Making the Most of Media Placements
Posted: Wednesday, November 24, 2010
by Drew Gerber
Publicity Results
Miss Manners may warn against bragging, but in the real world, a little bit of boasting can go a long way. This is especially true in terms of public relations and media appearances/placements.
First, let's dispel a myth about PR: PR is NOT a substitute for advertising or marketing. While both lend a hand at increasing name recognition and exposure, advertising and marketing are designed to build sales, and PR is designed to build credibility. When the public sees you in the newspaper or on television or hears you on the radio, they perceive that appearance to be an "official" endorsement by the media: "Hey, this company is for real – I saw an article about them in the paper." However, if you rely on that one appearance in the single instance it takes place, you're passing up an opportunity for increased exposure.
Here’s the transcript:
Michelle Tennant: Hi everyone, it’s the Wasabi Club and it is 1:00 on August 29th, 1:00 Eastern, that is. I’m Michelle Tennant, co-owner of Wasabi Publicity Incorporated and we’ve got a really great show for you today. And I’ve actually got two radio hosts with us. I’m really excited about it. But we want to really talk about making the most of your media placements after the interview. Everybody really works very hard to get the interview but then after you have the interview, what do you actually do with it? So we’ll get to that in just a minute.
Let’s take care of some housekeeping. Everyone who’s on the call remember, to mute yourself you hit star or the asterisk 6 and to unmute yourself, you press star 7, that‘s asterisk 7. It would be a good idea to actually make a note of that right now ‘cause it’s not both star 6. And then also what we’re gonna do – this is not a traditional many of you all know, (beep) if you’ve been with us before, it’s not a traditional meeting or teleseminar, it really is a club atmosphere.
So, we’re gonna talk for the first 15 minutes about what Wasabi Publicity actually is doing for their clients not making the most of media interviews, but we’re also going to be opening up the call so that others can participate about the15 to 30 minute marker in the actual meeting. And then in the last part of the call, we’re actually gonna take any kind of suggestions or challenges or whatever you are up against. Traditionally on the call, we have publicists and small business owners who are really just trying to learn (beep) today’s secrets of publicity.
So, you should just feel comfortable if you want to say something to participate at that point. You can also email me later and either suggest a topic for the future or if you want to get in touch with someone who’s been on the call then I can connect you that way. So, again, welcome. I hear people joining and that’s just kinda what happens in our calls. So again, if you want to mute yourself you hit star 6; to unmute yourself is star 7. And just let me go ahead and introduce who we have on the phone ‘cause I’m really excited about them. Especially since I don’t -. I don’t think I’ve ever had -.
Maybe one time I’ve had a guest who’s actually been in North Carolina. While Wasabi Publicity is located in all corners of the world, we even have somebody on staff in Germany, most of the action happens in North Carolina, because that’s where I choose to live, near the Smokey Mountains. And I have Fred and Lyna with us and let me just talk a little bit about Fred Hueston. He’s the co-host of the internet talk show, Growing Your Business, and if you want to check that out while you’re online with us, you can go to GrowingYourBusiness.net. And he’s also the host of a home improvement show on AM radio in Western North Carolina.
He has run several small businesses and is now recognized as an expert in his field. So Fred not only started the first training center for marble and stone craftsmen in North America, but he is also the most requested consultant and expert witness in the stone industry. Fred has written over 30 books and hundreds of articles for nationally recognized magazines such as This Old House. He has been seen on HGTV and The Discovery Channel. Welcome Fred.
Fred Hueston: Thank you. Glad to be here.
Michelle Tennant: And then let me introduce his partner, Lyna Farkas. She runs her own decorative painting business and has authored two books on the subject as well as various magazine articles. She’s an experienced promoter and event organizer. Lyna has appeared on radio and TV, including PBS and local news stations and has taught in various schools around the Southeast. Lyna has also done work for Martha Stewart and Bernhardt Furniture. She is currently assisting a motivational singer/songwriter by helping him build his career and is on the Board for Community Inspirational Center in her home town. Welcome Lyna.
Lyna Farkas: Hey there.
Michelle Tennant: Now that I’ve actually bored everyone to death by reading your bios, how about you all actually tell us what you’re really passionate about. Fred?
Fred Hueston: Oh, boy. How long did you say we had on the talk?
[Laughter]
Michelle Tennant: We have about an hour.
Fred Hueston: Okay. That might be enough. One of the things that I truly love, I mean, you know you mentioned that I’m in the stone business. That’s one thing I’ve been doing for the past or probably close to 25 years, but media is my passion, both radio and TV. I’m currently up in New Jersey right now, as we speak, filming a week long segment for an instructional video showing how to put in stone in a bathroom, etcetera, etcetera. I really enjoy the media. I really enjoy the radio show, really enjoy being on TV and right now, that’s pretty much my passion.
Michelle Tennant: Good. Lyna, is there anything that you’d like to add?
Lyna Farkas: Yeah, it’s funny how life always changes and it just kind of expands and stretches. Where Fred’s getting to do a lot of videoing for his stone industry, I’m starting to come up with a new concept where I’ll be videoing people and interviewing them on their healing stories and this will be with more a TV film, also. So, I think we both have a passion for really getting the word out there in whatever we’re passionate about. We realize that media is just a fantastic way to do it, either through the audio or especially with You Tube and things, through the films.
