very closely at you? I didn't think so. And so as well as save a lot of money with them. But you know, the good side of that is you only have to, you know, send your release to one of them. And with E releases, all of our releases go out nationally through PR Newswire and you don't have to pay anything close to the $1,600 that they charge to go national for a 600 word press release. We have arranged a really great discount with them. And because we're moving 10,000 plus releases, you get a national distribution at a fraction of the cost by using E Releases. You know, that, that, that being said, a lot of people are still sending the wrong types of media and press releases out there. You know, one of the big critics. Go ahead.

A (12:48)

So I just wanted to speak to that. So, so certainly there, there's different additions and things you can add on. If we're talking about PR Newswire, I mean you can go after different areas of the market, you know, different industries, you can reach different influencers, you can go after different regional areas, you can do statewide. You know, a lot of people are using, not like you said, not the right type of press release, but they've made it very easy and they have a huge reach. And, and to your point, you know, getting that, that volume discount and getting those costs down because a regular press release through that network is, is quite pricey. And so there are advantages of scale and working with someone with scale, whether it be a slash account or whatever they're doing right. So I think that I want everybody to hear that you're not going to be able to get the same kind of discount, but you'll get the same kind of release, but you won't get the same kind of discount. So you'll pay quite a bit for it. The full price press Releases that people pay for are very expensive and so bulk discounting is big. And also someone that knows how to navigate all the different lists. Some of the lists are even a little bit misleading. I've had to ask for a request like, you know, who's on this list? What you know, who is this list going to based on who you're trying to reach and having someone that knows how to navigate all those things. And even like, you know, I typically do like a 400 word press release, 600 word even better. And you know, you can. And then it costs more money to add the logos or the graphics and they'll try to charge you for yearly retention on their site. Like there's, there's all kinds of tricks guys that, that if you need to do press releases, you need to find someone that knows what they're doing or you're going to spend a lot of time navigating it and there's going to be costs of learning that you're going to associate with it. And so I just, I just, if you're thinking about incorporating newsletters, definitely here, here what we're saying. And then, you know, Mickey, back to you. But I want to kind of talk to about like what are the benefits of the press release and maybe go into the story arc a little bit more to explain to people what they're doing. Because I see a lot of companies doing those press releases that are, hey, we got a new product, we had a new team member, whatever, but there, there is no story behind it. And so then you look at the reach and you look into the engagement and the reshares and you wonder how is this the baseline? Right. Is this the baseline? But I don't, I, I think it's a lot about copywriting, so.

B (15:32)

