Watch this Week’s PR Tip:
Is the old adage true that any publicity is good publicity? I say, “YES!!!” Let’s keep this in perspective though… if you’re company has done something terrible or the CEO has been arrested, that’s different from what I’m discussing here. What I mean is that just because someone doesn’t agree with you or someone has a differing opinion, doesn’t mean that everyone will feel that way. You could find people who disagree with the journalist and actually agree with you.
PUBLIC RELATIONS EXAMPLE
When I launched CastMedic Designs, I jumped the gun a bit and sent a pitch out with pictures from the prototypes (I didn’t have any real photos yet). I was so excited when I heard back from Refinery 29 that they were going to feature my product. If you don’t know this blog, it’s a very highly ranked fashion blog and this was going to be tremendous for the business. Then, the article came out. And it was horrible!!! Talk about bad publicity. You can read it HERE.
It still hurts, almost ten years later. All of this being said, this awful article actually made me a ton of money. I can see on Google Analytics who clicked through from that article and bought my product. So just because I got “bad” publicity and someone didn’t like my product, it doesn’t mean that everyone who reads the article isn’t going to like it too. People saw the pictures and were drawn to it and went to the website and purchased. Remember, at the end of the day, the goal of publicity is to attract new clients or customers.
PUBLIC RELATIONS PLAN
Having a public relations plan in place is important for your success. My proven formula is 3 steps:
- Be Newsworthy
- Create Great Hooks
- Find the Right Journalist
Having all three of these in place will put you light years ahead of your competition. You can watch this video to learn more about the formula. You just need to come up with a newsworthy idea that’s valuable to the media outlet’s audience. You need to “hook” them in. And you need to find the right journalist (you don’t want to send your business pitch to the food editor.)
By doing your homework, you will increase your chance of getting a “Yes” exponentially.
At the end of the day, don’t be afraid of “bad publicity” when you’re pitching. You can’t afford NOT to be pitching the media because the return on your time investment is invaluable. As I’ve shown you, any publicity is good publicity so pitch away using the proven Get PR Famous formula.
Want more? Click below to schedule a call, www.chatwithchristina.com
Transcript
Hi everybody. It’s Christina Daves with this weeks Free Publicity Friday PR Tip. This week I want to talk about how any publicity is good publicity and you might think, “Oh no Christina that can’t be possible.” But it is because you have to remember that different people are going to view this differently.
I love to share this example because it really changed my whole feeling on even bad publicity. So I made a very strategic mistake when I first launched CastMedic Designs and if you’re not familiar with me, I created a fashion line for medical boots. And I tried to get publicity before the product actually launched so I sent in prototype pictures. They weren’t even the real thing. They were kind of cut-out pictures on medical boots. And I got covered by Refinery29. And if you all know that, that’s a huge blog with a huge following and they trashed me. They said it was a great idea, but my designs were, ready… this is my kick in the stomach… “tweens meet Michaels.”
I was devastated, until my sales started coming in until I looked at Google analytics and I made over ten thousand dollars that first week from the “bad publicity” I got. Because just because that writer didn’t like what I was doing and didn’t like my designs didn’t mean that somebody who read that article didn’t like it and didn’t buy the product. So yes, not all, I mean all publicity is good publicity and you’ve got to wrap your head around that and think about how you can spin, if you do get something like that, a bad review or something. How can you turn that into a positive? So that is this week’s Publicity Tip.