Elevate your marketing strategy by understanding the transformative power of public relations. Michelle Garrett shares expert insights on integrating PR with marketing efforts, emphasizing collaboration, authenticity, and the importance of writing in crafting compelling narratives.
• PR as a game changer for brand visibility
• Core writing skills as foundational for PR success
• Understanding the role of AI in content creation
• The evolving importance of press releases today
• Integrating PR with social media and content marketing
• Challenges in measuring PR success
• Effective media outreach and building relationships
• The growing role of authentic influencers in PR
• Necessity for collaboration between marketing and PR teams
• Long-term commitment required for PR effectiveness
Guest Links
- Buy B2B PR That Gets Results: A Guide to Simple and Targeted Public Relations Practices by Michelle Garrett
- Garrett Public Relations
- Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn
Learn More:
- Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
- Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
- Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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- Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
- Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
- All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
PR is often misunderstood in the marketing world, but it can be a game changer for your brand or business. Whether you're a small business without a PR department or a marketer looking to expand your reach, public relations can help you stand out in ways that ads and content alone cannot. In this episode, pr expert Michelle Garrett shares why PR is still essential, how to approach it strategically and how to measure its success. If you've ever wondered how PR fits into your marketing strategy, this is the episode for you.
Speaker 2:So stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, Blogging, podcasting, vlogging, TikToking, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing there's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Shafer is your digital marketing coach, Helping you grow your business with digital-first marketing, one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil Shafer.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, this is your digital marketing coach, neil Shafer. And this is Neil Schafer. Hey everybody, this is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, and welcome to episode number 397, getting closer to the big 400. So I was at Content Marketing World many moons ago and I saw Michelle Garrett, who is today's guest, speak on stage and I had known about Michelle for some time and knew that she was a on stage. And I had known about Michelle for some time and knew that she was a PR expert, and I sat in on her speech and I thought it was really, really great information that a lot of marketers need to know, because often we misunderstand what PR can bring to the table. So we're going to dive into this often overlooked but incredibly valuable aspect of marketing.
Speaker 1:Now, public relations is not marketing, but if we were to put the two on a Venn diagram, we cannot say there is no overlap. We both operate in similar territories, right? Especially when we talk about social media and influencer marketing. So many marketers may have dabbled in PR or worked alongside a PR team I know I have, but few truly understand how to leverage it for brand growth. So I'm thrilled to be joined by PR expert Michelle Garrett, who will help us break down PR's role in today's digital landscape, from media relations to thought leadership and even the impact of AI. Michelle shares practical insights for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're a solo marketer, part of a small business or leading a larger team, this episode will help you see PR in a new light and understand how it can work alongside content, marketing and social media all together to elevate your brand. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neil Schaefer.
Speaker 1:Digital Marketing Coach. This is Neil Schaefer. Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer and welcome to another edition of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. Today we're going to be talking about PR, and I know it's something that maybe a lot of marketers know about. A lot of marketers might have dabbled in If you're lucky to be in a big enough organization where you have a public relations department. I'm sure there's a lot of collaboration that goes on. But PR and especially as someone who just published a book, pr still has incredible value and, I believe, incredible opportunities for marketers, and I'm on my own journey to learn more about this and I couldn't think of anyone better to invite on this podcast than Michelle Garrett. Michelle is an absolute PR expert. I had the opportunity to known her for many years, had the opportunity to meet her in person at Content Marketing World, where I saw her speak, and, yeah, she's going to school us on what marketers need to know about PR. So, without further ado, michelle, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Hello, neil, thanks for having me and congratulations on your new book.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. It's an honor to have you on and, as I start, with all my guests, I know what you do. Most everyone listening may not know what you do, but also, how did you get into PR? Is this something that you were doing before social media? You are a traditional trained publicist, or what's your stories that we get a better idea about your background?