Michelle Tennant: Oh, it’s true. I mean, You Tube is, I don’t think we’ve even seen what’s that capable of yet. I mean, that’s really exciting and as technology continues to grow, it’s always -. You know, when I always tell the story. I learned PR when I was 20. I’m now 2 years shy of 40, but I remember doing PR in Chicago on a Brother Typewriter, not the old, old guys, but the ones that was considered state of the art, word processors where you had three letters. It would remember like three (beep) styles and so we would put our current pitch letters in those three and then we would just work on those three pitch letters and then mail them out.
We had three pitch we’d go through ten a day now. It’s just constant, technology has just changed everything. And everybody who’s on our call, I’m just amazed at what PressKit247.com has really provided Wasabi Publicity and if there’s any publicists on the line and if you’re looking for efficient pitching tools, then PressKit247.com does not get any better than that and it’s a lot less expensive than the other tools that are out there, and PR tools can be expensive. But I want to bring out to the first 15 minutes of our call, usually is like a little glimpse into what we’re dealing with at Wasabi Publicity and it kinda serves as a diving board for the conversation. So, I know that the two of you are really interested in helping small business owners, especially understand not only how to get an interview, but then also how to maximize what you do after the interview.
Now Fred, it occurs to me that I just missed a wonderful pitching opportunity with you. We just represented the Las Vegas Market, at World Market Center out in Las Vegas, where they debuted tons and tons of home industry trends. They had a big green pavilion and I mean, we did a whole view on all this great stuff. So, I should’ve made a call to you ‘cause you would’ve been so interested in what they were up to. So let’s start with that as an example.
We scored a wire placement for them, a really prestigious placement in the PR world is getting somebody like the Associated Press or the United Press International, and we got a placement from the United Press International. So, UPI is what we all call it in the industry. So, what do we do now, with that, Fred? I mean, you know, we’ve gotten the placement and that particular client only had a event PR media. They’re just doing it out, so what are some of the things that we’re wrapping their final report next week, well actually this week, right? ‘Cause we’re at the end of August. What do you think we should put in our report? Like, be sure you do this client with that placement.
Fred Hueston: Well let me back up a little bit and talk a little bit about, you know, right now there is a ton of opportunity out there for people to pitch their product through an interview and when we’re talking interviews, we are talking both print and media, meaning radio, TV, as well as newspapers and magazines. And if you’re able to get to that particular point which with a lot of persistence, with organizations like yours, that can really, really help. But unfortunately, what a lot of people do is, you know, let’s take an example. Let’s say you’re interviewed on a local talk show, for example, and you get on the talk show, you tell all your friends.
You tell all your customers and then you sit there and do your interview and then you sit back and you wait. You wait for the phone to ring and guess what happens? It rarely rings. And why? Because you’re not following up after the interview. A good analogy I like to use is if you’re used to sales and you know what sales is like, you know, you contact the customer, you follow up. You follow up after the sale. We have to do the same thing with any kind of an interview.
So what are some of the things that you can do? In your case, you have an event that occurred, okay? I’m sure that’s not the last event that’s gonna happen, you’re probably gonna run another event in the future, whether it’s a yearly event, whether it’s a monthly event or whatever the case may be there, okay, use the past event as a marketing tool to promote the future events. And with events, I do have some experience doing some trade shows. What I see all the time with events, of course, this was in the past, you know it hasn’t happened, but in the future, you want to make sure that you promote the future event during that event, if you know what I’m saying.
Michelle Tennant: Yeah, let me just interject, Fred. This is really great because one of the things that this particular client of ours is they are the exhibit hall. They are the ones putting on the conference for the home furnishing industry. So, we had to select the trends that we thought were hot and we chose something called an e-bulb, which is sort of like our fluorescent lights but much, much more efficient. So, of course, the media latched onto that and they were kind enough to say they viewed it at the Las Vegas Market.
So one of the things that I think is very important for us to include in our report is maybe something like, you know, “Here’s an example media placement that could result from you being at our conference next time so that you’re not only paying for your booth, but then you’re also going to be exposed to national media in this way."
Lyna Farkas: Exactly.
Fred Hueston: But then what you’re saying there, too, brings up an interesting point and that is current events. Right now the green industry, and I’m going to assume everyone knows what I mean by ‘green industry’, you know, environmentally friendly, etcetera, etcetera, that’s a very good hot topic right now. And whether it’s that or whether its some other thing that’s hot at the moment, you need to take advantage of that and that’s exactly what you’ve done here.
Michelle Tennant: So and I also want to clarify for everybody, when you say ‘follow up’ so are you saying just follow up with your potential customers or are you saying follow up with the media, itself?
Fred Hueston: Both. Both are very important. I mean the more you get out there in the media, the more -. You know, one of the things you could do with an event like that, let’s say the event is done and its over with, why not come up with a press release that announces the success rate of that particular event? You know, “XYZ sponsored this event. It was a huge success. We had over 10,000 people, whatever, whatever." and actually reiterate what had happened.
You know, somebody in the media may not pick the up and that could actually lead to an interview, additional interviews, like, “You know what? We’re doing a show on that particular subject. Let’s bring that person in or whoever’s in charge of that person to actually interview them about that past event, even though it’s gone, it’s really not."
[Cross talk]
Michelle Tennant: Go ahead Lyna, you want to say something.
Lyna Farkas: I was going to say to add to that, ‘cause I was thinking of the same thing, but to add to that, any of the special interviews or things that happen during events such as the e-bulb getting more media coverage, they could include that in the press release and they could also pinpoint certain media people and maybe including in the release, give them a pitch for a different angle for something that happened in the hopes of generating more media coverage.
