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Are you a business owner? Or are you on the verge of taking that side hustle to the next level? Or curious about the world of entrepreneurship? Join Vivian Kvam, Co-Owner of Tandem Works, each week for a behind-the-scenes at small businesses and what it takes to succeed.
Each episode is full of inspiration, education, tips, and great conversation with people like you, people who are figuring it out. Take your business to the next level with insight from expert guests in business, leadership, and marketing.
00:00:01 - Speaker A
Welcome to Riding Tandem, a podcast about building businesses leadership and creating positive impact for our communities. I'm your host, Vivian Kvam, and I invite you to ride Tandem Works with me as I have candid conversations with inspiring business owners, leaders and experts who are building on their dreams and creating impact. Get ready to be encouraged and learn practical tactics to help us build successful businesses, become incredible leaders and have positive ripple effects. Let's go. Well, hello. Welcome to writing Tandem Works today. Excited to have you, as always here. And I'm here today to introduce Mickie Kennedy, who founded E Releases, and we're going to dive into all the details behind press releases and how it can benefit your business. I'm personally excited about this. I've been talking about it a lot with clients, as has my business partner, so excited about it. Mickie is the brains behind Erleases and he started that about 24 years ago, so he is actually a pro, which is super fun. And he started it to give small businesses, authors, startups just like yourselves, who listen in a leg up on visibility and credibility and just really upping the game in that area, which of course we all need. And his team does this by providing top notch press release creation and distribution and all the services that surround that, which you're going to learn all about here real shortly. But I do want to tell you, I'm super stoked about this topic because honestly, I feel like the world of press releases and news outlets in general can be a little bit of a head scratcher for many people. But I don't want you to worry about that because Mickie is going to kind of demystify all of that for us. So we're going to dive into PR strategy, getting your name out there, writing press releases, getting them into the world and just basically anything having to do with press releases and things, I don't know. So Mickie's going to jump in and be like, oh, and you forgot 1234 as well. But I've certainly seen the magic of good press releases with clients in our own community, in our own company at Tandem Worksworks. So I want you to grab your notetaking tools for this one and prepare for some PR press release wisdom. So welcome, Mickie. Glad to have you. Thanks for jumping on.
00:02:18 - Speaker B
Thanks for having me.
00:02:19 - Speaker A
Yeah, absolutely. I got to listen to one of your podcasts with another host and I was like, yes, this is good stuff, so I'm excited to dive in. Okay. One of the questions I had asked you before we hopped on here was what you love about being a business owner. And I loved what you said that you love that you can find an opportunity out there, a need, and fill it. And so you look for the gaps. And that's what I love, too, is finding those gaps and then filling the need in the marketplace. So clearly you saw a gap in a need for press releases for small businesses. I'd love for you to tell me more. What's your founder story with Erleases and how'd you start it?
00:03:01 - Speaker B
I well, the long story is I was a poetry major doing an MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry in grad school in Northern Virginia. And I just assumed I'd wait tables and write poetry in my off hours. And I did that for a summer and realized that my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, and I just felt so psychologically damaged. At the end of the day, I wasn't reading or writing anything. So I decided I need to find a safe office job. And I got hired at a telecom research startup as employee number three. And they're like, oh, you're the writer. Figure out press releases and send them out for us. And so I did that, and I got really good at it, and I just realized this was an amazing tool. I was sending out a press release via Fax at the time, and we were getting picked up in The Economist, Financial Times, Washington Post, all these major publications and newspapers, and we would get amazing traction, lots of sales and inquiries. And I just felt like, wow, this is a huge opportunity that a lot of people don't realize is out there. And I looked online, and nobody was really helping small businesses. Most of the PR firms were geared towards 20 $30,000 packages and up, and I was just like, I wonder if there could be a business here, here in the gaps. And so I spent a year just reaching out to journalists and asking them if I could email them press releases. And the majority of them said yes at the time because this was like, 1997. And I launched in October of 1998 with about 10,000 journalists in my database. And I just was a matchmaker. I'd get a client and I would send it to the people that I thought would be interested in that press release. And over time, PR newswire reached out to us and said, hey, you should also consider including us. And I pointed out that they're charging, like, $1,600 to do a national press release. And my clients just couldn't afford that. And rather than them run off, we put our heads together and we found a way to work together so that everyone that does go through Erleases does get a custom national distribution over the wire and not have to pay anywhere near $1,600 for the average press release.