Right. So yeah, I have a case study up on my website at E Releases called the it's for the Dining Bond initiative. It was a very short lived effort to help restaurants that were closed during the pandemic. We did a press release for them at no charge. And it was, you know, meant to have where you could nominate your favorite local restaurant and if they were the volunteers were able to contact them, you could give money that went directly to that restaurant and be back sort of what they call a dining bond or gift certificate sort of scenario. And you know, during that time we thought it was, you know, we needed to make the biggest splash in the smallest amount of time. And so you couldn't really pitch a lot of people. So we just sent it on the wire. Hit send once and it resulted in over 100 media outlets picking it up. And this isn't syndication. Syndication is your press release replicated on websites. And every time you issue a press release that does happen, a lot of it is based off of what they do for publicly traded companies. So that's why you might be a restaurant and your press releases on Yahoo. Finance and Fox Business and places like that, but that real earned media is when a journalist writes an article about you. And in this case, over a hundred journalist publications wrote individual articles, all with different headlines, different copy about this initiative based on one single press release. And so for what would have cost, you know, under 4 or $500 with us got picked up in the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Harvard Business Review, Fox Business, Bloomberg, Forbes, James Beard Foundation, a bunch of food publications including Taste and Rob Report and things like that. But over a hundred. And it generated over $10 million in revenue. And this was the only thing that was used to market this. And so that is the potential of the value of a wire that if you have a meaningful message, it can really resonate and go very far and especially when it goes out nationally like it does through us. And so that is the goal. And, you know, a lot of people say, I sent the press release and other than the syndication, not much happened. And that's because it wasn't newsworthy enough in this case. Here was an initiative that was meant to help restaurants during the pandemic. I think it did really well because it was positive news at a time where there's a lot of uncertainty. We had been sent home for two weeks to flatten the curve, and we didn't know what was going to happen. But here was something that was positive and even more important, I think it was actionable. So if you're a couple at home and you worry about your favorite restaurant that you go to on your every anniversary, here was a way for you to give $50 to them and hopefully keep the lights on. And, you know, when everything recovered, hopefully you'd have a gift certificate or be able to use that $50. And, you know, barring that, you know, what can you do to write more meaningful and strategic press releases? And, you know, the story arc is one of the most important elements, I think, to really remember that and sort of build that in there. Is there something about you or your business, you starting it or your origin story? When I started E Releases, I didn't have an origin story. And they're like, well, how did you learn about press releases? And I was like, oh, the Last place I worked at. And like, well, what was it about it that excited you? And it's like, because the boss said that they don't really work, and I got them to work, and I thought I had this magic secret sauce, and I was passionate about it. And it's just like, oh, I do have an origin story. So, you know, do an audit of what started you, your business. You know, the company, the product, the services. There's a reason that everybody that appears on Shark Tank opens with that story. Sometimes it's being authentic, you know, well, it's always ideally authentic, but it's often vulnerable. You know, them sharing that, you know, their father died and they used to have this hobby, and she just got laid off, and now she was wondering, could I turn this hobby into a business and somehow honor my father as well? You know, those things happen again and again on that show, and it's because it breaks through everything and it humanizes the business, and it includes a human interest element, and it really creates this immediate empathy and people care. And so if you share that in a press release, you know, that will help you as well. And if you can't lead with that, like, you know, you're not doing a press release launching your business. You have a section at the bottom of the press release called a boilerplate, where it's about company, and you get to write an elevator pitch. Maybe incorporate that little bit of a story nugget in that elevator pitch. And it will be when the journalist is skimming that press release. That's another aspect of it. They'll say, oh, that human interest element would really feed my audience. And that gives me, you know, this was a mediocre press release as far as newsworthiness. But that aspect of it, I can work with that, and I think I can build a story that will really engage my audience. And it really does help quite a bit. You know, you had mentioned, you know, people doing press releases with hiring. Those are the. Probably the most ineffective press releases there are, with the exception of a new major executive that you're hired or CEO or an industry veteran. You really shouldn't pay money to go over a wire for a new hire press release. You can get probably the same pickup by reaching out to your local newspaper or business magazine. Business newspaper, as you know, and just send them the photo and a few lines about the new hire and what they'll be doing at your business. Same thing with trade publications. You know, spend the money to go over a newswire with stuff that's going to Be more and do well and do not look at your competitors and do not look at what everyone else is doing. Because 97% of press releases that are going out over the wire will not yield earned media. They will be ineffective. The same reason that if you approach AI and say, what would be a great press release? Here's the company you're going to get 97% of the time, press releases that aren't effective. AI is not good at picking a good topic for press release because it's been trained on the garbage that's out there. What you need to do is, you know, do an audit of your company and business and what would be meaningful stories, you know, share, you know, what, what's, what's going on right now with your product launch or an update to your product. Incorporate a use case study. Take publicly data that's out there and use it to sort of position your product or service and show the stakes of why it's so important. Even more importantly, if you're looking for a type of press release that never fails. And on average, when I coach someone through this, they get usually between 8 and 14 earned media articles. Every time they do this type of press release is do an industry survey. Survey your industry and anyone can do it. There's no rules. You're the author of the survey, you will get the credit, it will elevate you in the marketplace and people will know about you. And you just want to ask a few meaningful questions that are timely. As of right now, you know, post pandemic, the workplace has changed. You know, there's a lot of middle management concerned about culture, people working from home, people working hybrid. How am I going to make this work? You could ask questions around that. AI is really big. You know, there are people in your industry afraid they're going to lose their job or be replaced because of AI. And you can ask questions around that. But also there's stuff specifically going on in your industry. What are the things you would ask if you were to trade show a conference, say, hey, have you noticed lately that it seems like everybody's taking 90 to 120 days to pay when it used to be net 30? They're like, yeah, I have noticed that. That could be a sign that money is tightening up in your industry or, you know, nationwide. So, you know, think of questions you can ask right now, network with others, you know, perhaps ask on LinkedIn and build a survey of, you know, eight to 16 questions. I like SurveyMonkey. I put four questions per page and at the end of the page. Don't send them to SurveyMonkey. So many people do that. Send them back to your website talking about who you are and you know, offer to let them network with you because these are going to be other people in your industry that you could network with. They could be, you know, valued friends or, you know, joint venture possibilities. So many people are obsessed with competitors and I tell you, I've gotten so many leads from competitors. So use as an opportunity to introduce yourself and then who do you send the survey to? That is the easiest part of this. There are independent and small trade associations in every industry in mine public relations. I was told once on a podcast that, well, in our industry we're the exception. There's only Public Relations Society of America. I had to break it to this 60 some year old woman that there was over 470 other PR trade associations in the United States. Some of them are very esoteric like Florida PR firms or the Mid Atlantic. Some are, you know, Italian Americans, you know, founded ones. But there are some that are like, you know, PR firms of 50 employees or less, which probably makes up the bulk of PR firms in the US except for the big giant ones. And my problem with them is how you ever going to get one person at that company to stand for what the entire entity feels or believes. So I feel like that would be a great entity. You approach them and say, hey, here's a link. Could you send this to your members? In exchange I'll mention you in a press release. I'll be issuing a repair news wire in the coming weeks. This small and independent trade associations, no one knows about them. This person didn't realize there was 470 some others out there. And so they see this as a win win for them to potentially get some attention as well. And about two thirds of the time the first trade association we approach says yes. I've never had to go and ask a third one. The second one has always been like sure, we'll do that. You're looking for like at least 100 responses or pretty close to it. And you're really going to focus the press release on the one big aha moment from that survey. What's going to be the biggest shocker or surprise? You're going to provide an amazing quote of analysis in there. Like if they ask graphic designers if you believe AI is going to replace them in the next five years and they say yes and it's going to be Adobe that's doing it, you can then say hey, I don't believe that AI is going to replace graphic designers in the next five years. But I do think that those who don't realize and learn how to incorporate AI into their business are probably going to be at a very serious disadvantage and may find themselves out of a job. And so it's a way for you to be reasonable and rational and to really provide a little bit of analysis of the data points that are there. And you're going to build out a page on your website with all 16 questions and answers, or how many questions and answers you did have, because a journalist will click on that and they may find another question that they can write another article on or focus a different approach. And if you build that page as a good resource, some publications who have a no link policy will link to you. The New York Times has a no link policy. I've had them linked to one of my clients in an article because of that. How many resources and an infographic that was on that resource page. So build that out. And like I said, every time we've done that and sent it out, it's generated between as many as 20 pickups. But on average 8 to 14 seems to be where most people align themselves. The least I've ever had one get is four articles. And it was a very specialized biometrics field. And they were thrilled with four articles. They're like, I can't think of anybody else who covers biometrics who didn't cover this. And it creates a lot of buzz, a lot of interest. And I've seen what I felt was a link farm website utilize this, where they write the top 10 of different fields, like top 10 software for architects, top 10 automotive sales CRMs and things like that. And they did press releases for each of these fields based off of surveys for each of these individual verticals. And they got eight to 14 articles for each one of those. And they were doing at the height 30 of these press releases a year. And today they don't even have to issue those surveys anymore because they get asked by the media, what's your opinion about this industry? You know, here's some consolidation happening. How do you feel? Because they've established themselves as experts by just doing the survey over several years. And it's a great way to stand out.