Speaker 3:Sure, well, I really started as a writer, my love of writing and my background is in writing. I have a journalism degree and that was really my entrance, I guess, into PR because when I wrote throughout my high school, college career and just always loved it. But then you know, like what am I going to do with that? Beyond, you know, writing Is there more I could do? So PR seemed like a great fit because you get to work in so many different industries and it's not the same every day. There's something different going on every day. So, yeah, I've been doing this a long time and it has changed along the way. Of course, social media has come into play and content marketing, and I feel like those three all go really well together. So, own media being content, shared media being social, and then the earned media being PR.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So you began as a writer but you decided not to write a lot of books like I have. But I'm assuming that, with PR, writing is one of those core skills that you need to have to be successful in PR. I'm assuming, would you say, with social media content marketing, the shift to video and even podcasting, with social media content marketing, the shift to video and even podcasting, would you say, that's still true today.
Speaker 3:I think writing is a foundational skill for just about any business professional to be very you know, just upfront about it. I think it's really important because writing is thinking and, to me, to organize what's in your head. It's good to get it out and get it on paper. Now, of course, there are a lot of different mediums, as you mentioned, with audio, with podcasting, video is huge, but I still feel like writing is always going to play a role in that, and it is my first love. I would write even if I wasn't being paid to do it for clients. I would probably always be writing anyway.
Speaker 1:So I need to ask you and these conversations often take on their own organic life, as you can imagine AI, generative AI and I'm sure every time you speak you get asked about, as do I but since you talked about that core writing as being the skill that everybody needs, whether it's PR, marketing or business in general, when you look at AI-generated content, when you yourself experiment with ChachiBT or with your clients, what is the advice you're giving them vis-a-vis writing and leveraging AI generative AI to replace or supplement or complement or ideate that writing? What is your current advice for those listening?
Speaker 3:Well, I am kind of a purist, I'll be honest. I'm not saying you shouldn't use AI at all, but for me, the messy first draft and the editing process is really where I work out. You know what I really am trying to say. Maybe I have an idea, either for my own blog or for a client's you know contributed article or whatever it is, but I really have to get in there and kind of mess around with it, and that's why I feel like, if you are letting AI do that for you, what are you learning from that? How are you growing from that? And that's really important to me. I know it's not as important to everyone, but I think critical thinking skills and really not letting go of that the core of that process is pretty important.
Speaker 3:Now I will say for clients that you know want to use generative AI to generate responses, say, they email you some questions for an article they're working on, they want to put you in there as a source and you use the chatbot to generate the answers and then send that back to them. That's not a great idea. Not only can they tell and it hurts your credibility, but sometimes the chatbot is plagiarizing from something someone else has said so, then it doesn't even look like it's your original thought from something someone else has said so then it doesn't even look like it's your original thought. So I did say be a little careful there. That's one thing I would say.
Speaker 1:I've always thought, michelle I'm glad you brought that up, because I've always thought this far in. I mean, it's only been two years since ChachiBT emerged, but it's really prevalent out there, and especially in social media especially. I know that there are tools that specialize in giving you comments. So I get these comments on my social media posts and there are certain patterns, so I get. I'm just curious, is it just me or do you think, especially in media relations, michelle, what you're saying is that journalists, people in media, are really tuned in and they get. When you're using AI and, michelle, it almost reminds me of Google's recent changes where they're like, be more personal, it's okay. They're not saying don't use AI, but if you're not talking about your personal experience, which AI really can't talk about unless you feed it to another story, so would you say that's like a similar analogy that you're not really fooling anybody today if you're trying to a hundred percent rely on AI for your responses?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and there's so much content and you're trying to stand out, and if you sound like everyone else which is what using AI to write for you kind of does how is that helpful? How does that differentiate you? And that's one of the things that I work with clients on. One of the core things we need to do is try to differentiate them from all the other players in the space, and AI is not going to help us with that. I mean, now there are instances like okay, so AI-based search, like perplexity, for example, or something like that, as more people use that.
