The Power of PR to Boost a Startup with Amy Jackson, TaleSplash: Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking PR (Public Relations) for startups with Amy Jackson. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Strategic Counsel Summary
• Transcript

Strategic Counsel: The Power of PR to Boost a Startup with Amy Jackson, TaleSplash

PR (Public Relations) has the power to drive awareness, reputation, and credibility for your startup. How do you make it all work? In this episode, we cover it all – from hiring a PR firm, to gaining traction, to leveraging influencers. We wanted you to learn from a thought leader in the world of PR, so we welcomed on Amy Jackson. She’s the Founder & CEO of TaleSplash, who builds PR programs for founders & innovative brands by engineering a strategy that actually works. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• Why is PR so powerful for startups?
• What are the most compelling business proof points to share?
• What’s the benefit of working with an PR agency?
• What are the best ways to dip your toe in PR if going without an agency?
• What role does influencer marketing play in PR strategy?
• How do you introduce a client to PR?
• What’s the most important thing to consider if you DIY your own PR?

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• The Power of PR to Boost a Startup with Amy Jackson, TaleSplash
  • [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [2:50] If you want to kick off a PR program, check out TaleSplash.com and follow on Instagram and LinkedIn
  • [5:09] Why is PR so powerful for startups?
  • [6:55] How to tackle features for you or your company?
  • [12:47] What’s the most important thing to consider if you DIY your own PR?
  • [15:25] What are the business proof points that we can share?
  • [18:15] Why not get the built-in SEO juice (Search Engine Optimization) of a national publication, right?
  • [21:55] When do you actually need to do a press release?
  • [26:10] How do you introduce a client to PR?
  • [28:43] Tactics for speaker submissions at South by Southwest (SXSW)
  • [31:52] What’s the benefit of working with an PR agency?
  • [33:18] Why can’t I just do the advertising piece?
  • [34:35] What are the benefits of a well-written feature?
  • [36:27] What is TaleSplash’s mindset as a PR agency?
  • [39:46] What are the best ways to dip your toe in PR if going without an agency?
  • [42:32] What role does influencer marketing play in PR strategy?
  • [48:53] Is there any additional advice that you would give people in order to be as successful as possible? Or any additional watch-outs of where you’ve seen it go bad very quickly?
  • Quick-Fire Questions
  • [50:17] What does Amy want for Christmas if she could have anything?
  • [50:40] What’s her favorite meal?
  • [50:45] What’s her guilty pleasure?
  • [51:37] If you want to kick off a PR program, check out TaleSplash.com and follow on Instagram and LinkedIn
  • [52:03] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • [52:06] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

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00:01

Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team, and your business. Now let’s get to it.

 

00:29

Welcome to the Strategic Counsel Podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re gonna talk about one of my favorite topics, which is PR or public relations. Yeah, so you all know how passionate she is about this. Well, I mean, I did spend several years doing PR and I feel like it’s our constant state of where we are today as a business and as people within a business anyway. So we did do a Marketing Smarts episode.

 

00:57

It’s been a long time ago now, which is four key components of a successful PR campaign. But that’s in our archives, so if you want more and dig into more of the mechanics of PR and especially campaigns, and frankly, who wouldn’t? So you think again. Yeah, well, I think everybody should understand PR campaigns. You could definitely go find that. But since PR is a topic that is consistently shifting with the landscape, we thought it was way overdue to have this conversation again.

 

01:26

And within this though, we’re going to really kind of concentrate on focus on startups and the power PR to drive awareness, reputation and credibility. These are really important attributes to get your startup off the ground and building traction, but securing coverage, especially when you’re new, is no easy feat. And especially in this current landscape where publications are consolidating, they’re folding left and right, staff is significantly diminished, they’re wearing

 

01:55

multiple categories and a lot of the coverage has moved to digital. So we’re going to talk a lot about that today. Yes, and that means getting people to see your coverage can become another challenge as people scroll through their email and their social feeds for what’s grabbing their interest, where we all know it used to be that getting the mention in high priority publications like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, for example, was enough. But

 

02:21

Unfortunately, gone are the days where people are religiously reading those publications as part of their morning routine. Now, that doesn’t mean that coverage in those publications isn’t coveted. It totally still is. But now the challenge is ensuring that the mention captures interest as people are scrolling versus the concentrated review of those printed publications, for example. And I’m really hoping other people kind of pick them up and it all starts to kind of catch fire. So we have a really f***ing

 

02:50

phenomenal guests to help with this conversation. Cause what’s better than one PR person? Two. Two PR people. Two to one April too. April you participate where you can. But that is Amy Jackson of TaleSplash. And so Amy, it’s great to have you. Would you like to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your story? Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve been in PR my whole career in many different roles.

 

03:17

I started out working for a large global agency. And then that was in the food industry, which was an exciting time. It was the era of low carb diets. So we were helping potato farmers navigate that. And then I moved over to Silicon Valley and worked with tech startups for a long time. And I ended up in a corporate role for 10 years working inside of a company, which is a very different experience in PR than working for an agency.