00:05:10 - Speaker A
I like it. What I think is really interesting and cool about your story is some people would just go, oh, well, can't be done in that price range. Right, right. And I think that happens a lot when people have a business idea and then they come up against, oh, well, the supplier can't supply it in my price range. And that how did you go about, I guess. What was your philosophy there? Did you immediately go, oh, there's always a way, or was there a bit of a struggle to get it figured out?
00:05:41 - Speaker B
I was expecting that they would immediately run away and they didn't. And so they invited me to visit them. So I went and visited them and discovered that they have an overnight editorial team that has to be there in case there's breaking news or a recall or someone has to get news to Asia from the US. And so they said they're not busy at all. They don't do much except sit on their hands waiting for a press release. And I said, what if I scheduled all my releases for the next business day by default rather than immediate distribution? And that way they could set them up overnight and there'd be no additional labor. So we sort of put our heads together and tried to find a win win solution that would be minimal taxing on their system and give us access to the wire.
00:06:30 - Speaker A
I love it. It makes me think of when I had a video production company. We also wanted to keep our editors busy in between the big jobs, especially because some of them are contracted, but we kind of wanted them to be with us as much as possible, so we would do the same. We'd bring in some projects that maybe didn't have quite as big of a price tag with them, but we always said it fed the machine, right? Like it kept the presses turning, which I think is an interesting concept to use. I've seen it done too with printing specific, like actual printing, where they want to keep those machines moving. So if you're willing to wait a couple of extra days, they'll slip you in when there's time. And it makes it possible to be able to do smaller print jobs with some really high quality, which is really cool. So I love that. Nice innovation there. How have you seen well, actually, let's back all the way up. I like to make sure we're level set for everyone listening and not assume anything. Right. So let's do basics first, like basic 101. What's a press release? What's the newswire? What is this all about? Just kind of walk us through the 101 of a press release and why it matters to a small business.
00:07:39 - Speaker B
So a press release is just an announcement, usually written in the third person, that a company or person or organization is sending out to the media in hopes that they will turn that into an article or write about them or interview them for a radio program or use them in some capacity of getting some media coverage. And generally these aren't very sexy pieces of writing, they're usually very basic. But you are leading sort of through the inverted pyramid of who, when, what, where and why. Information, most important information, top down and you're going to have usually a quote in there as well, which is the one time that you can talk in the first person and sort of attribute that to a principal at the company. Or it could be a customer if you're using a case study or something like that within your press release. And it's not the actual article that is going to appear in print, but it's the nuts and bolts and the information that hopefully a journalist can turn into an article.
00:08:43 - Speaker A
So is it fair to say it's almost like a teaser? Do they tend to reach out for more information or do they write an article just off of what's in a press release?
00:08:54 - Speaker B
So journalists like to have all the information in the press release. Now, that being said, you can certainly have links in there to where people can go for more information. Especially if maybe it's someone in a technical industry who's looking for more specs about a product that you're talking about, and you send them to a page on their website where they can download all the specs and information that's completely relevant. But generally they like to have as much information as possible. That being said, journalists often will contact you if there's a need for clarification. Or maybe they're working on a story that's similar. They'd like to get a quote by you or your perception on a particular issue that's maybe related to your industry. So for that reason, you don't want it to be too short of a pitch. You want to try to have as much information as possible and sort of realize that journalists are storytellers. And so you want to make sure that you have all the elements that they would need to turn that press release into an article. And for example, one of the most common type of press releases that we get at Erleases is a product launch press release. And often they are here's the product and here's a bullet list of all the features and here's a buy button. And it's very hard for journalists to turn that into an article. But if you were to use a use case study in addition to those features and address the problem that this client had, what their experience was using it, what were the results, and then having a quote by them that allows a journalist to build out more of a story of like, hey, here's a new product. Here's someone who used it. This was their experience, these were the results they saw. Here's a quote by them, here's some features. It just gives a lot more room for a journalist to be able to run the story arc that they're used to running.
