006 Annie Jennings: The PR Strategy

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In this episode, Barbara and Annie discuss:

How to identify media assets and how it impacts the PR strategy for each client.
Why traditional type of thinking about publicity no longer works to empower authors and experts.
Strategies to elevate your profile, media bio, and branding through the use of substantial brand media assets.

Key Takeaways:

The combination strategy of mindset and media placement that helps experts to leverage their publicity.
A 10 is the optimal level of performance that your credibility, social relevancy, credentials, and media bio can bring you.
Big brands on your web page and in your media bio, while pursuing new opportunities, or new clients, is going to be the factor in allowing you to outperform everyone else in your industry.

“The way to get more publicity is you have to create it yourself.” — Annie Jennings

Transcription

006 Annie Jennings- The PR Strategy

Barbara Hales: Hello, we have the great fortune today of having Annie Jennings and also Stacy Koufman from a PR company with us today to discuss the benefits of PR and how you too can get great benefits from it. Annie Jennings provides authors, experts and speakers with the number one big cities only radio talk show campaign with a performance guarantee and unlimited media training, bookings also include regional and nationally syndicated radio shows. Annie and Stacy are associated with all of the major TV networks, ABC, Fox, NBC, CNN, CBS, NPR, as well as all of the major written word outlets such as the Washington post, the New York times, the wall street journal, the street, the Philadelphia Enquirer, and even the Huffington post. Welcome Annie and Stacey.

Annie Jennings: Well thank you Barbara. It is certainly my pleasure to be here and I think a very good question to ask today is how do your listeners get more publicity for themselves? Okay, very good. Now the answer to that is it, I don’t know if people are going to like this because it seems a little weird, but I’m going to explain it in great detail. The answer is that you have to create it for yourself. Now, what you might be thinking, no one else can do it for me, now is the time to be your own boss. You’re responsible for your own publicity, your own success.

Now, I want to just emphasize the fact that anyone can be successful once they own the fact that they have the power in their own hands to control their success and they can learn the strategies, there’s no question. We have plenty, I could write an encyclopedia on this publicity strategies, but I like when authors own their own success and they don’t look for that magic bullet, that one placement is going to make them successful.

It’s a combination of strategies and placements and media placements and the mindset of success that really helps authors learn to leverage their publicity that they do have and attract much, much more.

Barbara Hales: I think that’s great advice, but I noticed that you took two clients even just today, John and Natalia. What you did is you put them with their articles on big brand, major media outlets, so far they’ve had over 40,000 views. For John and 63,000 views for Natalia. The great thing is that all of that is traffic leading back to their website, so not only are they promoting their book, but they’re getting traffic for the services that they provide as well.

Annie Jennings: Exactly, right Barbara and that brings me to the topic of building your brand over time. Let me tell you the story of how they managed to get these placements. At our firm when somebody walks through the door, we identified their media assets like Barbara, you have tremendous media assets. You’re well credential. You have a terrific topic? I mean, you’re a 10 across the board. If we’re ranking from level zero to 10, you’re a 10 my girl. Now, I look at our media assets. What do we have that we can work with that we can leverage? Because these big major sites, the ones that do have the, there is a 30 to 40 to 50,000 viewers in one day. They’re going to require an offer be at a level nine or a level 10, now, the reason I give it a number, it’s a very fast way to identify how much work that is, how much branding we need to do for an author expert to get them ready for these big media outlets.

The reason I say ready is because you can’t walk in the door and move to this top 10 media level 10 media without having an accumulated media assets that act as certainty to the media that you’ll have the savvy, the social relevancy, the credibility. You’re an active guest contributor on other major brand media and that you’re also going to do a great job for them, so when we get to the point when a client is ready, we pitch and that’s what happened with John and Natalia. They both came in as entry level authors and experts. We take a look at their potential, how high up on the media ladder can they go? Can they go to the 10, the Tennessee optimal level of performance that your credibility, social relevancy, credentials, and media bio can bring you. For instance, Barbara, you are a 10, you’d be able to go all the way up to the highest media in the land, especially in print and online, no question.

You could be John, you could be Natalia without a doubt. Now others coming in, because we’ve worked with you before. I’ll let our listeners know we’ve built assets for you so we have media assets now that are sitting in Barbara’s profile in her bio that can soon be leveraged into new opportunities for her. There’s a reason why this becomes critical, so much has changed in the PR world. I can tell you stories, believe me and I will. I’m going to tell you what in a moment, but so much has changed that the traditional type of thinking about publicity no longer works to empower the author or the expert. This new way of thinking we’re presenting here today and we’ll continue to present and let the industry except as new invigorating, refreshing and insightful into how publicity now actually helps a person.

Barbara Hales: You’re so right, want to just remind everybody that once you have these assets, once you can say as seen on whichever TV station or major media outlets that you’re on, you have that credential for life and it’s something that you could always point out. Now, when patients or clients are looking for someone and you provide similar services to others, as soon as they see that you’re a celebrity, the authority in your field or the thought maker in your field, it’s obvious that you were the one that they are going to seek out, wouldn’t you agree?

Annie Jennings: Oh Barbara without question. It’s the certainty factor and it’s more important than it has ever been in my 25 years of experience. I’m not kidding you. I have worked with thousands of clients. I’ve booked thousands of media and well over 25,000 media placements and I produce thousands of media campaigns, so I know, I sense I can feel as the market changes and now the really big thing for authors to grow in their publicity is to use the publicity to empower their brand because of the pop up new business every day scenario we face on the internet. Barbara, you could have a competitor pop up tomorrow, copy your site, make up a bio, I’ve seen it. In our business, we call them pop up publicists. They can buy a list and all of a sudden you’re giving them your money, but they don’t have any connections.