 

03:46

And after doing that for a decade, I decided to create my own agency. And that was coming out of the pandemic when news really became real time, because all of us were trying to make sense of what was changing in the world by getting updates from the news and, you know, trying to figure out how the world’s problems would be solved. So that’s when tale splash was born. And ever since we’ve helped.

 

04:12

Innovators across health, tech and lifestyle share their solutions to common challenges in business and in life. And we’re now a team of nine and we really love helping new brands get their name out there using, you know, different types of tactics. So happy to share more. That’s awesome. And just for all you guys are listening, even though we might use examples that are.

 

04:40

more in the health and the tech space. This applies broadly to any startup. And frankly, even just business people in general listening to this, you’re gonna get nuggets that are gonna be very helpful for whatever business you’re in. So we’ll try to make some bridges where we feel like it extends, but just when you’re hearing these examples, just think about it through the eyes and the filters of your own business. So, Amy, let’s go ahead and get this kicked off with…

 

05:09

Why is PR so powerful for startups? Generally, when companies are starting up and little businesses are starting up, they think about a lot of things we don’t necessarily think about PR in order to be a pivotal communications channel, a pivotal way of really building that awareness, reputation, and credibility. So can you speak a little bit more to that? Yeah, PR’s particularly effective and impactful for new companies or…

 

05:38

If you’re an expert in your field and you’re trying it for the first time, just the fact that you’re new to a journalist is an asset. So journalists are often in the business of writing about news, right? What’s new, who can help make sense of something that’s happening in the world. So you really have an advantage if you are a new business to get covered by the media, and there’s lots of different ways you can do that.

 

06:06

One is if you are an expert, you can simply offer your advice, your commentary to journalists that are asking for it. And there’s different platforms and newsletters and social media channels that journalists use to find experts that they can quote in their stories that they’re working on. And they’re often on tight deadlines. So they really appreciate it if you’re available on short notice to give some, some good advice. And then the other is if you have a product and it’s new,

 

06:33

you can make it available to journalists to review. And that’s often how newer brands get covered is being part of a roundup of different products or services in your category. So it’s not always about just you and your product or your service, but it’s you as part of a roundup of advice or products.

 

06:55

Well, and I think that that is really interesting. And even though we made jokes about me and PR at the beginning, I was really excited about this episode and taking the startup lens. And so I love the idea of, and I’m paraphrasing what you said, but turning it on its head a bit. And when we talk about those features, right, that was you featured or your company featured just you.

 

07:17

in those different spaces. And so the idea now of being able to plug in among others, or like you said, as the expert, or one of the experts of many, I think that’s great advice, especially for people that are just starting out, because it can be less overwhelming. Like Ann said, we think about all these things when we’re starting a business. We don’t necessarily think about PR. But I think for folks like me, where it’s not in my background, I didn’t ever do that as my job, I wouldn’t even know.

 

07:46

what that would look like, let alone feel like I could tackle the way we used to do it, quote unquote, right? So I would love if you could give a couple examples for people of just like walk us through what this looks like, so that it really takes hold like, you know, where are some examples of this or if we need to ground it in one of the industries we introduced? I’ll turn it back over to you.

 

08:08

Yeah. Yeah. So I mentioned there’s platforms that exist now for journalists to connect with sources or to request products to review. And those of us that have been around for a while may remember, you know, a newsletter that came out three times a day that everybody, you know, subscribed to that no longer exists, but there’s like better versions of that. So you don’t have to read through a newsletter three times a day, especially when you’re a founder, you don’t have time for that. Right. So

 

08:37

Now there’s more AI powered platforms. A couple of our favorites are Quoted, Q-W-O-T-E-D. That’s a great platform really for experts. So you could be somebody in the medical profession, you could be a financial advisor, you could be a marketing expert. It really is a range of topics and expertise that journalists are looking for on Quoted.

 

09:02

If you have a product, there’s a great platform called Press Hook. And that is where journalists go to actually request products to be shipped to them free of charge, uh, so that they can review them for stories that they’re working on. And that’s something that’s really popular around gifting and gift guides in particular, but it could be for household products. It can be for, you know, health beauty, things that are evergreen and not necessarily just relevant during the gifting seasons. Yeah. I think those are really

 

09:30

Like so much more easily accessible now because the traditional method would be, and I know you guys still do this and we’re going to talk about this in a little bit, is you have to know all the journalists. You had to build relationships with the journalists. You had then to have your pitch ready and be able to go in and then you would hope for at least some sort of mention on the worst case scenario, a good mention too. And on the best case scenario, you’re hoping for a piece that’s

 

09:56

about you. And I think those are still something or some expectations are still ingrained when people think about, I want to go get coverage on whatever I’m selling. And I think what’s really, really important for people to realize and why what Amy is saying is so important is that as a founder of a startup, you are your business for a very long time. And so you represent whether or not somebody should believe your business, whether or not they should.