Michelle Tennant: And I just want to clarify because we have publicists who are part of the Wasabi Club and we have entrepreneur, small business owners or experts or authors that are kind of another distinction who participates. So, if you hire a publicist and there’s trouble just drawing a line, we’re gonna naturally take care of additional angle pitches and your publicist is gonna take care of that. And we, of course, would exhaust pre-event and post-event news angles and coverage based on the contract that we signed with the client. If the client doesn’t pay us for additional coverage after the event, then we’re not gonna be able to provide those services. And if they do, then great, we do.
Nevertheless, whether you’re doing your own PR, if you’re a small business owner, what we’re pointing to, I think, is to say a lot of times people think that they have news and it’s just one aspect of that news. It might be the event or whatever, but oftentimes there are nuances before and after an event, so pre and post coverage. And a lot of times the media can’t even get out to an event. Share pictures, share other coverage so that they can actually then get an idea of what happened there so even if they can’t attend or participate directly, they can still report on it, ‘cause as we know, the media is evolving with technology changes.
So just because a newspaper says they’re not gonna be at your event, doesn’t mean they’re not welcoming a really cool photo that you can get and then they’ll actually do a story after the coverage of somebody else or something. And they hate the little handshakes and the ribbon cuttings. They really just want an action, casual shot to kinda help sell the story. But that’s really distinct from, let’s say we just have one placement, you know, we have a placement in Parents’ Magazine or we have a placement with a wire service like UPI. We want to make sure, well what is our checklist to that?
And I know everyone’s got this month’s newsletter and if you don’t for some reason, and you’re on the call or listening to a recording of this, you can find the newsletters that features Fred and Lyna at PublicityResults.com. You an also go to WasabiPublicity.com, but people really freak out about spelling Wasabi. So, just Publicity Results is much easier and Results has an ‘S’ on the end and you just want to go to free newsletters and look at the one for August. And we actually have a checklist on, okay, here’s PR isn’t advertising.
You’re not just gonna rerun the mention from a newspaper or whatever in your ads, per se. You might highlight something, “As seen in New York Times" or something like that. But, let’s go with the checklist. So, that’s coming up in just a minute. We’re at the 15 minute marker, so Fred and Lyna, when we come back from opening up to others to share, let’s actually give them, okay, where you want to post your placements. Are you integrating it into other marketing efforts? And sort of create a checklist together so that the people can actually take away, ‘cause that would be helpful for me, too. Am I missing anything when I’m -?
I think I know what to do with a placement, but then I’m not always communicating that to our clients. I think that’s what’s gonna be really helpful for all the publicists on the line. So this is the time in the call when other people can make themselves known and also bring out the challenge or a question that you’d like for us to address in this particular call. Is there anyone who would like to make themselves known or have a question for Fred and Lyna at this point? Oh, and again, if you want to unmute yourself, you hit star 7, to unmute yourselves.
I know we have number of people participating today, but a lot of people just like to put us on speaker and they continue to work, so it’s fine if you don’t want to participate. Fred, Lyna and I will definitely continue. But if you feel that you’d like to ask a question or you’re dealing with a particular challenge, maybe on topic or maybe with some other aspect of PR, feel free. This is really a great place where people find solutions together. I still hear from people like, “Oh you know, we did that last year in the Wasabi Club and it’s still working for me." So,
Donna Berry: I have a question.
Michelle Tennant: Okay.
Donna Berry: This is Donna Berry. I’m in San Francisco.
Michelle Tennant: Hi Donna.
Donna Berry: Hi. I’m an independent publicist, have done some with NPR so I’m listening to what you’re saying about that because I just had a major event that wrapped last Sunday, San Francisco Fashion Week. And my question is about actually, it’s more of a technical question, about copyright issues around putting up press clips on your website. If anybody has any -.
I’ve had this question come up with clients and what I always tell them is that there are copyright issues with that, however, so many people do it, there’s no way that if you put something from the Wall Street Journal -. If the Wall Street Journal went after every, single person that put a copy of a story on their website, they’d have to hire like a full time legal team to go after that. So, it’s done. I don’t know if you guys have any thoughts or comments on that.
Michelle Tennant: That’s a really great topic, Donna, and I do have a lot to say on that, and Fred and Lyna, you all probably have your comments on that, as well. So great, so we’ll add that to Donna, hang out, keep yourself unmuted so that you can actually participate in our conversation, too. Do you have any client you want to plug? ‘Cause you know, we love that we’re all publicists. We plug each other in this call. Do you have anything that you need to plug, a website or anything that you need us to look at?
Donna Berry: Not really. I mean my question, I guess, is just more of a general question for really would apply to my clients across the board who are consumer clients that tend to get quite a bit of press.
Michelle Tennant: I’ve done a lot of -. So I’m gonna go first, okay Fred and Lyna on this one? ‘Cause I’ve done a lot of personal research on this. This is a really important topic, Donna, and I’m gonna share with you what I do. Okay? And I think it really works well and I’d also be open to hearing what other people have to say about the topic. And with that said and knowing that we are on a recording, I want to say that I am not legal advice to anyone. I’m not a lawyer. I can’t be sued for this because I don’t know what I’m talking about in the legal arena. Okay, so that’s my disclaimer. And that’s something that I recommend that you say to your clients before you go into the rest of this.
Donna Berry: Yes, I definitely do that.
Michelle Tennant: Yeah. I mean, we’re not legal counsel, we’re publicists. So if they have questions about copyright, they need to go to a copyright lawyer about that. Now, with that said, I’m also very strict with my clients when -. I had a client years ago call me from Kinko’s and my assistant at the time is no longer my assistant, was about to sign something in my absence. Thank God I came back from wherever I was ‘cause she was like, “Oh can you sign this instead of me?" and it was a copyright release form for Kinko’s in one of those generic forms.