00:10:46 - Speaker A
That makes sense. And I would imagine too, that journals probably get a number of press releases that come across their maybe digital desks now. So some of this has to be about standing out, I would imagine.
00:11:00 - Speaker B
Yes, and I think a lot of people don't realize that as a small business, they feel like maybe they're too small or marginal to matter to the media. But you have to realize that journalists like to be seen as curators. And so often they don't like to profile the large, well funded companies that most people know. But to profile the small mom and pops or new startups that people aren't aware of, it gives them more accolades of saying, wow, I didn't know about this company. That's really cool what they're doing. And I think for that reason, you may undersell yourself when you feel like you don't matter to the media. And some of the things that you can talk about are what makes you unique as a company. What's your unique selling proposition USP? Is it that you're entering the marketplace and doing something completely different than everybody else. And if you're not, consider building a unique selling proposition in your company and using that as something that you promote and go forward with. About a third of the people that appear on Shark Tank usually use e releases to send a press release out before their episode airs. It's something that producers recommend to them.
00:12:12 - Speaker A
That's cool.
00:12:13 - Speaker B
What we find is startups do really well getting media pickup, and part of it is you're on a national TV show, so that certainly helps. But I've noticed that startups that aren't affiliated with Shark Tank also are much more likely to get pickup. And I think what they really do well is they have their elevator pitch down, they know what niche they've carved out in the marketplace that makes them different than everybody else, and they can be able to succinctly say it in just a couple of sentences and lead with that. And I think that that's something that anybody can sort of adapt and use for their company.
00:12:50 - Speaker A
That's really cool. And how cool. I mean, we have a local pitch competition here called Rev, and it's like our own little mini Shark Tank, and people love it. How fun that you get to collaborate with those startups. Okay, before we get further down the road, I was of course, fluthing around on your website and came across a really interesting blog and I was like, oh, we definitely need to talk about this. It wasn't on my list to ask, but now it is. There's a difference between a media alert and a press release? Can you define that? I thought that was really helpful for a small business to understand.
00:13:27 - Speaker B
Right. So a media alert is usually just a very succinct announcement of something that's very short, and it could just be media alert. We're appearing at a conference and here's the details of when the conference is and when we're scheduled to speak and details as to how to be able to attend that if you're at that conference. Media alerts tend to be a lot more succinct and less fleshed out, but they also tend to be more timely. They're more time sensitive. So if someone is getting ready to do a press conference that's sort of impromptu, maybe a reaction to a lawsuit or something that's going on, that just today, everything came together, and they just want to get an announcement out really quickly. A media alert would be a really great way to sort of lead with that. And those tend to be a lot more lean, but they usually draw journalists in who want to then get more information, maybe attend the press conference or be able to go to a conference and get some more information about what's going on there.
00:14:32 - Speaker A
Yeah, I thought that was a really good differentiation to make, that essentially the press release is a mini story. You could write the story right. If I was to summarize it. And a media alert is almost like an invitation, hey, we're going to be here. It'd be cool if you wanted to be there too and cover us or cover the story. We thought you better bring your cameras and your notepad. Right. It's kind of what we're saying with the two different ones. Yeah. And that's accessible to any small business. They can do either one. I think it's really cool. If you're having a ribbon cutting, why not send it out, invite some media. Right? Okay, cool. So you were talking about this a little bit already, and I think it does come up a lot where a lot of clients that we work with are small to medium size. People who listen to this podcast, they tend to be small, medium sized, or just thinking about starting a business, and they're capturing all this information so they can start right out the gate. Right. Great opportunity for a press release. Is that you're launching your business, by the way, side note, but a lot do say to us, we're not newsworthy. And I even hate to say it, but literally the words have come out of their mouth, we're really boring. And I'm like, okay, hold up. From a storytelling standpoint, we need to walk that back. Right? Like, you're not really boring. Nobody likes to work with really boring. Your industry might not be what we call sexy, but you're not boring. How do you help small to medium sized businesses with that? Because I know you were already saying it. I know that comes up.