 

10:24

think that your business has any credibility, whether or not they should even try it, whether you’re a service or a product. And so being able just to get your name out there and associated with higher profile, dare we say more popular publications, people or whatever others trust, helps to build your credibility by association. And so now it’s so much easier to be able to

 

10:52

contribute in a way that you couldn’t before. And so maybe Amy, you could speak a little bit how maybe things have been shifting and how this landscape looks different and how people are really now internalizing some of this coverage, which is totally different than how people traditionally have thought about coverage. Yeah, there’s different ways that publications operate depending on what their focus is, who their audience is. So the…

 

11:20

original formula of creating a press release and sending it out over the wire, sending it to journalists, that’s still relevant. It’s just not necessary for everything you have to share. You don’t have to do that for every announcement. You can save that for the significant company milestones that you have. And certain types of publications will use press releases still to this day. So trade publications are a great example of that.

 

11:48

The publications that cover the business that you are in, they appreciate press releases because they don’t have the staff to write original stories all day long. And so they actually will take a press release and run it pretty much as is because they’re in the business of covering industry news. So they need to be up to date on what companies are doing in their space. And they appreciate having that content ready to go. Whereas if you compare and contrast that with a major newspaper or national broadcast outlet,

 

12:18

it’s much more likely that you would be featured alongside other companies, other products as part of a roundup story. So it’s less likely that your news you’re sharing with the world is going to be the focus of the story in a major newspaper or a major broadcast outlet. So it just depends on what it is that you have to share or announce and what the focus of that publication is that you’re pitching.

 

12:47

Those sorts of nuances are something that PR professionals know inside and out and can help you navigate. But if you’re just trying to kind of DIY your own PR, the most important thing you can think about is what is the focus of the publication that I’m pitching? Who do they write for? Do they write for a consumer audience? Do they write for a business audience? And that’ll dictate what makes sense in terms of how you’re packaging up your news.

 

13:15

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s all really good. And the audience piece, I think, is so fundamentally important, right? I’ll be the brand police maybe on this episode since I’m not the PR. I’m not gonna say a role. We’ll give you that role. That’s fine. But as you were saying that piece about like thinking about who they’re targeting, the thing that we always talk about is getting really clear on your brand alongside any of the tools you’re going to use to put yourself out there.

 

13:42

And part of that is knowing your own audience, right? And how you’re going to speak in terms of what they’re looking for. But I think in this case, it’s also really important to make sure that you understand when you’re going to these platforms or partners or building relationships with journalists, who their target is and what they’re looking for. And so I assume it’s doing the research to kind of understand who are they looking at and then also for yourself.

 

14:08

from the brand perspective, seeking out ones where that matches up. Or it can be complimentary so that you’re serving the audience together or serving multiple audiences, but making sure that yours is in there as well so that it feels authentic to who you are and what product service, whatever you’re selling, as well as comes through authentically when it comes out the other side of the publication. Is that fair?

 

14:34

Absolutely. I’m a big believer in the role of brand strategy in any, you know, advanced PR effort because you really do want to think about what are the different channels, who are the audiences that we’re going to reach with each of these channels and then taleoring a strategy accordingly. And this is something we do for our clients. We’ll look at, you know, each quarter, 90 days at a time, what are the different

 

15:01

new cycles that we can anticipate. You can’t anticipate all of them. Sometimes new cycles sneak up on you, but throughout the year you can kind of forecast what’s going to be talked about. In January, we know everybody’s thinking about healthy New Year’s resolutions or planning for the year ahead. So those kinds of topics we can anticipate will happen and come around. So we do that for each quarter with our clients. We look at

 

15:25

What are the things that we know will be in the news that we can offer expertise or products for? And then what are the company milestones that we can, you know, pitch to more of the trade publications in your space? What are the business proof points that we can share? And so just making sure we have a mix of different things in every quarter is a good way to think about PR, just like you would with any sort of, you know, brand strategy or marketing effort.

 

15:54

And I think it’s really important just to kind of address the elephant in the room, because I can imagine a lot of people are listening to this and feeling like, well, that doesn’t sound very exciting, right? Because it’s a longer tale thing generally, where if you’re going to put money into Google ads, or you’re putting your money into SEO, you’re putting your money into social, that has a much more immediate gratification on

 

16:19

engagements and those sorts of things, even though those also have a longer tale to actually generating revenue and all those sorts of things. And so what I want to like everybody to kind of hear is that the effort that you put into this has a very significant ROI because even if you don’t think, oh, it’s very exciting, maybe to be part of a roundup of other products, and all of us who are in the PR world think that’s actually very exciting, just so you guys know. But if you

 

16:48

The things that should get you excited about really putting some effort behind this are one, SEO, like I just mentioned. If you’re pumping money into SEO, one of the best ways of being discovered is when somebody searches for topics that are of interest to them, your name pops up. Your name pops up in association with something that you said in a credible source, gives you like five gold stars compared to something that’s just a random mention on your website. So that should make you feel very excited.