Speaker 3:I think for PR, that's kind of good news, because clients will want to show up everywhere. They won't just care about the Wall Street Journal, they'll want to show up in the trade journals. They will want to show up everywhere. They won't just care about the Wall Street Journal, they'll want to show up in the trade journals, they'll want to show up in industry publications, something like that. So they really want to be everywhere, and so I think that's good news for PR. But I think, as PR people, we have to be somewhat open-minded. I know I have been at times a little hesitant about AI, but I think we need to keep an open mind about how we can help clients position themselves in this new age of AI-based search.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. I mentioned before we started hitting the record, I've been writing books and I actually published two books over the last few weeks. That's another story and I'm working on two more and I've been really honing in on various podcasts and YouTube resources for writers, especially nonfiction writers. So I do understand that purist perspective which, in the writing community, is still there, Although even I see the writing community slowly opening up to some aspects of AI, but definitely not as far as a lot of marketers that I know. But these are all really really good reminders that, at the end of the day, there are algorithms and there are people that will read this AI generated content. Does it resonate with them or not? And that really is the key thing, now that everybody can create as much content as they want.
Speaker 1:As you said, ai content does not differentiate you by definition, right? So on that note and you began to talk about sort of you know the PR perspective on AI I want to go a little bit deeper into what marketers in general may not understand about PR. Just what you talked about, how your AI-generated content is not going to push the needle with journalists. Let's take a step back and really, if you can school us that are listening on what are the important things that we need to understand about PR's value and how we might be able to leverage it, especially if you're a smaller business, as I said in the intro, that doesn't have a dedicated PR department and maybe not even a dedicated publicist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's a huge difference between being a big company like Apple. That's the one I always use as an example. Of course they have unlimited resources. They can have a big PR team and internally they can hire as many agencies as they want. They can pay for as many tools as they want.
Speaker 3:I also wrote a book for, really for the smaller guys. So most of my clients are, say, 500 employees or less, so that's still a small business by definition. You know of what a small business is, and so those folks often have a one person marketing team or a very small marketing department. They don't have anyone dedicated to do PR, but it can be really valuable to find a resource, a consultant or maybe a smaller agency or something to work with to help you, because there's a lot of things that they're doing. For example, they're writing blog posts, they're writing customer success stories, case studies. Those are sitting on their website, right, so some people are probably seeing them. Maybe sales is using them, maybe they're putting them on social media. That's great, promoting them that way. What else could you do? You could take PR, for example, pitch them as earned media to a trade publication, and that would get not really think about, and it helps elevate you, you get more visibility, position yourself as a thought leader in your space, so on and so on.
Speaker 1:So the great advice you know on that note, there are, and this podcast really serves the same audience that you serve. So you know that's bang on great advice. Press releases so there's marketers who think press releases may not have much value, but they have STO value. So I'd love to hear obviously individually pitching trade publications in your industry with industry specific information is really golden advice. But for this general, let's put it out as a press release and get more coverage and see what happens. Do you recommend your clients today to still do press releases? If you do, are you very selective about it? What's sort of the advice that you give today on that?
Speaker 3:That is a great question, Neil, because it comes up a lot.
Speaker 1:Sure it does.
Speaker 3:So I mean, okay, so let's break it down a little bit. So I do see value in press releases, and here is why Because journalists will ask you for the press release. So in my mind, that's really what you're writing a press release for. I know there are people that want to, you know, write them for SEO and okay, that's not really what they're for. I mean, you might be able to serve both purposes with one but and it's also not a sales tool, because when you go out, if you just go to say but, and it's also not a sales tool, because when you go out, if you just go to say you go to PR Newswire, just search the press release feed, you'll see a lot of press releases are written like an ad, like a sales tool.
Speaker 3:And that's not what a press release is. It's informational. So of course you can quote your CEO in there. I mean, there is some marketing, you know, promotional, there are things about it that can be that way, but it shouldn't be like, you know, we're having a big sale right now. This is, you know, say, 50%. You know that's not the point of a press release at all. So it's a to announce a product, a solution, a new hire, an acquisition, a big major new customer or partner. Maybe there are a lot of reasons that to write one, but there are also a lot of reasons not to write press release.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So it sounds like similar to pitching journalists. I guess press release sort of fits into that. But it almost sounds a little bit like and once again we were talking about this before we hit the record button this concept of repurposing that you have this content, you have thoughts, you have IP and there's a world of media out there and how do you get it out to them? And I guess a press release is one vehicle. Obviously, directly pitching journalists is sort of another direct way of doing it. So one-to-one, one-to-many On this note let's take a little bit further of we're the small business, the one-person marketing team. Where does PR then fit in? We're doing social media, we're doing content marketing. How do we get PR, or how do we fit PR into the daily routine of our marketing activities?
