Mickie Kennedy - eReleases On Good PR: "Every time you're getting ready to issue a press release that you feel is meaningful to you, think about how can I make it meaningful for that audience person, making them want to read it, make it easier for a journalist to say, yeah, I think my audience would love to hear that." When a woman starts a business and/ or becomes successful, often she does this with pain that has been quelling in her for years. As an entrepreneur, we push through pain, but eventually it may be time to address Advertising is expensive and doesn't always move the needle. Marketing as a whole has many options, and PR is one of them. You see, sharing a press release is taking the steps to get your business out of the paid world of eyeballs and into the world of eyeballs that pay to see you. That is a much better place to be. But how do you get in the news? What are the rules of the game for writing and sending these press releases, and who do you send them to? Mickie Kennedy has eReleases, a press release company that caters to the small business that wants to grow, knows the value of press releases, yet has no idea where to start and certainly doesn't have the connections in the journalism world to Enjoy! Visit Mickie at: https://www.ereleases.com/ Sponsors: Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, phone answering for small businesses: https://callsoncall.com Some videos have been recorded with Riverside: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=james-kademan Podcast Overview: 00:00 Improving media strategy overnight 06:10 Basics of a Press Release 07:18 How journalists find stories 13:22 Exploiting AI with press releases 16:00 Challenges with AI in literary writing 18:50 Crafting impactful press quotes 23:43 Media consumption through newswires 27:26 Journalists adapting to digital changes 29:29 AI in Journalism: Current Challenges 32:26 Importance of trade publications 35:59 Choosing the right PR firm 39:40 Turning losses into profits 45:00 Media headlines and interpretations 47:02 Discussing marketing and clickbait headlines 51:12 Getting meaningful survey responses 54:15 Being the contrarian in your industry Podcast Transcription: Mickie Kennedy [00:00:00]: We work with all different types of verticals. We work with authors, used to be mostly self-published authors, but over the past, I would say, 12 to 14 years, we work with a lot of traditionally published authors as well. You know, everything under the sun. We work with a lot of people who appear on Shark Tank, people doing side businesses, hoping that it'll turn into something. Everybody's out there trying to get a little attention and find a way in which they can make press releases work for them. James Kademan [00:00:25]: What is a press release? A press release? Mickie Kennedy [00:00:27]: Basically, it's an announcement to the media. I always tell people, if you are looking to work for— with a PR firm, you want to make sure that you choose one that is in your industry. The biggest mistake that I see and the most amount of money that I've seen people waste is working with a local PR firm thinking that that was the way to go when they should have chosen a PR firm that focused on their industry. James Kademan [00:00:55]: You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found on the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, Calls on Call Extraordinary Answering Service, as well as the Bold Business Book. And today we're welcoming slash preparing to learn from Mickey Kennedy of eReleases. Mickey, how is it going today? Mickie Kennedy [00:01:23]: Good, good. James Kademan [00:01:25]: Excellent. And tell me, we're talking about press releases for businesses, is that right? Mickie Kennedy [00:01:31]: That's correct, yes. James Kademan [00:01:32]: All right, tell me a story. What is eReleases? Mickie Kennedy [00:01:36]: So, uh, we are a press release distribution company. We send releases out over PR Newswire, which is the oldest and national press release newswire here in the United States. It's basically a duopoly, PR Newswire, then Business Wire. And we have been in business since 1998. We send out about a little over 10,000 press releases a year, giving mostly small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups access to the Wire at a huge discount because the Wire charges about $2,000 for a national press release going out of 600 words or so. And with us, it's about a third of that price. Wow. James Kademan [00:02:17]: All right. And how— tell me about the discount. How were you able to pull that off? Mickie Kennedy [00:02:23]: Because when they reached out to us years ago, they were really trying to promote like a city distribution. And I'm like, well, my clients are really looking for national media attention. And we kept communicating and I went and met their editorial team. And the one thing I noticed is They have an editorial team overnight, but they don't do much, they said. They said, we have to be there in case there's breaking news or, you know, something happens. And I was just like, well, what if I set up all my press releases for next business day so you could set them up overnight? Wouldn't cost you any additional labor. And they also looked at my customer profile, which is really small businesses, mostly people whose budgets are $2,000 or $3,000 a year. their salespeople would not reach out or want to recruit any customers like that. Mickie Kennedy [00:03:13]: They're going for Fortune 500 companies. They're looking for people who are spending $20,000 to $40,000 a year. So in that way, it was just found money for them. And doing 10,000+ releases a year, it's still a significant amount of money that we're sending them, but it is a huge discount. And, you know, some of our customers do graduate and become much larger, and then we just introduce them directly to PR Newswire and they can work directly with them. James Kademan [00:03:40]: Sure. I suppose if the PR actually works the way a business owner wants it to work, then we hope they graduate up. Mickie Kennedy [00:03:46]: Yeah, absolutely. James Kademan [00:03:48]: Right on. Is there a certain vertical of industry that you typically work with? Mickie Kennedy [00:03:52]: We work with all different types of verticals. We work with authors, used to be mostly self-published authors, but over the past, I would say, 12 to 14 years, we work with a lot of traditionally published authors as well. Seems like the publishers aren't doing marketing anymore, even for established presses and publishers that you've heard of. And so, you know, everything under the sun. We work with a lot of people who appear on Shark Tank. The producers recommend that they do a press release before their episode airs, and we get mentioned quite a bit as a good place for them to send their releases. And so, you know, I think that everything under the sun is who we work with. You know, people doing side businesses, hoping that it'll turn into something. Mickie Kennedy [00:04:39]: You know, people who have small businesses that might have 20 or 30 employees. Employees or even more mid-sized companies moving from there. But I would say it's a pretty mix across all different types of industries. We see everything from technology to, like, you know, waste management to, you know, really, you know, a local carpet company in New Jersey. So everybody's out there trying to, you know, get a little attention and find a way in which they can make press releases work for them. James Kademan [00:05:09]: Sure. How do people end up— or business owners, I should say— how do they end up finding you? Mickie Kennedy [00:05:15]: So a lot of it is either word of mouth or they're doing searches. And, you know, they'll come across us as maybe a blog post that we've written. We've been in business for a long time, so we have over 1,000 articles out there. We also advertise on Google and some other places. But I think You know, I would say probably half of all new customers are just direct referrals. And so someone has suggested they give us a try and, you know, they reach out to us. It's more consultative because a lot of people don't know how it works. So they'll either call and speak to one of our editors or chat or email with us. Mickie Kennedy [00:05:56]: And we walk people through their first press release and their first PR campaign on a a weekly basis. James Kademan [00:06:03]: Sure. Let's lay down the foundation of press releases just so that people understand. What is a press release? Mickie Kennedy [00:06:10]: Basically, it's an announcement to the media. It's usually written in the third person. If you're writing in the first person, it's usually a quote, a company quote, or someone being quoted in, in the press release. They're generally— you've probably seen they say for immediate release at the top. They might have a dateline with the city, state, and the date of distribution. And there's usually a media contact towards the bottom, someone that the media could contact if they have more questions or if they need something a little more specific, like, hey, I really like this, but I'd like to get a quote around this topic, you know, and do you feel like that would be a good fit? So, you know, that's what it is. It's a lot of these just go out on a regular basis. Publicly traded companies have to issue these types of things just to keep their public informed about it so that investors don't feel like they're, you know, something happens that's significant and they weren't notified or given some kind of,...