 

17:16

The fact that a lot of this is very cost effective, if not free, should make you very excited. So these things that like, the effort for the ROI that actually kind of comes back is actually very much in a realm that I think is under appreciated. So maybe Amy, you could speak a little bit to this. And also, you know, the context a lot of people have about earned versus paid too, because I think a lot of people feel like you have to pay for everything nowadays.

 

17:46

And I think to some extent that’s true, but I think to some extent, there’s still a lot of opportunity to get your word out, to get your voice out, to build your reputation without investing a ton of money. That’s right. Yeah. So it’s definitely a long game and it builds over time. And every time you get featured in a trusted publication, that’s going to be something that ranks highly when somebody is Googling around to find a product or service like yours.

 

18:15

And so rather than you having to be solely responsible for SEO, why not get the built-in SEO juice of a national publication, right? So that’s going to be a top search result that pops up. And if you’re featured there, you know, you’re getting a lot more bang for your buck when it comes to SEO. If you look at social, when you share the coverage that you get in social media, that gets a lot of engagement in itself. So,

 

18:44

It’s less about the loyal readers or subscribers or listeners of a particular outlet or a podcast, but rather when you share it in social, you’re getting additional reach and eyeballs and engagement. And in social media, those are your most loyal followers and fans, right? So they’re going to be excited when they see that you’ve been featured somewhere. One of my favorite things is to share podcasts because people get really excited when they see that you’ve been on a podcast. They

 

19:13

watch it or listen to it. And they don’t have to be somebody that regularly subscribes to that podcast. They’re seeing it and getting excited about it because you’re sharing it in social media. And it’s the same for news outlets themselves. They have big social media following. So if they’re sharing the article on their own social media channels, that’s another way that this story or the reach of the coverage is getting multiplied. And so there are all these layers that come with

 

19:42

a PR effort and that every piece of coverage you get has the opportunity to be amplified through SEO, through social. You can share it on your website, on your home page. If people see that you’ve been featured in trusted publications that add some legitimacy when they’re doing their due diligence on you, on your website, or on your social profiles. So it’s just something that you can leverage and expand upon.

 

20:10

above and beyond, you know, who’s reading it or coming across it on their own. And so there’s really this multiplying effect to any sort of PR effort. And in terms of paid versus earned, you know, earned media is still very much what we focus on at tale Splash. We do have clients that are interested in exploring paid opportunities.

 

20:34

And sometimes it makes sense if it’s, you know, squarely reaching the audience that matters to you. If it’s really targeted, then it might make sense to pay for it, to pay for the opportunity to contribute an article that you control, you know, the messaging. You get to write it from scratch and, you know, get it featured on a publication that has the right audience and that built in SEO or events. Events are something that makes sense to consider.

 

21:02

paying to sponsor because with that you have a presence at an event that makes sense for you to be at and maybe it’s hosted by a media outlet and that’s a great way to build the relationship with them. So there can be situations where it makes sense to pay for, you know, a certain audience that comes along with the media outlet, but for the most part, you know, when we’re supporting our clients, they are paying us so that we can help them get featured in those publications and it’s just

 

21:31

the time it takes to do that, the tech stack that we have built to do that. And that’s really what, you know, is a more predictable cost than if you’re paying for ads or something like that. Well, and I think this is the part about PR that I find interesting and exciting now is the legs that this stuff can take on.

 

21:55

You know, we talked about the press release and I appreciate what you said that there’s still places that use that, right? But not coming from a PR background, I felt like every one of my clients on the agency side it was like, well, we have this new thing. Well, we need a press release. Like every time it was like a knee jerk, right? But now I think the authenticity plus the reach that happens when you’re able to put these things out there does have tremendous impact. And it isn’t…

 

22:22

so hard and doesn’t necessarily take so much time, right? And so I’ll use us as an example. You said podcasts, right? I mean, one of the primary reasons we have this podcast is to be thought leaders and to bring on other thought leaders to have conversations that can educate people or strategically counsel people as we like to say.

 

22:41

But I mean, we know that every time we have a guest on, right, those episodes reach so many more people because the guest that’s on the show is also putting that out there. And then even better when somebody else shares it or we share it on multiple of our pages, our business and our personal. And so I hope or would like to think that instead of being intimidated by all of this, people can hear this and feel some relief that it is worth the investment, first of all.

 

23:10

I think from the brand side, I always love when I see it because it feels that much more authentic, especially when someone else is speaking on your behalf or sharing it or whatever, but also that there’s lots of ways to do it where it doesn’t have to be so difficult for you. And then I also think what you said, Amy, about the clients paying you is it does make it nice when people tap into resources like that, if they’re feeling overwhelmed by what we’re talking about here, or even just to kind of like…

 

23:38

get started so that they have the guiding force and that it doesn’t have to be so expensive in order to do that and that it’s accessible to startups. Yeah, yeah, the costs to hire PR support have really come down because of the different platforms that make it easier to connect to journalists in the moments that they’re looking for you. That has really helped just minimums of agencies become.