Speaker 3:if we see the value, yeah, I think that's a great question too, because I think a lot of times people are focused on social. Of course, content is a big thing. You, you write LinkedIn posts. If you're in B2B, for example, they can help you write case studies, they can interview customers and write about their experiences, and there's all kinds of things you could do with your PR team in that way. But then also in just ideas and coming up with ways to get it out there to different audiences, because what I see a lot of times is that clients don't even know all the places they could be putting their content or promoting their content or sharing their content. Yes, of course, they're going to blast it out on their social media channels, and that's fine, that's good, but there's probably more. And when you bring the PR person in, they're going to think about that and they're going to look at what you already have put together and they're going to maybe what you already have put together and they're going to maybe hopefully be able to come up with ideas about what else you could do with it. You've already created it.
Speaker 3:I saw a stat one time that you know one piece of B2B content on average costs, you know, like $3,000. And that's a that's a stat that's probably a few years old now. So I mean, by the time you hire, you know you pay someone to write it, edit it, you know clean it up, and you know it's just it's very time consuming and of course you know there's money and time involved, so why not be doing more with it? Not every piece of content is a fit for that, but there's a lot that you could do. And then I think those teams can also leverage what PR is doing right. So if PR is writing a press release about something, maybe there's a blog post in there that the content team could be working on, and there's certainly social media posts that would probably roll out of that. So I just I don't like to see it siloed, I like to see them collaborating.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, so I'm sure you get asked this a lot. When marketers are working on content or social media, they're thinking in terms of a funnel. They're thinking in terms of cost per impression, cost per click, website visits, leads, generated conversion, sales what have you and PR is more of? As you mentioned, when marketers are publishing their content, they're only looking at a finite universe and there's a greater universe of the public, especially when we think about influential journalists and trade publications that they miss out on, where a PR professional brings that perspective which can also help improve their content, their social media.
Speaker 1:How do your clients and I know that this is a big topic and I read Brian Solis talk about this 15 years ago, writing books about PR but how do your clients measure the ROI of PR, especially when everything in marketing seems really finitely calculated and measured? What would be your advice for those listening that haven't done PR but are interested and see the potential positive impact they can have? Is it based on instances of being picked up, of additional they used to call them clips, I believe, in the PR world Is it more anecdotal or is there something that we're missing out on because we don't understand how PR works?
Speaker 3:Again, a very good question, right, and it's not easy to measure. I will say that I think the mistake a lot of times is okay. So you're working with your PR team internally or your external resource, and you say, okay, we want to know how this thing performs. And the PR team is like, okay, and they like, really, I mean, if you don't have any data to go on, as in, what are you trying to measure? Who are you trying to reach? What's the benchmark? What have you done in the past? Where are you now? Like you've got to have some data involved before you know, like you have to know what you're going to measure.
Speaker 3:And then you know PR is probably doing things in tandem with marketing, and so how is that laddering up? How does it all impact getting some new customers or prospective new customers? Or you know, like if you go to a trade show and your PR team is promoting that, you're going to be at the trade show and your CEO is speaking at the trade show, and so there's probably a lot that PR is doing to help raise the visibility of that. But at the end of the day, it's going to be well. How many you know badges did we scan, or how many you know leads did we get, or like you know, and PR's role in that might not even be factored in. So I feel like there's just not enough thought given to like what are we measuring? How are we measuring? You know, it's just I don't know. People say go measure, and then PR is like oh, I don't know. And then you know like so it's, it's kind of it's not a perfect science, I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess it almost sounds like what social media has become, because social media has stopped becoming this major generator of traffic, but it's something because the public is there you need to be active on and therefore, how do you calculate the ROI of being active, of being in front of people, when it's not generating that traffic? And PR to me sounds very similar. It's this additional, it's part of this infrastructure which obviously is going to add additional visibility, but how much you put into it and how do you measure what you take out of it? Well, how do you do that with social media or with other more intangible types of marketing that you need to be doing, or with branding or a website? I guess with a website redesign maybe, see our conversion rate optimization, what have you? But for a B2B company, you might not be able to do that. So I guess in marketing there's the measurable, there's the immeasurable and I'm sure you've had clients that have asked you.