And I said, “We can’t sign this." from Parents’ Magazine. Parents’ Magazine, by the way, and like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, they have a very extensive reprint department and they actually, that’s part of their revenue generator. So, once you’re mentioned an editorial, they’ll connect with the client to say, “Do you want reprint permission? and if you do, it’s $5,000.00 and then we’re gonna give you this for that. Do you want it online or do you -?" And so there are particular media venues that charge you for that and generally, they’ll contact you to let you know they charge for that.
However, there are lots of TV stations and so forth, so I asked a friend of mine over at Fox and Friends, it was a former producer, and I said, “What is the story about copyrights? It’s so confusing for people and everybody’s sharing copies of everything. How do you actually stay within the law?" He said, “Look. Here’s my rule. If somebody contacts you and naturally once you’re in the media, like a magazine or whatever, you’re gonna know whether they have friends, but cover your bases by sending an email -."
And by the way, Donna, I always have my clients do this because I say if something comes up legally, they’re gonna connect with you, the company, not your publicist. You’re liable not me. So I give them the contact information for the reprint department which is different than, you know, I just give them the main office or whatever, and then say, “Make sure you keep a copy of all your communications." Because generally what happens is they’ll connect with CNN and they’ll go through 1,000 different departments before they get an answer and then sometimes they won’t ever get an answer.
And I say, “In the meantime, go ahead and feel what you think is -. Like if you want to put it up on your website, put it up on your website because my friend over at Fox and Friends said, ‘Look, if they’re upset with you sharing that clip on your website, you’re gonna get a Cease and Desist letter and at that point, you can comply with their wishes.’" But go ahead and act first and then your hands will get slapped later, but meanwhile you’ve actually communicated with the media venue and asked their permission.
If you can do that, you have that written documentation that you’ve done that. You’ll either get a yes, a no, or you won’t hear from anyone or you’ll get like it cost this much. And then I always end it by saying, “And remember, I’m not legal advice and copyright laws do apply here." I heard a great telephone years ago from the Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart, and she -.
If you go to PublicityHound.com, she’s got a whole seminar just on copyright laws that I found really, really helpful and she goes into the nitty gritty of okay, if you don’t get permission, you can actually just quote people by saying, so you don’t want to use their logo, you don’t get permission for their logo and all of that stuff, then you can just say paraphrasing we were in Parents’ Magazine and then quote, blah, blah, blah. And then use it that way. That’s how I handle it. I would love to hear, because Fred, I know that you’ve been radio for so long, you’re kind of on the other side of the wall. How do you all feel? How do you media feel about all of this? How should we do it?
Fred Hueston: Well there’s two things. Two comments first of all. The first one being is that you go to the copyright and trademark website. I don’t know what it is off the top of my head. There’s a lot of good information there. The problem is, is that you’ve got to be an attorney to read some of that stuff. But when you get into copyright issues, and again, I want to also add the same disclaimer that I’m not an attorney, so this is not legal advice. Just based on my experiences, there is a difference between copyright when it comes to print, meaning a newspaper or a magazine compared to radio or even TV.
And now you have this whole new arena which is actually, from what I’ve researched is becoming a whole new topic and that’s the internet, which is what we’re talking about here. In radio and also in TV, there are services out there and let me give you an example of what we do. If anybody listens to our show or any show, you’ll hear what we call bumper music. It’s the music that comes in and comes out. It might be something like Bon Jovi, Nora Jones, you know, all the stuff that they get royalties off.
Well there’s a service out there that you can actually pay a monthly fee and that sort of gives you carte blanch to use any of the music. In other words, we don’t have to say, “Okay, this month we use Nora Jones, this month we use Bon Jovi." We pay a fee and that allows us to use clips or if you want to call them excerpts of that particular song. That’s how it works in radio.
Now in print, you have a similar thing where if you’re using an excerpt and not copying say the entire article, you want to say something like, “In Parents’ Magazine there was an article on how to raise your two year old and they said this." From my understanding, okay again, I’m not an attorney, that’s okay to do that as along as you’ve given your source credit.
Michelle Tennant: I think that’s the key point is the source. So what I’m just saying was what the media really is concerned about is that they get the visitations to their website. So for example, we had a client on Fox and Friends this morning. By and large, Fox and Friends, they’re not as quick to put their clips up as like the Today Show is, so like if the client’s on the Today Show, we drive people to the Today Show website, they love that. Because if they have an expert on and they can benefit from the expert’s thousands of fans and viewers and so forth, that just drives traffic for them and that can actually be a selling point when you’re talking to the producer, right?
I mean, Donna and I know it’s sometimes, “Well listen, you know they got 60,000 people that read their newsletter and we’re gonna mention the fact that they’re on and that’s good for you, too." but like Fox and Friends, they don’t make their clips as readily available, so my recommendation always to the client is, “Look, order a copy for your archives purposes because the media venue will disable the link at some point. They just have to. They just have too much content going through their system. So then you have a copy for your own records.
Meanwhile, while the link is still good on their website, drive people to their website because that only helps them and that’s really what their issue is gonna be and that’s why some of them really wanna control reprint, so that they have just a little bit of say ‘cause they advertise." They want the statistics to show to their potential sponsors, as well. So and then Lyna, do you have any more for Donna? And then Donna, what questions -? Did that answer it or is there something else that we can -? Because I think this is a really good conversation for everyone.