 

24:05

much more realistic as a startup or a founder to invest in. When I started out in the beginning of my career, we were physically mailing press kits. We didn’t have emails for reporters necessarily. Sometimes it was like the newsroom had one email inbox. It was a lot harder. We had to get on the phone and call reporters throughout the day. So.

 

24:31

things were just less efficient and it’s only gotten better in terms of, you know, the finding the right reporters that make sense for any given brand to engage with finding podcasts too has gotten much more efficient. And so all of this is just helping PR professionals be more effective at the work they’re doing for clients.

 

24:52

or for the companies that they work for. And so it brings the costs down and you can still get results, you know, by starting out with PR for the first time. It’s not what it used to be where you, you know, really had to be a large company with a significant marketing budget in order to try out PR. Yeah, and I think that helps people really entertain it as part of their whole

 

25:21

promotional sales, that strategy that they have, especially as a startup business. And so I think the point that you made is a really good one because there is an art to the PR as much as there is a tangible way of going and to securing it. And we’ve kind of talked a little bit about the nuances that are necessary in order to be able to.

 

25:48

have something worthy of being covered, right? So I know as an agency, you guys, like you’re living it day to day and being able to connect those things together is such an important part of all of this and making it work. So maybe you could, if you could take a, take us through a little bit of what that process looks like. How do you introduce a client to PR? How do you walk them through the point of

 

26:17

Hey, I’m brand new to, hey, I got this piece of coverage. And then maybe highlight a little bit of the impact that it’s had for some of the businesses you’ve worked on. Yeah, I’ll start there because that’s really an exciting moment for us as an agency when we have a client actually have like real tangible business results that come from PR. So I’ll share a couple of examples and then I’ll kind of reverse engineer how we got to those outcomes.

 

26:47

So in one instance, we’ve had a client that has announced several new partnerships or customers integrations. They’re a SaaS provider in the dental industry. And, you know, we do this on a pretty regular basis. We’ve had several announcements and it makes sense because the trade publications, again, appreciate having a press release that they can run. And it’s also led to other opportunities like podcasts and reviews or.

 

27:16

trends in the new year. That’s a new cycle right now is predictions for the year ahead. So it leads to some of those opportunities as well when we make announcements. But one of the exciting outcomes of that was that they had significant leads come in from a press release. And it’s hard to predict which announcements, which pitches, which stories will lead to actual revenue growth opportunities. But in this case, they had

 

27:45

a dozen opportunities come their way from an announcement. So that was really exciting. And in another instance, we helped a client of ours get recognized with an award for being a beauty product that was recognized by Self. So Self Magazine puts out their Healthy Beauty Awards. And that led to an opportunity where they were featured as part of Small Business Saturday on Good Morning America over the weekend.

 

28:13

And so sometimes things build on each other where you receive an award that leads to coverage. You receive coverage that leads to an award. Like it can go both ways. And that’s something that we help our clients do too is apply to speak at conferences, apply for awards. So we’ve had two clients get selected to speak during South by Southwest next year. And part of the way that came to be is by really understanding what the organizers want.

 

28:43

from speaker submissions. And so because we’re here in Austin, we’ve had the opportunity to really educate ourselves. You know, even after attending South by Southwest for almost 10 years now, there’s still more to learn about what are the emerging categories that they’re featuring at the conference? Where do they have an overwhelming number of submissions versus where do they need more submissions? What formats are they looking for? So just taking the time to learn that.

 

29:11

led to securing two speaking engagements for our clients at South by Southwest in 2025. So in each of these situations, these were not overnight successes. These were things that took time, but by taking the time to understand what either journalists or podcast producers or conference organizers are looking for, and then taking the time to put together

 

29:39

you know, interesting ideas for speakers or articles over time that has resulted in some really exciting outcomes for our clients. And then as far as the process goes. Yes. So the process for all of those is basically having, you know, regular outreach to journalists and it doesn’t always have to be a press release. It can be just a pitch where we’re saying we’re sending an email to reporters that cover the space they’re in.

 

30:08

and saying, you know, here’s something that you’re writing about that they can speak to you about. So if it’s, let’s say in the AI space, you know, every time there is news around regulation of AI, we’ve reached out to journalists to tell them, hey, are clients available to talk to you about this if you’re interested? And oh, by the way, they have some data that they’ve uncovered about this that helps you with the stories that you’re writing.

 

30:37

So for all of our clients, we’re doing this on a regular basis. And that is often what leads to these types of outcomes is because they’ve heard from us over and over and over, eventually something clicks. So in the example of press releases, every press release you put out isn’t necessarily going to get widely covered. But sometimes it will just be the right moment for a journalist to take notice.

 

31:06

maybe there’s something timely about it. Maybe if it’s funding news, for example, funding news tends to get a lot of interest from reporters that specifically cover funding. So it just depends on what is going to get a reporter’s attention in that moment. And that’s why we are constantly reaching out to them with new angles, new ideas, news that we have to share, but making

 

31:35

as much about them and what they cover as it is about the announcements that we have to share. Well, and what I’m hearing here is, you know, and you mentioned the art part before and we’ve talked the relationships all throughout. And so it feels like this is

 

31:52

because you’re so in it, you have the relationships with folks, but then on the other side of that, it’s being choiceful and strategic about what you’re putting in front of them on behalf of your clients so that you have the credibility that you’re answering the right asks for them, not just blanket like, okay, here’s our whole book of clients and here’s the things that they have to be covered, right? And so this is the benefit that comes from having people that are both in front of them all the time, but then also have the reputation behind your own company.