Speaker 3:You know details about that and I assume it's it's well, did you know? What did PR contribute to? How big was that contribution? What were the results? And I'm assuming that's the only way to go about measuring it then, right, or are there any other?
Speaker 3:I also interview him, you know, quarterly, and we have a conversation and he has told me that when he goes to an event like a trade show, and he walks in, he's like everyone's, like gosh. We see you everywhere. You know you're showing up everywhere. So that's, you know that's powerful. They know that that is where that's coming from. And of course, you know it's not like me doing all. You know my client collaborates very closely with me and without that collaboration I would not have as much success for them. So that's really important too. I mean it's it's a partnership and it does pay off for them and they know that. But they're not as concerned about like hard numbers as they are about buzz and just you know, they know they're showing up and people are seeing it and people, you know, refer to it and they, so that's how they, that's their measurement.
Speaker 1:So Makes a lot of sense, and I've heard from other companies like, yeah, they, you know similar comments anecdotal, but it does talk about that top of mind sort of thought leadership which, you know, advertising alone will not get you there. It takes a lot more than that, especially to be trusted, and that, obviously, is what PR brings in. So I'm curious there's probably a lot of misconceptions that marketers have about PR and I think I might've already talked about some of them, but I'd love to hear what are other things that we should all know that we're totally getting wrong about what PR does and the value it brings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times people are just confused, Like they don't really understand what PR people do. You know, what do you do all day? Do you write press releases? Is that all you do Like? And it's not right. So I mean, and it's you know, PR is not an ad, it's not paid, it's earned media. So I think they work well together if you can do both, but you don't want to mistake one for the other, and that's something I see happening. And the other thing is it takes time to do PR, to do earned media. So if you're in a hurry to get results, you might want to consider paid media. You might want to buy an ad or a sponsored piece, for example. So those are a couple of things that I run into pretty often.
Speaker 1:So for those listening that want to get started, obviously reaching out to a PR consultant like yourself is obviously a great way to get started and learn and get coached. But what are other sort of first steps for those that really haven't been engaging in PR? What are some recommended first steps that you would advise them to get started on?
Speaker 3:I think it's a really good idea if they can figure out who they are trying to reach. So what audiences are you trying to get in front of? And then, where are those audiences spending time? And then, what do you wanna share with them? What's your goal doing PR? Do you wanna be seen as a thought leader in your space? Do you want to educate the public about an issue, for example, in the nonprofit world? That might be a goal. Do you just want your name on more prospective customers?
Speaker 3:You know shortlist, you know what are you trying to achieve. And then you know work with and talk with your PR provider about how they think you could best get there and make sure that you listen to them and do work, as you know, in a collaborative way with them, because the last thing you want to do is bring somebody in and then just tell them to go. You know, write a press release. Maybe that's not the best thing and maybe your PR provider would share that with you. If you're open to hearing that and you know, it's not always a press release, it's not always a pitch what else can we do? What's the right thing to do? So those are a couple of tips.
Speaker 1:So I guess, based on that, the way that marketers should be perceiving this is really it's less about bottom of the funnel, more about top of the funnel, generating demand, generating brand awareness, so that when you do advertise you do have content. It just gets that much more visibility, has that much more impact. And therefore I'm assuming then there are stages in which it might be more appropriate to invest in PR rather than, if you're just getting started, you may not just generating your core brand awareness and core demand. There's probably some infrastructural marketing that you need to do. But do you find startups that start with PR versus marketing, or is it always sort of in tandem? And are there phases of which you find companies you know you're too early for PR or maybe you're not too early? Is there sort of a you know a timing as well that companies should be aware of when thinking about investing in PR?