00:15:58 - Speaker B
It does. I have people all the time that say, we're not doing anything. That's newsworthy. And I'm just like something's paying the bills and keeping the lights on. People are choosing you in the marketplace for a reason. What is that? And often, if we sort of brainstorm around that, we can come away with things like, well, a lot of people in our marketplace do X, but what we do is X plus Y, and that's one of the key differentiators why people choose us. I'm like, well, that's a USP. That's something that we could promote and sort of differentiate you from everyone else. And it may not seem sexy, but it is important because that's probably why you are converting the customers that you are converting and people within your industry might find that interesting if we build it out in a way that sort of lends credibility to it. And some of the things that you could do is what you've identified is your gap that you're filling in the marketplace. Are there stats around it? Maybe your solution is a little bit different, but what you found is 57% of people in your industry are having that same situation. And so in a press release, talk about those numbers, get public stats that are out there available, incorporate them into your copy. It's going to make it a lot better building out a story and an argument from a statistical standpoint, because journalists love data, they love numbers. And anytime you can beef up your press release with more numbers and data is going to make it a lot more convincing for them to want to be able to turn that into an article.
00:17:33 - Speaker A
Have you seen people use that successfully? I have. Do they always have the data? Do they go out and find the data? Are they tracking data themselves and they just haven't thought to use it that way? I love that idea.
00:17:47 - Speaker B
Right. So a lot of people don't realize what data is out there. But if you go out there searching for it, a lot of people have probably already compiled the data and maybe not in one place, but it's out there and available. So do research and be the person who brings all the data into one place and builds a story with the numbers because that is a really powerful way to really stand out and you don't have to necessarily be the author of those numbers or that data for it to matter. But that being said, one of the foolproof ways that I've been able to get media coverage for clients is to actually do create the data. A lot of my clients really resist me on this, but I say do a survey or study within your industry. It's not as difficult as it sounds. I think anyone can be let loose on SurveyMonkey and within 15 minutes create a four page survey with four questions on each page that sort of ask relevant questions that are relevant to your industry right now, today. You don't want to ask evergreen questions. You want to ask questions that are relevant today that maybe there's economic uncertainty in your industry. You might want to ask are you spending more or less on marketing over the next two quarters when it comes to personnel? Are you finding it challenging to get people to work or move back into the office? Are you having problems building a culture? All of these types of questions that people are dealing with coming out of a pandemic and adjusting to the workplace and so take your industry's temperature on issues that are affecting you right now. What are the things that you would ask someone at a trade show or conference if you were there at a water cooler like hey, have you noticed that everybody's beginning to slow pay and net 30 is turning into net 90. That could be an indication of some capital drying up within your industry and asking questions around that could really elicit some interesting responses. Once you've completed the survey and you've gotten the responses you're going to analyze it and say what are the biggest surprises here? What would people be impressed with? And maybe pick two or three of those questions and build a press release around it. Put some analysis as to why you felt the numbers skewed a particular way and put you as the person who's giving the quote you're now the expert just by doing the survey and I get pushback from clients who say I don't know who to send a survey to. I don't have a rolodex of people in my industry. Well you don't need a rolodex of people in your industry. There are so many independent and small trade associations in every industry, probably hundreds if not more and pick one that maybe has 750 or more members. Ask them if they will send the SurveyMonkey link to their members in exchange for you mentioning them in a press release. You'll be issuing over the wire to the small and independent trade associations. This is a huge win win. They don't get a lot of media attention, they don't get the publicity of the large trade associations do and so they often would be willing to do that. You might have them push back and ask if they can co brand the survey, get a little bit more attention and I don't see a downside to that but it's not very difficult for you to do this. I have one client who does about 30 of these surveys a year. They represent lots of little independent verticals and they do it annually. It's sort of like considered an industry roundup for all of these little micro industries that they represent and on average they get between eight and 14 articles for every press release that they do and so it's a powerful way to stand out. You will get recognized as an expert easily and I've had it work for lots of non experts. A lot of people who just feel that they do not matter. They are just one little lone guy out there and yet they were able to get a lot of media attention and stand out as an expert.