 

32:20

that you’re going to bring the right things that they need and that are going to help them do their job. Is that fair? That’s right. Journalists care more about the quality of what you’re bringing to them than they care about, if you’re buddies and you go to coffee on a regular basis. It’s more important that you’re a dependable source of good information and that you follow through and that you get them what they need because they’re on deadline. And so the last thing that they wanted

 

32:48

be stuck with is scrambling to find a new source because somebody fell through it, didn’t get them what they needed on time. So a lot of times it’s just keeping track of what a journalist needs by one, getting it from your client, getting it back to the journalist, making sure that you follow through to see if they have everything they need. Like that is often what it’s about. And if you do that, well, then you are maintaining good relationships.

 

33:18

And I think there’s two really important points that I want to call out based on what you’re saying, Amy. One is, I know because I’ve lived in this world too, a lot of people are like, why don’t I just do the advertising piece? That seems a whole lot easier. I could just say what I want to say, put it out there. It’s going to get to the same people, right? Baby, it is theoretically. So why should I go through all of this effort?

 

33:43

What I like to always put in people’s minds is this idea of credibility again, especially when you’re new, especially when you’re starting up and the need of other voices being able to reinforce the message that you are putting out there in a way that’s coming from not you, frankly, because you’re not a proven source or resource yet. And so being able to have that is a lot, it takes work in order to craft it in a way that makes sense because.

 

34:13

As you just said, and then April reinforced, this is about the quality of the content that’s coming. So it’s based on knowledge, expertise, insight. It’s not just here’s my product and you should love my product, right? Even though my product is the best thing since sliced bread, they’ve heard all that before, right? So they’re looking for the new insight, the new knowledge, the new expertise, the new angle.

 

34:35

of what it’s going to take in order to really have something of value to them. Because remember, that’s how they get rewarded. So these journalists get rewarded by having and by expressing value that makes their publication popular, that makes their publication credible. So it’s a fortuitous cycle and you have to play in that cycle. But the dividends it pays back by being able to have that and being able to have that credible source speak on your behalf.

 

35:03

it can outweigh advertising extensively, right? Just like how you said, a press release, a well-written press release connected to the right target through the right publication can actually generate leads. Right? And so there is a lot to that and it continues to pay back because other people then see that and they become interested. A lot of people don’t pick up advertising and be like, oh, that’s interesting, let me go say more about that. But they want to dig into

 

35:33

stories and reflections and new insights and new points of view that are happy to be interesting, which leads then to the speaking engagement. So hopefully people can kind of see how this is all kind of knitting together because I think that’s really important. And I also think it’s really important that people realize that you going directly to these publications is a long shot at best, right? Because like you just said, you crafted that…

 

35:59

also that credibility, that reputation with these publications that they know if they go to you, they’re gonna get good information. If they don’t know you, Joe Blow from, you know, Jane off the street, why would they trust you to provide them this insight, this knowledge, this expertise, right? So they’re gonna go to the people who already have vetted the sources and to make sure that they’re good credible sources to include in their stories because they are on deadlines. They’re very lean when it comes to being able to invest in these stories.

 

36:27

And so they want to get the best information, the quickest way possible to make their stories highly quality. So maybe you could speak a little bit more to that mindset of like the PR agency and you guys act almost as agents. You’re kind of like, I couldn’t, it’s analogous to like book agents, right? It’s like, you’re an agent for the person, you’re an agent for the business. So maybe you could speak to how that process works and what the expectations are associated with that kind of communication.

 

36:56

Yeah, yeah, I do think of us as like information brokers, because it’s really like, we’re matchmakers at best. Like it is, journalists don’t care what we think, they care what our clients think, right? But the only way that our clients are going to get in front of journalists is because we can tell them who they are. Like, it’s going to take a lot of time and expense for any founder or spokesperson to…

 

37:24

invest in the technology that you need to have in place in order to quickly figure out how to get a hold of the people that are covering your industry. It doesn’t just live like in a place for free. Like you have to actually pay for these services to see how do I get in touch with this reporter, this publication, or you have to literally go one by one through every news site and hope that they list their email address and then send them an email. So it’s

 

37:53

It’s time consuming at best. It’s also something that PR professionals just do every day all day long. And so why reinvent the wheel when you have so many other things that you need to be focused on? But for people that do, the best shot you have at getting a journalist’s attention that you’ve never emailed before is a really killer subject line. If you can come up with a very clever way

 