Speaker 3:Wow, I could talk about this all day, but I worked in Silicon Valley when I started my consulting practice.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I worked with a lot of startups and a lot of them. I think it was too early. It's more of an issue now than it used to be when I started consulting, because if a journalist has never heard of you before, they're much less likely to write about you or, you know, include you in a story. Because unless you're doing something really unique and you have differentiated yourself in some way, because they probably just get bombarded with pitches from you know many companies they have never heard of, so you're not really going to stand out. Now, if you're a manufacturing company with 50 years in the business, you probably have thought leaders, you probably have unique perspectives and ways of doing things that you can share. So I think that is you know. Obviously not every company is 50 years old, that you know. You don't have to be to do PR, but sometimes startups it is a little bit too early and I've seen them, you know, really spend a lot of money and maybe it's just a little bit too early. You know, because you know I yeah.
Speaker 1:So get your infrastructure in place first. Yeah, I, I sense that, and I've worked with brands where they didn't have their own, they didn't even have owned media, but they were just spending lots of money on Google pay-per-click and well, anyway, we could talk about that. But but yeah, in in digital threads, I do talk about how this there's an order of things when it comes to marketing, I believe with PR as well. So a few more questions before we end. This has been extremely educational. Thank you for know they just rebranded because I had to correct the URL of my book. Is that still, if you want to get started with trying to get your name out there and connect with journalists, would that still be the number one resource you recommend, or are there other resources out there that we should know about?
Speaker 3:I think there's a place for it. I think Peter Shankman calls it source of sources now so, but okay, so I call that reactive PR and I feel like companies really should be investing in proactive PR. Of course you can have the reactive in there, you know, as an additional, you know way to you know, get your name out there. But it's really hard again, because those reporters are putting out the query and then they're probably getting who knows how many responses. So, unless you're really standing out, and again, if you're generating a response with a chat bot, you're not going to stand out Spoiler alert. But instead, if you are thinking about and here's another thing when companies put together a media list or agencies do it for you a lot of times they'll put hundreds of media outlets and contacts, journalists, editors, on that list.
Speaker 3:You don't need hundreds, you need maybe 15, 20 that you're really interested in getting in front of. So I would do some research on that. And you don't even need a media database. You could just go online or just ask your customers, or maybe you already know what they're looking at, where they're looking for information. Sparktoro is another tool you could use. They have a free and paid version, so just look for some places where you would want to show up, where you would be in front of your audience and maybe approach it that way, because it's not about how many pitches you're sending out. It's about are you pitching the right publications, the right contacts, the right editors, journalists and then what are you saying when you send the pitch out? Is it a fit for their audience and what they write or produce stories about?
Speaker 1:So reverse engineering the process then and I love that mention of Harrow being, you know, reactive PR, because, yeah, it's not like the old days where you know you are only one of a few people responding Anyone and everyone is doing it, and there are people on Fiverr that'll do it for you. What have you? So whether they're going to be effective or not obviously is in question. So it almost sounds like pinpointing those key strategic media outlets, journalists, and then really try to develop a relationship with them to the point where you understand what they're looking for in a pitch and only contact them when you have a value-worthy pitch, and obviously PR that's what they do is they understand how those relationships work and they can accelerate that, make it most effective. But, in a nutshell, is that basically what you're recommending, then, in lieu of using a Herald service?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think once you have that relationship as a trusted source for an editor or journalist or reporter, they might come to you proactively. And that happens with my clients. I mean, I have those relationships established and so they'll say you know what we're looking for, a source for the story we're doing on conveyors and manufacturing. Does your client have, you know, some comments they could share and they'll send me some questions and you know. So it really, once you get some momentum going, it can be a very robust program but you do have require some legwork to get off the ground. But I think then you build momentum and you start to see results and you understand that you know over time it's not overnight. I'd say, you know, give it three to six months if you're just starting out, for example. Sometimes people ask me that question how long does it take? Well it's, you know you've got to give it a little time. So yeah, how long?