Lyna Farkas: I think it was pretty well covered with things to do. If all else fails, you could just do the paraphrasing and just kinda have it sort of a dropper, as like I do with even Martha Stewart. You know, I actually had Martha Stewart come and ask me to do some work for her, so without to definitely quote her and things it’s not gonna happen because its all by word of mouth.
Michelle Tennant: And Lyna is talking right now, everyone. Right? This is Lyna, not Donna.
Lyna Farkas: Yes, this is Lyna. So that’s effective if you’re really afraid of doing anything wrong, I think the paraphrasing is a great way to go. But, even Fred and I, because we were in the beginning stages of radio and we’ve gotten quite popular, but we found it to our advantage to have people let people know about it. And even if they didn’t link right to our website, just the fact that they may have clips of the audio on their website, people would hear it and they’d hear our name and they’d be interested in knowing more about us, so it helps us.
Michelle Tennant: Yes.
Donna Berry: What if you get a clip directly from the press? Like for example, I did a radio interview last week before my event. The reporter sent me the clip, the mp3, which very nice of him. If you get it directly from them, does that mean anything? Can you use that kind of carte blanch without worrying about it?
Fred Hueston: When I listened to the – this is Fred again – my assumption on that is that in giving you that mp3 clip – and again, this is not legal advice – they’re pretty much giving you permission to use it, otherwise whey would you want it?
Lyna Farkas: Donna, when they gave it to you, did you ask for it or did he just freely give it to you?
Donna Berry: I think I kind of more or less asked for it. So, yeah, it was more of a request from me.
Lyna Farkas: Then I agree with Fred, it would almost be like if he had any hesitation in giving it to you, he probably would’ve asked you “What do you want it for? Because you know that we have regulations" that if he just gave it to you freely, my assumption would be that you’d be free to utilize it.
Donna Berry: Yeah. It’s still just such a -. Because I have so many clients who want to put like a pdf of a story that they were in up on their site and I don’t really tell them to do that. I don’t really tell them to not do that. I agree keeping -. As a publicist, I want to kind of stay away from getting involved in the legal issues of that and not put my name against it in any way, shape or form.
Fred Hueston: No, and if you have any, they’ll ask, “Can I use this clip freely?" they’ll say, “Yeah, go ahead." most of the time that’s what they’ll say. If there’s an issue, they’ll say “No".
Lyna Farkas: Yeah, and Donna, listen, getting permission for media venues can be sometimes more daunting that actually getting a placement. So I think putting that back in the client’s task list that’s something you would not cover, and rightly so, because it’s a legal issue, not a PR issue, and then just give them the phone number to have their internal staff do that.
Michelle Tennant: Yeah but -.
Lyna Farkas: Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry.
Michelle Tennant: No, I was just saying I’ve not had one client yet be really upset with that.
Lyna Farkas: I’ve never had a client who’s gotten a Cease and Desist letter from any publication -.
Michelle Tennant: Same here.
Lyna Farkas: The publications, I think, see it as marketing for themselves. I mean if just putting one pdf of one story, it’s not like you’re giving away the whole paper for free. You’re just putting one pdf of one story that that client was in up on their site, or the client’s putting it up on their site. I’m not putting it up on their site for them.
Michelle Tennant: But the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, they have, I mean, you’d be surprised at some of the larger media venues. They have a pretty extensive reprint process. So for example, you all remember the Nobel Peace Prize winner last year, right? We represented the nonprofit that was started out of the microfinance work called Grameen Foundation. Grameen Foundation was written up in a column about philanthropy associated with e-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Okay, so Oh! was very excited and they wanted this piece and they wanted to reprint it. Well, what happens with a nonprofit of that stature is what they’re gonna include that mention inside their mailings, you know, the direct mail solicitations. And most direct mail solicitation houses actually wait and hope for a very credible mention in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and so forth, so that they can mention it because in the follow up process like we’re talking about today is very credible for donations and so forth. That reprint permission is about $5,000.00 just to mention the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal inside your solicitation letter, five grand. And they’re very adamant about it and if you’re sending out the like -.
We used, let’s see, Euro-American was the direct mail house from New York that we worked alongside with and Corrine, the owner of that company was very -. She had done Doctors without Borders and she was just waiting for that kind of a mention from us. She was like, “Oh, can you please just really work on the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal." When that happened and we did solidify that, that’s the first thing that she then, she’s like “Look, you gotta pay this reprint permission so we can use this." And she was very in tune with that ‘cause she knows that having dealt with such large -.
But I think it’s also like how large your entity is. So, Donna if you’re handling somebody whose just gonna pass it out at their parent meeting, that’s one thing, but if you’re talking about they’re gonna mass reprint it somehow with a solicitation, you better check into legal issues.
Donna Berry: Yeah, that’s a good point. most of my clients are very, very small businesses and they operate mostly locally here in San Francisco. So yeah, it might be a little bit of a different situation if I was like say, like for your example, like what you were saying, doing some work for a national nonprofit or something like that or a bigger organization that might be using it more than just putting up a clip on their website. They might be wanting to use it in full scale marketing materials.
Michelle Tennant: Exactly.
Fred Hueston: Michelle, can I add a comment here?
Michelle Tennant: Yes, of course. And then I think everyone who’s listening, we will get to a checklist because we’re actually illustrating in this example in this conversation, all of the areas. So we’ll summarize in just a minute. It’s very good. Go ahead Fred.