38:21

in the subject line to get the attention of a journalist, it might work. But most of the time, it’s going over again and again, what are some interesting ways that you’re relevant for what the reporters are covering? And in some cases, the journalists will say, I’m looking for this type of expert, and they might post that on LinkedIn. And you might have a way to connect with them there, but it doesn’t happen that often. So what’s much more reliable is to

 

38:50

have somebody who already has the access to these journalists do that for you. And that way you are just showing up and providing a quote or responding to a question from the journalists. You don’t have to be doing all that legwork to just get in front of them. You leave that to the PR professionals. And then you just focus on what you do best, which is creating that great product that they’re gonna wanna get up close and personal with or

 

39:19

providing them with the expertise that they need for their story. And you focus on that and running your business and then let us handle the rest. Well, and I’ll be the ask the devil’s advocate question maybe here too, because we’ve talked earlier about like there are some things you can do yourself, right? As a startup, if you want to. And we’ve sort of transitioned the conversation obviously to the role of the PR companies, which I’m totally on board in an agreement with.

 

39:46

But I would love if you could give some examples of, okay, if someone wants to dip their toe in without you, what are some of the best ways they can try it out? Because one of the things that I, not coming from PR, that we always faced with our clients, and I think it lived on my side of the agency world too, from the brand perspective, was the sort of like, how do I know it’s gonna work?

 

40:13

But like I said before, I find all of this so exciting now because I see the legs that it has. So what can people potentially do on their own? Like where could they spend their time that you feel like would be time well spent if they’re not ready for you yet? My guidance is there’s always gonna be a cost to doing it yourself. So there’s really no free way to do it. There just, it just doesn’t exist. However, you can subscribe to some of the platforms that we use too. So you can either.

 

40:42

know, invest in a platform like Quoted if you’re an expert, or you can invest in a platform like Press Hook if you have a product that you want to get into the hands of journalists. It’s just that by the time you pay for that, you could be paying an agency that already has those things in place. So that’s the trade-off is you, if you have the time and you want to pay to get in front of journalists, you can use something like Quoted or Press Hook to do that.

 

41:08

We use more advanced tools like Muckrack, which there really isn’t an affordable way to use Muckrack as an individual. It’s really a tool built for agencies. And so, you know, because we start to add all these costs together and it’s included in the cost of hiring an agency, that’s where I say there really is no path to PR for free, but you can make some incremental investments if you have the time to try it on your own.

 

41:38

And then if you do that and you decide, oh, this is like, you know, unlocking some really exciting opportunities to be featured. However, now I’m too busy to like scale it. That’s when it makes sense to hire somebody to do it for you. Yeah, that’s great. The point you made earlier is a real really well said one is that you’re going to pay for it either way. Yes. Right. So another popular one that people do is I’ll just do a paid publication, right? They’ll, they’ll just go buy an advertorial something or other in a trade pub.

 

42:08

They’ll put something out there and they’ll cross their fingers and hope for the best. And generally it doesn’t come back as they expected. And they say, this PR thing doesn’t work. I know we’ve invested so many thousands of dollars in this one thing and it doesn’t work. But I think what you said is right on. It’s like, if you’re going to pay for it in some way, might as well pay for the experts to give you the best chance of success in doing it. And hopefully by now you’ve heard the importance. You have.

 

42:32

heard why you should hire a PR firm in order to go do this. So those things should just now be logically sequentially locked in your brain. So hopefully that that’s starting to generate some value as you’re thinking about your marketing and sales stack. But I do want to get to one other question here, which I think is really important because we hear this one all the time too, is that a lot of people will then also try to buy their way through this a little bit using

 

42:58

either a spokesperson, like some sort of sizzle building and some sort of sizzle. So either a sizzle-y spokesperson or they’ll go and they’ll buy a bunch of influencers to speak on their behalf. What role does all of that play in this whole PR strategy? I have my own personal point of view, but I will let you speak first. With influencers, that’s tricky because…

 

43:21

They can’t necessarily guarantee media coverage as a result of you having a paid relationship with them. In a lot of cases, certain news outlets don’t allow paid relationships to lead to being mentioned on air. So there’s one large news network in particular that if you are an influencer being paid by a brand, you’re not allowed to feature that brand on the news. That’s just a policy they have. So there’s a risk to that. I would say influencers, if you’re paying them,

 

43:50

you’re going to hopefully get some sort of social reach out of that, but it won’t necessarily lend itself to paid PR opportunities. It’s just much more complicated, I would say. And then in terms of other spokespeople, in the beginning of my career, we did do this where we would bring on some sort of celebrity to be part of a campaign. And I would say it doesn’t work as well as it used to.

 

44:19

So I think that the challenge is because celebrities and kind of well-known spokespeople, they can go directly to their audience. They don’t have to go through a media channel. It comes back to like, you know, your best bang for your buck in those situations is social because that’s where they go direct. It’s trickier to bring on some sort of celebrity and have that lead to, you know, meaningful media coverage. It still happens. It’s just…

 

44:50

it’s probably going to lend itself to features in entertainment publications that cover celebrities more so than broad media reach. So there’s just different benefits to working with influencers and celebrities. And I would say that is not necessary for PR. I would say it’s going to be more impactful if you’re paying for a Super Bowl ad or you’re doing a social campaign together. To me, that’s…

 

45:19

That’s really the place for that kind of relationship. That’s my experience as well. I mean, I was the queen of spokespeople when I was at PNG for PR, and it worked fairly well in order to get some new eyes on very traditional brands, but in certain contexts. So taking Rob Gronkowski to be hero at the Super Bowl was well played, right?