Speaker 1:does it take? Well, it's, you know, you got to give it a little time. So, yeah, how long will it take for your business to ramp up to? I mean it's? It's the same general question, right? We're not magicians here, folks. Sorry, you know, I want to end on. We talked about PR's relationship with content marketing, social media marketing, how it can really, you know, expand everything you're doing in a very natural way, when, done right, could be very effective. Earn media with the emergence of influencers and content creators in a creator economy. I obviously wrote the Age of Influence, all about influencer marketing. So I have to ask you this question but when you look at media outreach now, or PR activities now, compared to 15 years ago, I'm assuming that influencers slash content creators, whatever you call them these days. I'm assuming that they have some role. I'm curious from your perspective what role, if any, do they have and what advice, from a PR perspective, you might be giving our audience advice on how to best engage with them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean, I think it has to be authentic. That's always my thing. I've never understood how paying somebody millions of dollars to say they like and use your product when it's clear that you know you paid them to do that and they probably in their day to day are not using your product, that's very, I mean, that doesn't resonate, especially with a younger generation. You know, I have a high school kid and a young kid in their 20s and so, like that, they don't, they know, like what you're doing there. So, and I think that that's, you know, a big tell right. So you have to be aware of what is authentic.
Speaker 3:So maybe there's somebody out there who talks about your product, who has a following, that would be a better person to engage as an influencer. I would say, if they're already a fan and a be a better person to engage as an influencer. I would say, if they're already a fan and a follower of your brand, maybe look there and see. Maybe it's not the person that you know has an agent and has the biggest following. Maybe it's, you know, a smaller, a micro-influencer, for example. They might have more credibility and be, you know, spending time with the people that you want to reach. Anyway, they're already in their community, you know, on social media or whatever. So, so.
Speaker 1:I take it that from your PR activities then you don't you focus more on the traditional media side rather than so. You know, it's funny because when social media marketing started, michelle and we and we turned back the clock it was often owned by PR departments, for those that remember the glorious days of Radiant 6. And anyway, we can go back in history and over time that's become sort of where social media marketing is. I've seen influencer relationships, and maybe it's more with B2B companies where they have established people that are not necessarily part of marketing. And there are some companies where PR especially B2B like I said, not necessarily B2C, but it sounds like what you're seeing and the advice you're giving and the questions you're getting from your clients as a PR consultant really aren't around the influencer side. It's more of the general media side. Then Is that a correct assumption?
Speaker 3:That is correct. I'm not going to say that we would never consider working with influencers, but that's not what my focus would be, necessarily, although, again, we can always do some research, use SparkToro, look on LinkedIn, see who in their space might be someone that they could consider working with, or maybe even just contacting somebody to contribute to an article or something we're working on. You know, in that way, and it wouldn't even necessarily be a paid thing, it would just be a natural fit for you know, whatever we happen to be talking about.
Speaker 1:Makes a lot of sense. Now, you've mentioned SparkToro a few times, and on another podcast that used to run the Age of Influence, we actually interviewed Rand Fishkin, so very familiar with the tool, I know it's an amazing tool. A lot of people talk about it. I still really haven't leveraged it as part of what I do. So, if you can describe, I'm assuming that you use SparkToro to find out your audience, what other media they're consuming, what other podcasts they listen to, websites they go to, and from that, just sort of better understand not only who your target audience is, but also, if you want to target sources of information as far as the PR campaign, you have a better idea of what those sources are.
Speaker 3:Is that pretty much how you use SparkToro, or are there other features or other things that we're missing out on? Yeah, no, that pretty much sums it up. I mean, I get nervous when I see a smaller company with a very limited marketing budget which PR sits under the marketing budget they're spending thousands of dollars on a big media database. And I'm not saying again if you're a big company, if you're a Fortune 500 company, if you're publicly traded, you need to issue your news on a wire service and you need to have a database, probably, and you might need a big agency and an internal team. That's all fine and there's nothing at all wrong with that.
Speaker 3:But for the smaller companies who are, you know, struggling or just have a limited budget, I think that's a little bit of a waste of money. I would rather see them using that money to hire talent in the form of a consultant or a smaller boutique agency or something to help them get traction, and one of the tools that I would recommend, versus a big media database, might be a tool like SparkToro, because you can do research. They have what they call hidden gems in there, and so it would be additional things that you might not have thought of and of course he talks about how they've put that together, how it, you know, pulls those resources out for you, and I just think it's a little bit of a you know, it's not quite as crazy and expensive and hard to use or figure out as a media database. That's just another resource that you might look to.