A (29:01)

Awesome. That is just absolute gold, Mickey. So I was just like letting you go. I. I think that there is a reassurance of creativity coming. Okay. I think with AI there are some advantages. Absolutely. But I also think that creativity is going to shine because there are things of human ingenuity that are not in those large language models and they're homogenizing. I'm seeing it on the advertising side. I'm seeing ads that are very, very similar. Right. Because they're all pulling from the same data set. So I think being able to trade your own is kind of that next evolution. But I think just creativity is so important and working with someone that knows what they're doing on that side to get that, I mean, everything you were saying, fantastic strategy, great way to do it. And to, to your point, from an SEO standpoint, the value of those backlinks, there's a quantitative value to that. Right. And so if you're getting high quality links, if you're trying to not earn the link and kind of operate in the gray, you're going to spend a lot of money. So doing it the right way, you're going to get full link equity. Because also if you're not doing it the right way. Okay, And I, and I preach this. If you're not doing it the right way and that link gets found out or they already kind of know what's going on with that. Like when you talk about link farms or anything like that, it's not going to get full value. It's only going to push partial link equity or even no link equity. But if you earn the link and it's a true link that you earn and, or it's a difficult site that you get that that has a rule of not getting it, it's going to be so powerful and the only way to do it is do it the right way. Just spend the effort and time and the creativity to do it the right way and offer information that other people don't have. Right. That's what journalists are looking for is data that's not publicly available that they can use in whatever goal or story that they have. So I think that that's just absolute gold. Mickey and I know we've talked about this and maybe you want to use that as your unknown secret, because I would love for you to share kind of in a synopsis what, what might be a new unknown secret that you haven't shared or if you want to share that one. I thought that one was absolute gold. Sure. What would you say the biggest unknown secret of digital marketing utilizing press releases would be?