 

45:44

But in general, the big watch outs are making sure that the fame and the celebrity-ness of the spokesperson doesn’t overshadow your specific message, which is very, very hard not to have happen. Especially since if you’re getting the nod from the journalist as a result of having that spokesperson, that journalist wants to talk to that spokesperson.

 

46:12

And they might give you a split second to have like a one line brand mentioned. They’ll give you a softball question that they get to do two sentences, maybe most, and that’s all you get. So it’s a hard paid way to get to your ultimate goal. So I say that, and I also say influencers in general can be really beneficial to drive awareness.

 

46:37

But I totally agree with what you said. It’s a very big social play. It doesn’t necessarily lend to PR. And so again, you need to use it very strategically in the way that is going to provide the biggest bang for your buck there and make sure you’re not just using them as like paid puppets of your brand, right? So I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think it’s really important because again, it’s one of those things that we see people are like, well, I can go to point A to point B a whole lot quicker.

 

47:05

there again, pay the people who actually know what they’re doing instead of wasting your money on things that you think may work or may not work. Well, and I think too, if we’re talking startups, right, I would guess you might be overshadowed even quicker, right? Because you haven’t had the chance to get to establish your presence, which therefore would lean yourself more to paying the PR company that knows versus trying to jump there, as you said, because you haven’t…

 

47:34

been able to give your story yet. Is that fair? Yeah, I think founders would do themselves a disservice to not be the voice for the brand in the beginning. You have such an interesting journey to share. Why not take advantage of that moment in time where you get to highlight where you got the idea, right? What inspired you to build this thing that you’re building?

 

47:58

So why not embrace that? And then maybe when the time comes and you’re a more mature brand, it makes sense to bring in other spokespeople. But I think that’s really what inspired me to start Talesplash is that I loved sharing founder stories. I was a fan of how I built this, like many people were. Oh, yeah. We are too. Yeah, we’re the same. So there’s just so much inspiration and storytelling material there to begin with.

 

48:25

I always believe in trying that first. And then down the road, sometimes it makes sense to bring in a credentialed expert if you don’t have one. And that was something that was also really helpful in my early career was having a registered dietitian. And we know that having somebody that has credentials and specific topics, that can really be an asset to your brand if you don’t. But.

 

48:53

Otherwise, I say start with your own founder story. I love that. And that just sparks one more final question, which are there any additional advice that you would give people in order to be as successful as possible or any additional watch outs of where you’ve seen it go bad very quickly? I have clients and friends and fellow agency owners that have been the targets of over promises over email. So like,

 

49:23

we can get you featured on XYZ in this timeframe. And it’s like, there are no guarantees in PR that we don’t have the control. We are, again, the gatekeepers, the information brokers, but we are not publishing the stories ourselves. So anybody that’s promising you a certain feature, or they either have a paid relationship with that publication, or it is, in fact, too good to be true.

 

49:50

And unfortunately, I know people that have been burned by those situations. So in the world of PR, anybody that promises anything is probably too good to be true. Awesome. Well, before we let everybody hear a little bit more from you about where to find you and let you kind of wrap this all up, we have a few rapid fire questions for people to get to know you a little bit better. Are you ready for this? Yes. Okay. So the first one, Amy.

 

50:17

What do you want for Christmas if you could have anything? Oh gosh. For yourself. The ability to sleep in for like a month. I feel you on that one. That would be nice. That’s a good one. What’s your favorite meal? Mac and cheese. So basic. I love mac and cheese. I mean, a really good mac and cheese can go a long way.

 

50:45

And then maybe somewhat related, but what’s your guilty pleasure? Oh, okay. My guilty pleasure is champagne and it actually pairs very nicely with my favorite meal, mac and cheese. And if you could have it in bed when you’re sleeping in. When I’m sleeping in the next morning, it’s perfect. That sounds like a really well good time spent.

 

51:07

Amy, this has been fabulous. I would love if you could just, if there’s anything that we missed or you know, put a bow on this, kind of tie this up for everybody. And then obviously tell everybody where they can find you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m such a fan of sharing with experts and new brands that you have something to offer to journalists. You are a real asset when you’re just getting started and you have something new to share. You have advice to share. Journalists need you. And so I’m a big proponent of

 

51:37

of making yourself available to them and the places that they go to find you. And if you wanna talk more about how to kick off a PR program, you can book time with me on our website, which is talesplash.com. You can also find us on Instagram, on TikTok, on LinkedIn, and we’d love to just kind of brainstorm on what could be a good way for you to try PR. Mm, I love that.

 

52:03

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