00:21:50 - Speaker A
I like the idea. My brain is already going it's like gosh you could do it with some very serious questions like you were talking about the economics around something you could also do it with some just really fun things. I'm thinking about how those lists come together the top five ice cream flavors. You could do that nationally or in your city, and there'd be some fun ways you could pull that together for any industry where I could pull those together.
00:22:19 - Speaker B
Questions when I do it and I like to break it up over four pages and on the last page you can go left field questions be strange if they stop at that point, you've still got 75% of their responses. But I had one client who was a local auto repair shop in Pennsylvania and on the final page they asked what's the strangest thing a customer left in their car while being repaired? And it was just an open field where they could write anything. So the responses we got had no statistical relevance whatsoever because everyone was unique. But we ended up doing a roundup of what we thought were the most interesting responses and put them on the website and in the press release. We focused I think it was on the top 20 or top 25 most interesting ones. And it did really well. It got over ten auto industry trade publications, a local newspaper, as well as some additional media coverage as well. And it just really went viral. And so don't rule out those OD or strange little left field questions because they can really go wide as well.
00:23:20 - Speaker A
Yeah, I love that. Okay, let's talk a little bit about because you are talking about going wide and viral and everyone's always like, how do I go viral? These things. So do you feel like press releases are more useful or do we attach a more or less to this? Maybe we don't. If you want to reach a national audience or a local audience, can you use them for both? Are there tactics for either? Talk me through that a little bit.
00:23:45 - Speaker B
I think that press releases can work for both, but I do think that when it comes to local media, you don't have to actually have a press release. The local media is more forgiving of working with a good pitch. And by pitch, I mean like maybe an email send that includes like two or three sentences and a great quote. And I do recommend putting a great quote in there because a journalist can see an amazing quote and just build an article around it in their head. So that is a really powerful tool that will differentiate you from anybody else who's pitching a story. And when it comes to local media, I also say don't bother paying for a service like Erelases. Local media is the easiest media for you to generate yourself. Journalists like to respond to local companies rather than PR, people who aren't even in the same state. So if you think about it, there's probably less than a dozen people in your local market who would potentially cover you. Go to your local newspaper, figure out who covers your industry, and then just call and ask for their email address, they will give it to you. A lot of people feel like, oh, these are like celebrities. I can't ask for their email address, but they're members of the media and you could just say, I've got a story I'd like to pitch to this person. Can I get their email address? They may forward you directly to their phone, so don't freak out, but just ask for the email address and say you've got something you'd like to send along to them and they will gladly accept it. Build your Rolodex if you're happy or fortunate enough in your market to have a business magazine or business newspaper or a couple of those, find out who covers your industry there. Do the same thing. Get their email address. If there's radio programs and occasionally spotlights businesses, find out who is the producer or booker of that segment and ask for their email address. And then once you've got your Rolodex of less than a dozen people, just reach out to them. And as you have an idea or a pitch, send them a few sentences, an amazing quote, and just hit send. I don't like following up with these people. You may find that you don't get a response from any of them. You just keep doing it. Maybe it's every other month, maybe it's just quarterly. But as you have ideas or brainstorm ideas, send them out. One of the things you might do is if you do a little research in another market, another city, and create some Google alerts for your industry, you might see that in another market, there were some articles about a local company in respect to a certain issue, and then you can take that idea and generate it as a pitch. Don't say, hey, I've seen another market. This works, because you don't want them to feel like they're copying someone else. But you can say, hey, I've noticed that there's a big trend in my industry about environmental concerns. And as a local dry cleaner, I'd love to share with you some of the going green initiatives that we have, including X, Y and Z. Then here's an amazing quote and then hit send. And those can work extremely