Fred Hueston: Okay, just real quickly, I wanna give you an example where you know, you said that you have some small businesses out there and that might not be a concern. I can remember years ago when I was in the contracting business, I actually did some work for Disney and I had to sign a contract with Disney, and in that contract, they basically said I could not use their name in any of my referrals, my resume, any advertising that I did. So, even though I did work out there, the forbidded me legally to not use their name. Now, my way around that was to say I worked for some Orlando theme parks, but I could not use Disney’s name at all. So you may have a small contractor or a small business person that’s dealing with a larger corporation. You just have to check that out.
Michelle Tennant: That’s a really good point, Fred, too. So, we’ve talked a little bit about print, like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, but what about Oprah and Larry King Live? So I’m gonna share a few examples with that. So we had a couple clients earlier this year on Larry King Live and they’re not so worried about -. I mean, I didn’t hear from the producers or I didn’t get my hands slapped or “Hey you better handle it this way."
The clips were shared and the same protocol that we do with all of our clients and say, “If you want to use this in a wide way you need to get the permissions from the media venue directly because that’s between your company and the media venue." Meanwhile, so I didn’t really get a whole bunch of static from Larry King Live. Oprah, however, they’re very, very specific with the client on how you can reprint and how you cannot period. They’re just very specific. You get really, you know, there was a certain time where you couldn’t use the clip and all. I mean it was just they had their preferences.
And so I think that again, when we’re talking in general terms about copyright issues, it really depends on the nature of the media venue. And if you’re gonna talk about a large, let’s see, what was the other one that was like really -? There was somebody who just recently, who runs a flight magazine. It’s a flight trade magazine. Not the in-flight mags, but the flight magazines that cover airplanes and all that stuff. We had represented an air taxi company where you could hail an airplane, Sather was the name and they were mentioned and man, they had an aggressive reprint department.
And that reprint department was, I was like, “Wow, I need to hire you as a publicist because your follow is amazing." I mean, he called every few weeks to see if we were going to pay for that. So, also the industry because airlines are gonna have deeper pockets to be able to pay for reprint stuff. It’s an interesting conversation. I mean, I think it will even be an interesting analysis to see which media venues are doing what.
So, let’s go ahead and go right into this checklist that we’re talking about. So this conversation’s really brought about a variety of things on what to do after a placement. Number one, check into the copyright issues. But also, let’s talk about stuff being online. So Fred and Lyna, how important is it to put something online?
Fred Hueston: Do you want to take that Lyna or do you want me to?
Lyna Farkas: Well we both can. I was just gonna say that the internet presence is getting more and more important every day and I think you can see that with things such as MySpace and You Tube. It’s almost essential to have a webpage, anymore. And the more attractive and the more appealing and compelling that you could have it with your credentials and building up your expertise and of course, having any kind of indication of the media coverage you had will do that.
Fred Hueston: Absolutely and I’ll add to that and say that a lot of people are now doing blogging and I’m gonna assume everyone knows what that means. Another avenue that is just coming about on the internet is what they call “White papers", which is sort of like a blog, but it’s more of an informational type verbiage or whatever you want to call it. Here’s what happens with the internet and this is where you might want to seek the assistance of a search engine optimization type individual and that is the more back links you can get that points to your website, the more traffic you’re gonna get to your website.
So, for example, let’s say we host a radio show and we have a mention of an article that we did for say, you, Michelle. And then someone else has got you linked. It’s kind of a chain reaction that happened. And right now, just to give you an example on my training website, not the radio website by my stone industry website I have over half a million back links that point to my website and that’s all done via the internet by writing papers, by writing blogs and just getting out there on the internet.
Lyna Farkas: And then another point is that a lot of these articles, placements that you have, if you write articles or blogs, if you want to call them blogs, and put them on e-zine articles and some of these other article links, you could actually refer in whatever your article is to the fact that you are in this, whatever your free media coverage was. And there’s a lot of media people who actually take time every day just to read some of these articles and if they see that you had placement in So and So’s media, then that’ll help for their interest and maybe there’s something appealing and compelling about you and maybe we could also utilize you.
Michelle Tennant: And that’s also important around cross pitching. So, one of the thing that occurs to me I’m glad you brought up search engine optimization, Fred, because when you post your article online, then there’s another opportunity to get a few more, not only back links but also search terms. Maybe you want to revisit the search terms that you’re advertising with or the search terms that you actually have connected to your website. And your webmaster will know what we’re talking about if you don’t.
If you don’t know what a blog is that Fred and Lyna has been referring to, it’s basically a public diary and it’s also a very hot internet strategy that’s developed over the past five years. I want to mention that one of the biggest successes that we had at Wasabi Publicity is PressKit247.com because we have so many press kits linked that we actually have a great problem. We actually rise to the number one Google, just the free stuff, just the search engine because not only like how many back links but its how many updates or how frequently you’re updating something.
That’s why blogging is so important is because people write on that three to five times a week and the PressKit247 has such a high engine ranking, not only because it’s a back link but because our publicists are online every day updating and keeping their contents fresh. Spider engines love fresh content. So any time that you upload something onto your website, the spider engines are actually like, “Okay, I’m seeing that there’s actually some activity there" and that’s a good thing. So, online is really important and the web portal strategy that Lyna brings up is also -. Gosh, that’s been really successful for our clients.
So, let’s give an example of that. So, cross pitching in the internet. So, we had a client that was doing something at the helicopter appearance and a reporter wrote her up in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That write up was the same content that the client used to get the newspaper, that article was coupled with some other materials and then sent to TV and then she got some TV placements out of that and some people just naturally saw her in print. So, the cross pitching value is you can actually use the media coverage to then go in and pitch other media.