B (31:32)

I think that the biggest secret is a lot of people feel like they're too small to matter with the media. And I would counter to that and say that the most shares that a journalist gets are not from covering Google or Microsoft. The most shares they get for an article are when they spotlight a new tool or resource that no one knows about. And often these are small businesses. They're sometimes mom and pops, sometimes they're side hustle businesses. These are people for whom they didn't feel that they were big enough yet, and yet they got the spotlight put on them. Because journalists like to be seen as curators and they don't get credit for spotlighting something that everybody in the industry knows about. And so if you're doing something that's unique and novel in an industry, you are deserving of media attention. And so don't undersell yourself because you're just not quite there yet. Because if you wait, you'll just be waiting forever. Go ahead and take advantage of it. Now, I, I've had people who feel like the only person that I can list in the, in the, as a quote, in the press release is me, because company's just me. But then the media contact, do I have to make someone up? And I'm like, no, the media doesn't care that you're a solo operation. It does not look terrible to do that. I have people who get picked up by the Wall Street Journal and really great big publications barons and other places that they're the same media contact, the same person quoted in the press release. Being authentic is the most important thing and you don't have to disguise yourself, you know, and, and sometimes sharing the little stumbles along the way work really well. I had one client who had an embarrassing story where they nearly had to cancel Thanksgiving. And the whole family had to pitch in that weekend to put stuff in boxes and ship it out because they had just gotten a crash order and needed to get out asap. And so we led with that in a press release and they didn't want to. They thought it was embarrassing. It became the lead of a two page article about them in Inc. Magazine and they just didn't get, why would they focus on that? And I'm like, because it's something every entrepreneur identifies with. We all have obstacles, we all have things we overcome. We have these little embarrassments, these little setbacks, but yet these are the things that we look back later on and we look fondly like, yeah, we all came together, we all did this, and the whole family pitched in. And that's part of entrepreneurship. It's not just me, it's the whole family's involved, even if they're, you know, it's just them sacrificing their time with me because I'm Focused on the business and so, you know, focus on the story, focus on what's really going on. Be vulnerable, don't be afraid to really show who you are in the business and you can really resonate just being authentic with the media.

A (34:27)

Awesome. Mickey. I think that that's just fire. So everybody that's listening, like take Mickey's advice. Mickey, if people want to know more or they want to contact you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

B (34:39)

Right, so eReleases.com is the website. There's no salespeople, just editors. So feel free to chat, email or call all of our social medias on the lower right of the website. I do have a free masterclass that I recommend. It's a great place to start. If you don't know much about PR or I would say even people who do know stuff about pr, it would also be good. It's less than an hour long video and I did that because last class I signed up for, I paid $1,500 for it. And when I saw it's 40 hours of videos, I just knew I wasn't going to be able to commit to that. I just don't have that time. And so it's available@ereleases.com Plan again completely free. And it goes through the types of press releases that do get picked up. It ignores the 75% that don't and within the 3% of ones that do get picked up. It's the patterns of the press releases that you can incorporate. And if you build a PR campaign of six to eight releases and you follow those that are there, you're going to walk away with two or three of those having meaningful media pickup. The rest may be duds, but the truth is you really only need one to really kill it to make a huge difference. But you should have several of those by following this. And again, that's earleases.com plan. And of course that survey one is definitely in there and it walks you through that as well.

A (36:05)

Awesome. I'm going to have to maybe check that out myself. I think I've learned some stuff as well. So this was awesome. Mickey wanted to let everybody know we are going to be changing the website, we are going to be changing the podcast cover very soon as well as the intro. So don't get thrown off your game there. I will be letting everybody know about it. I will try to publicize it maybe through a press release. I don't know. Mickey, we'll talk, but everybody you know, if you're trying to grow your business with the largest, most powerful tool on the Internet, reach out to EWR for more visibility and revenue in your business. Until the next time, bye bye for now. Thanks for coming on, Mickey.

B (36:49)

Very welcome.