well. And also feel free to include multimedia, as in pictures. Photos work really well. They can also really highlight a story that's going to be posted online. So journalists love having that additional asset of that. And don't feel you have to have a professional photo. The ones that work best with the media are often what we call candid shots, like just a picture of a customer using your product, or an employee at your office interacting with your service or business or in some capacity. So don't underestimate the power of just an iPhone or an Android phone taking a snapshot. And those can work really well. And once you've built this Rolodex of local journalists and you reach out to them after a. While they'll contact you, they'll be working on a story, and they would love to plug in a local business. And you just come to top of mind because you've reached out to them maybe every two or three months. And so that's one of the reasons that you'll notice in your paper that the same companies tend to appear once or twice a year, every year, and it's often because they're doing the work of networking and reaching out to these journalists and building that asset.
00:27:53 - Speaker A
So I'm picking up two things here at the same time as you're talking. One, it sounds like just make this kind of part of your routine, like, we're going to have a brainstorm quarterly. We're going to come up with two or three ideas. We're going to pitch these out to our local media. Also out of that, you may have things where you go, this is not a local media, or it requires more. This is a press release. And we need to put a press release together, or we need to get a hold of Mickie and his team to help us put a press release together. Right. But doing it regularly and consistency sounds important.
00:28:26 - Speaker B
Absolutely. So many people sort of approach PR like so many other things, like Pinterest or whatever, saying I should give it a try for a couple of weeks, and if it doesn't work, cross it off and move on to the next shiny object. But PR is one of the things that if you are going to commit to it, I recommend that you do a proper PR campaign. And that usually looks like six to eight press releases testing lots of different hooks and ideas. You really only need one out of eight press releases to do extremely well for it to have a huge ROI for your business. And wild example of that is, during the Pandemic, we worked with a dining bond initiative, which was very short lived, to help restaurants that were closed during the Pandemic, and they sent out one press release, and it generated over 150 articles. Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, a lot of the food trade publications, 100 plus local newspapers across the US. It just resonated, extremely well generated in excess of $10 million in revenue. And that's a wild example of what can happen just because when you go on a wire and you get a wide distribution over the wire network, it does go to a lot more people than you can readily reach out to on your own. And this story just resonated with people because there was so much negative news. Here was something that was positive, here was also something that was actionable, that all these people who were at home for the two weeks flattening out the curve could actually do something meaningful. And that's probably why it blew up and did as well as it did. But it just just shows the leverage opportunity that's there with PR that's just waiting for you to come out with a message that sort of speaks to the audience. And it may not be 150 publications, but maybe it's two or three that are extremely meaningful. And I've had a person who got one media Pickup, and he got one customer from it, but it was in excess of $30 million because they built waste facilities for municipalities, and they were chosen by a municipality who'd never heard that they existed. And it was solely because of that trade publication. So that's what one meaningful difference can be for a client and getting you out there. It really does add, like, third party corroboration when a journalist writes about you. It's like social proof or maybe even an implied endorsement. And what you can do with that when you do get media pickup is put it on your website, record it, because these pages can disappear over time. And you also want to share the link with your customers as well as your leads, because that same goodwill that's created when someone reads an article can also be conveyed to a lead who's sitting on the fence of, like, I don't know if this is a company I want to work with. And all of a sudden, that could be what wins them over. And so don't underestimate what power you can get from an article, not just the people who read it, the audience, but also putting it in front of your existing audience as well. Customers are always shopping new clients to say, hey, are we using the best vendors? We should check this year? And maybe that article will just tell them, hey, I feel really satisfied. We're with the right company. No need to shop this year.