Speaker 1:It's funny, I've never really considered a media database and when I interviewed Ran and we also talked about BuzzSumo, which you know quasi similar tool like well, like, what do we call this tool? We don't even know, but we know it has a lot of value. So, media database, that will be the tool. That will be the term that I will use. So great advice, michelle. You know, from a marketer perspective of hopefully everybody else listening has learned a ton from you. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have, or any other advice you want to part with for this audience that once they want to achieve results in their business and they want it fast and they see digital as a way to help them do that, and I think that this conversation has generated probably new interest in PR for them. You know, what else is there that they should know that we didn't cover, if anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I mean, give it time if you decide to move forward Again. If it is overnight results you're looking for, I would say you might be disappointed if you look to PR only because you know, first of all, it's not guaranteed, it is earned media and so you know we will certainly do our best to get you results as quickly as possible, but you also play a role in that, so you have to be bringing things to the table to help us, help you and, of course, yes, the Jerry Maguire helped me help you. Yes, we use that sometimes to talk about it, but, like you know, we need to know, like we need your thought leaders, we need your news and stories, we need to know what's going on behind the scenes. You know, don't? You know, work with us as a partner and don't just hire a PR resource and then walk away and say, okay, well, you know, we did the search, we hired someone, now it's all in there. You know, all in their hands now.
Speaker 3:Like no, you need to be involved in that and certainly you don't want to work with somebody who you need to hold their hand. I'm not saying that, but you do need to be talking regularly. I meet with clients at least once a month to talk about what they have going on, what's coming up. So you need to be sharing and talking and developing a relationship with your PR provider and you want to know who you're going to be working with on a day-to-day basis when you do decide to move forward with PR. So that would be another thing I would say.
Speaker 1:Great advice. So it's not like you're hiring an ad agency and you're just throwing it over the wall. It requires a collaborative approach to be successful, like most anything in marketing, actually. So I couldn't agree with you more, Michelle. You've been very generous with your time, your advice. If people want to reach out to you, ask you questions, potentially hire you, where should we send them?
Speaker 3:My website, michellegarrettcom, would be a great place to start. Of course I'm on LinkedIn and, yeah, those are two places you could find me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure you've said this before, but it's two L's, two R's and two T's, so don't get that spelling wrong.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:And I know you're well by the time this is published, you will have already spoken at Content Marketing World, but I know that you're a regular there, so look out for Michelle on the Speaking Circuit. And, michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I should say this podcast, this episode, included. We teach tactical and strategical things, but often the things that I'm teaching here and what comes out in the conversations is just a mindset shift. Just looking at something that you always thought of as A and thinking of it in a new light, as B and with the new thought process, unlocks all sorts of opportunities. That's sort of my role in the world. You should know my new motto is educate and empower, and I think that really really summarizes everything I do here, whether it's my podcast, my books, my speaking, my teaching and yes, if you didn't know and you wanted to get my latest advice, I have two books that I just published in, one in late September, or I should say mid-September, and one in early October Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth. And then a book, and that encompasses all of my LinkedIn advice, obviously, and then a book that encompasses all of my digital marketing advice, including content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, seo, email marketing, ai marketing, the whole bit. It is called Digital Threads. You can find all of these books not just my latest two, but the other four of written six books all on Amazon, wherever you buy books. If you want a shortcut, check out Digital Threads by going to neilschafercom slash digitalthreadsamazon.
Speaker 1:All right, well, that's it for another hopefully insightful episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. If you haven't subscribed already, I hope you will, because I have some other great interviews coming up and I like to cover a variety of topics. As my friends on DealCasters, who I just appeared on their podcast and they read digital threads and they go Neil, you messed me up and what they meant by that was I give them ideas they hadn't thought of. I challenge them to see things in a new light and grow, and so I want to make sure I do that with you. I bring in a variety of guests. This is not one single niche. Digital marketing is broad, and if, for every 10 episodes, if there's one or two that really vibe with you and you find tactical, strategic, insightful advice that levels your brand and gives you the ROI of spending 30 minutes to an hour together, then I have served my role as your digital marketing coach. So this is Neil Schaefer signing off.
Speaker 2:You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community If you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.