So if you were getting local coverage then all of a sudden the national might be interested in that and especially the reverse. If you get national coverage then for sure the local people are interested in that and then, also to repurpose the same content. So if you’ve got something for a daily newspaper, think back and say, “Gosh will the same content from this client or expert or whatever this is, can I also use it for the internet? Can I use it for web portals? Can I use it for TV? Can I use it for radio?
How can I actually use what I’ve got this particular media person interested, have other media people in the same way?" But you have to just repackage it so that it fits their needs. That’s a way to really utilize placements after the fact. Well let’s go to quotes, Fred and Lyna, what about actually using positive quotes from a piece and things like that? We see it all the time in movies.
Fred Hueston: You mean as far as are we talking the copyright issue?
Michelle Tennant: No, like voted best da-da-da or critic says, critically acclaimed blah, blah, blah.
Lyna Farkas: So it’s like a testimonial.
Michelle Tennant: Yeah.
Lyna Farkas: Yeah. Testimonials can be really big. In fact, we’ve utilized that on our website and we have a lot of fun getting them, actually because that way we can see what people really think about us and we have encouraged other people to utilize any testimonials that they’ve gotten for whatever they want to do. In fact, I wanted to bring up a story about one of our guests because we thought this was pretty clever. This one guest is a pretty vivacious early 30 year old person who is creating a reality TV show and also making a book on creating this – Fred, exactly what is it that she does?
She’s renovating these -.
Fred Hueston: She does condo conversions. She takes apartment buildings and turns them into condos.
Lyna Farkas: And she’s doing it in a city where she had to actually go to the city council and change their whole way of thinking and get them to do it. And then she was creating a reality TV show based on doing this and she also created a book on how she went from having everything in her life shatter before her to becoming a millionaire within of years. And we had her as a guest on our show and she meanwhile, had been trying to pitch herself as a radio guest on a more prestigious show and she had no results at all. But once she got the mp3s from our show, she actually sent it to that radio show and they’re in negotiations now for her to be on that radio show.
Michelle Tennant: That’s incredible. I mean, that’s really what PR, you know, it’s not advertising, but boy, it is definitely a credibility builder.
Lyna Farkas: Yes, so she kind of took the concept of testimonial one step further by actually just sending this, “See I have been on media before. They do like me."
Michelle Tennant: Yes, good. Well now how about new relationships? So here you are solidifying somebody that you’ve been soliciting. That’s really you know, something that happened to that person, Lyna, but what about using it whether you’re talking about getting new clients or sales or -? I know that you and I are all believers in putting it on your email signature. I know that when our PR firm was mentioned by Good Morning America and PR Week last year. For a while there, I was putting it in our email signature, you know, “Noted by PR Week and Good Morning America blah, blah, blah." What about things like that, like forging new relationships, subtly using it as like a ‘trust me’ kind of factor?
Fred Hueston: You know I think that’s where Lyna was talking about was testimonials come into being. If you’re looking to promote yourself, promote a product or whatever, you’re looking at this purchase as “Well, what do I know about this product? What do I know about this person?" And what the testimonials will do is they actually establish some credibility, if you will. What I would like to do, though before I forget is give everybody a little tip of how to get testimonials.
Michelle Tennant: Okay.
Fred Hueston: A lot of times first of all, people are really afraid to ask for testimonials and especially if you’re dealing with a prestigious person, a celebrity or something like that, you’re going to say, “Oh they’re not going to take the time to write a testimonial." Offer to write the testimonial for them with their approval.
Michelle Tennant: A perfect tip. That’s a perfect tip and they’re often very appreciative of actually getting that work done. Most people are really willing to give you a quote or a testimonial if you have really done something great for them and that’s really, you can even do it nonchalantly in the email request to them. Say, “Thanks for being willing on the phone when we talked to do a testimonial. Here’s some topic areas we would love. Maybe here’s three samples, just to get you started if it would help. If you want to write your own, great, but I just thought I would make it easier on you ‘cause I know you’re so busy." In that kind of way and they appreciate it. They really do.
Now let’s talk about something about trade shows. This will apply to everyone, but should you put, do you plaster it up in your trade show or should you pass it out in your packet? What kinds of things should you do? You definitely share it with other media who are interested as long as it’s not a competing media venue. So, for example, the Today Show would not like to see my Good Morning America clip about a client unless it’s really dated. But if I had them on Good Morning America last week, I’m certainly not gonna shove it down the Today Show’s throat ‘cause they’re gonna like, “Oh they were on the Good Morning America last week. I don’t want them." So, cross pitch with other media as long as they’re not competing. So what about trade shows, you guys? What do you see about that?
Fred Hueston: As far as promoting your product or yourself or whatever is that what you’re asking?
Michelle Tennant: No, you’re media clips, so your media placements, so what should you do with your media placement post interview when you’re at a trade show or you’re doing a new business package?
Fred Hueston: Oh, I mean absolutely if you have permission to re-air that. I mean I would build into your trade show, if you’re displaying at the trade show, for example and put a good monitor up in your show and put it on a loop and let it play continuously.
Michelle Tennant: On the TV loop, ‘cause yeah, ‘cause people are really visually engaged and that would lead somebody to stop.
Fred Hueston: And get the traffic for that, absolutely.