00:31:42 - Speaker A
That is making me think of an example here, because I think sometimes it's easy for some companies to go, we get it so easy to connect the dots. Like, I can totally see how that work. I see others where we've talked with them in relation to what you're talking about. So, for example, local restaurant, and they're know, what what ROI am I going to have if this goes viral? Is somebody going to drive from California to get my burger? Probably not, right? They may. So here's a funny story. They have gone national a couple times with news because they have been good at pitching to local media. And that local media happened to get picked up by national media. And interesting things is, people have driven a couple of states over to check out a beer that they have on tap that they can't get anywhere else. So that's fun. But then the big payoff, I think we've noticed, is it builds rapport and culture, right? And that's huge. When the smaller local eatery establishment gets picked up nationally with their story, whatever it is, that builds such excitement for the local community. And the people are like, oh, gosh, we haven't been down there for a while. Oh, my word. We got to get over there. That's right in our own backyard. Like that whole support your community, support your neighbor just blows up because people like to be where people are. People like to be where things are exciting and happening. And so that's something we've brought up with people, too, is don't underestimate what happens. Will somebody drive from California to get your thing or to use your dry cleaning? Maybe, maybe not. More than likely not. But the excitement that people have in the community, pride, that does bring people in the door.
00:33:25 - Speaker B
Absolutely.
00:33:26 - Speaker A
Yeah. So I don't know if that's things you've noticed, too, but that is definitely a payoff that we have seen over and over again with different clients that have used the local first, and then it's kind of gone from there and even just local. My goodness. Totally off topic here for just a second, but on topic, my own doctor, this has been five, six years literally every time I see her, which is annually. Right. So not real often. We're not best pals, great doctor, but every time she goes, I just loved that article about you in the newspaper and your camper. And I run into people within the local area and they're like, you're the girl with the camper. And I'm like, that was like five years ago, guys, this is crazy. But people remember when you're in the news and when you get picked up and when you're published. So I think there's a lot of value in that as well. Just the excitement there. Yeah. Okay, you brought up something to newswire. Let's talk about that a little bit, because not everyone knows what that is. So to not assume that, can you explain what that is and just what that looks like? Like you were saying earlier, use newswire because you, for one thing, can't send hundreds of thousands of emails. I've tried, by the way, your email provider shuts you down, just so you know. But talk to me a little bit about what's news wire, what's the value of that, and finding a partner who can help you navigate that.
00:34:44 - Speaker B
Right. So in the US, there's three major newswires press releases. PR Newswire is the oldest and largest and who we work with. There's also businesswire and Globe Newswire. And basically these are places that have relationships with journalists. Years ago, they put their newswire system in with the intranet that goes directly into the newsroom. It's over the web now with Logins, where journalists log in. And the value of it is a journalist can go look at an industry feed and the entire industry feed headlines show up and then they can drill down to read more. They can also customize it. So maybe they're interested in the fashion industry, but they're not interested in average retail. So they may sudden block certain keywords, like certain stores that would carry stuff that they would not find high fashion that they cover, so they can make it very customized for them. And so for a journalist who's on deadline and very busy, it's easy to go to just two or three places, log into their account and see the headlines that are relevant to them and drill down to the ones that are of most interest and potentially consider developing an article about that. So it's a great tool. The other way that people also interact with these journalists is through pitching. And generally there are PR firms that do the same thing that I was talking about locally, where they establish a relationship and rapport with a journalist and email them on an ongoing basis. Those can work extremely well, but you pay the price for that relationship. So PR firms are not very expensive because they've put a lot of time and energy in developing these relationships and they're sort of protective about who they work with. They're not going to accept 50,000 fashion clients because it just wouldn't make sense to start spamming 50,000 message.