Michelle Tennant: That’s a great idea. Well we have about ten more minutes in our call and I just want to pause. There might be somebody else on the call like Donna who has a question or a challenge, something that they’re dealing with that they would like for -. And listen if you’ve got something that you think is unrelated. A few times people have brought stuff up and then you’ve got a person who hasn’t even said anything has the solution and it’s been really great. So this is truly a club atmosphere where anything goes. So if it’s on topic, great; if it’s not, that’s fine, too. Is there anyone else who would like to make themselves known?
Ruth: Yeah, I have a question.
Michelle Tennant: Okay, who is this?
Ruth: This is Ruth from Las Vegas.
Michelle Tennant: Hi Ruth.
Ruth: Hey. And my question is actually related to the topic. It’s about follow up related to cross pitching. I’m big on sending notes and letters and doing follow up with media after a successful pitch has turned into a story. But my question is any special ideas for cross pitching or notifying media about other clients to sort of extend the relationship?
Michelle Tennant: That’s a great question, Ruth. Fred and Lyna, what do you think?
Lyna Farkas: Well I know we’ve actually had some publicity PR people who have approached us and pitched us with one person and then after we’ve done the interview and it was a success they’ve contacted us again to see how it went. And when they saw that we were happy with it, then they would contact us again and say, “I’ve got a few more people if you don’t mind pitching us." And we find that they keep coming back more and more and they really know what we’re looking for so they’re not wasting our time. So we find it very helpful because people in the media are always looking for ideas.
Michelle Tennant: Now do you have any preferences on how that’s done? Do you let that be an email? I know I’ve heard before that thank you cards, sometimes you send a gift, sometimes you don’t. Do you have any comments about that, Lyna?
Lyna Farkas: Well we tend to like it when people will send like if there’s an offer that they’re trying to pitch, we do like to have some kind of information, whether it’s a book that’s already written or an outline of a book or something so that we can get a little more familiar with what the subject matter’s about. Even if we’re pitched with an introduction of what they do, it’s nice to really get to the bulk of it. So, that’s how for us. We don’t necessarily need gifts or anything and otherwise, we do like the email because it’s just something we can do whenever we want to do it.
We don’t have to worry about having someone call us up and say, “Well didn’t you get this or that in the mail?" because a lot of times the mail either takes long or it doesn’t come at all. Phone calls can be bad, for us anyway, because we are not full time in what we do, but also if we were totally busy and full time in what we do, the telephone isn’t always something that we like to bothered at. So, email we find is the best way unless you are sending a book.
What you could do is send an email saying that “I do have a gentleman I’d like to pitch you and I am sending you this packet in the mail about him and I’ll follow up later to make sure you got it."
Michelle Tennant: That’s great. And Ruth, I would just add, I mean Fred might have some tidbits, too and Donna, you may even have some tidbits, but the thing that generally as a rule, if it’s TV or radio and you really want to send a gift, it’s not frowned upon and sometimes people like it, especially TV people like food, I’ve heard. I’ve been told, and it’s always been received well, however, if it’s a print journalist, especially when it’s considered high level, like the thing about radio and TV oftentimes, they’re looking for a good show and then print, they’re looking for the good, the breaking story idea.
And if they consider themselves the serious journalist –bomp, pomp, pom – they actually have a code of ethics where they cannot receive gifts. So, it’s kind of like in fact, in bad taste and taboo if you send -. Like I remember one time years ago, I sent an environmental book because I was doing an environmental campaign and it was gifted to the nonprofit I was representing and the reporter at the daily newspaper called me back and she’s like, “I can’t accept this." and I said, “Oh, well can you donate it to the library at the newspaper so that others could see it because it was actually a gift to us."
So, she’s like, “Okay, I can do that." So, you know, generally radio, TV they can accept gifts and the print, be careful about sending gifts and everybody likes a nice thank you. And I sometimes to a friend, a really close media friend, I might send an e-card, but sometimes that gets caught up in the spam filter.
Fred Hueston: Michelle, real quick, I know we’re running out of time here, to throw something else out here kind of along on the subject, too.
Michelle Tennant: We’ll be wrapping up.
Fred Hueston: And that is, let’s say you’re promoting a book, you could give that book to the TV host or whatever, but also give copies out during your interview, for free.
Michelle Tennant: Yeah, that’s the one thing that’s the no brainer, right? And we often forget to offer extra books for you to give out, right? It’s a great tip. Well I really appreciate your question, Ruth and thanks, Donna for also participating. And Fred and Lyna it’s been a pleasure. Are there any last things you’d like to say and definitely remind people how they can reach you or pitch you?
Fred Hueston: Well the last thing I’d like to say is go to our website and do our show. It’s GrowingYourBusiness.net.
Michelle Tennant: Great. Lyna, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Lyna Farkas: Right and if you can’t get to the show which it airs Monday night at 8:00 Eastern time, we do have podcasts and archives on.
Michelle Tennant: And are your email addresses at GrowingYourBusiness.net in case people wanted to email you directly?
Fred Hueston: The best way to get a hold of us it to email us at gyb, which stands for Growing Your Business, gybradio@gmail.com.
Michelle Tennant: G-Y-B radio at G mail dot com.
Fred Hueston: Correct.
Michelle Tennant: Okay, great and of course you all know how to reach me. I’m Michelle, Michelle, two L’s. Michelle@PublicityResults.com and check out our websites, publicityresults.com and if you’re needing great tools PressKit247.com. Thanks everyone and remember the Wasabi Club will be here again the last Wednesday of next month at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Look for the newsletter for the topic and I think the date of that is going to be September 26th. So I’ll see everyone there. And a copy of this recording will be available next week. Goodbye everyone.
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