They don’t know how to write a release. It’s going to get booked. They don’t have the history of the media knowledge and they have no contacts, deep contacts in the relationship. Like Stacy and I have, especially in the radio division in Stacy’s case, so by having those large media assets, you qualify for media by observation only. Association with big grand media immediately elevates your profile and your media bio to the level of that brand. I want to say that these brands don’t just book you out of thin air. Your publicist is the only way to get in. The publicist knows how to build brand. Now with John, earlier we talked about John and Natalia, they got major media placements without tens of thousands of page views in a short period of time and also, one of the clients was also featured in a newsletter that went out to a niche market.

All right, we’ll talk a little bit about micro and macro marketing as well and how it can empower your business. Now, we didn’t bring them to these huge media outlets day one, we had to build up a media bio that would lend certainty to their names and brands so that when they were presented to this major media outlet that that ranks a 10 on a level of one to 10 the media was able to say, yes, they were able to check mark all the boxes, are at which they have to do. They have a fiduciary responsibility to the listeners, to the readers, to the audience to provide bonafide vetted guests to them who know what they’re talking about that is have the credentials to back up their conversation, so having these big brands on your webpage, in your media bio as you’re pursuing new opportunities or new clients is going to be the factor that’s going to allow you to outperform everyone else in your industry.

I know it seems so simple and in one way for me it is simple because that’s what we’ve done for so many years is perfect the model, but there is a way to go about it that’s going to be logical, strategic, and not stressful, which is the nice part. Don’t you think Barbara working with us was that just an enjoyable experience? Our goal, I have a big goal for every client that comes in and I asked the client their goals and then I develop a campaign that allows them to reach their goals to the best of their own ability. How socially relevant are they? Can we expand their profiles so that they match more of the big media outlets? We offer unlimited media training as you know, this helps a client learn about how they can expand their subject matter to qualify for more of the major media.

We want that. We want these authors to live the life. I want their dreams to come true.

Barbara Hales: That was great Annie. Tell me, once they have the assets, how do you suggest that they leverage that to get their goals?

Annie Jennings: All right, so that’s a great question and I love the leveraging question. It is asked all the time by my clients. There’s many ways now Stacy, when it comes to radio and Stacy, how are you doing there?

Stacy: I’m doing great. How are you guys?

Annie Jennings: Okay, terrific. We’ll bring you in shortly to talk about the leveraging of the radio interviews, but meanwhile we’re going to talk about leveraging the big brand media. I love this topic because you’re going to be known by the associations that you keep. That is people are going to make choices and decisions based on the media that’s provable by the way.

All right. There’s some services out there that I want to issue a little warning that you can buy and they so-called distribute your press release, but you can find it from the home page. I wouldn’t say that go that route. You want to really build yourself up to the type of expert who deserves these major placements, once you secure them now with social media, you will be looking to leverage them in social media. Every media outlet becomes an opportunity for an event for you to share on social media. From Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter. These are all wonderful things to use to Instagram, absolutely. If you’re on TV, you would take pictures of you on the set, getting ready. You’re able to name drop the show. You’re able to then link to the show. Maybe not an Instagram, but certainly in Twitter.

In Facebook, you’re able to do a post and you can embed the picture of you on the set in the post, that’s another way to leverage. Every interview that you do can be leveraged at least 10 to 15 times. I kid you not. We do it all the time. If you go look at my social platforms, you’re going to see, wow, she’s leveraging everything and we do. If our clients are booked on a nationally syndicated radio show that goes up to 1200 stations. Yes. I’m going to let everyone know and the client themselves are taught to let everyone know they’ve been booked on this big brand, a station also. Then another post goes out. I’m going to be on this morning at 9:00 AM or whatever time and then another post goes out saying, here’s the streaming link. Click on this and you can listen to me live.

Then after they go on the show, it get to say, I was just on this show and here’s what we talked about that I think mattered the most to me and I think these other questions were important too. You see how it just gets bigger and bigger. Every media placement becomes these four to five to six to seven other placements. Then if you can get your link to the show or article, then you could say, and here it is, you know you guys can listen for yourself and enjoy.

Now also, Stacy, I could bring you in now we could talk about the logos and the power they can bring to your site alone just by the visual of a person’s first impression when they visit a person’s site and form me an analysis of is this person really an expert? Stacy, how do the logos play into creating expert status?

Stacy: Well, Annie and hi Barbara. They are this visual wow power. That’s what we like to call them for all of our clients. When someone goes to a social media platform or a website and they see big name logos from top radio stations, brands they know and recognize, and this also applies to other big brand, they media as well, so all those names that you know off the top of your head, the New York Times, the wall street journal, let’s say Sirius XM radio, a different brands you can use them and people automatically will give you the prestige, the respect, all of that, that they’ve already given those other media outlets and media outlets that you are now affiliating yourself with. All of that respect and trust, that all transfers over to you, so it makes it easier for someone who may not know who you are as an expert in your field, but they know that that particular media outlet, the New York times, USA today, Sirius XM radio, IHeart media, Fox news, CBS, ABC, they trust you.

They can also, as an individual who might be looking to sign up for a service or buy a book or be a client, they can trust you too, so they come in very handy and give you a lot of credibility, a competitive advantage in your industry and it’s something that we encourage all of our clients to do when they’re leveraging their radio shows and other media bookings.

Barbara Hales: What if a person doesn’t have a book, how do you leverage what they do and their services to the public? How is what they do considered a media savvy was something that the media would be interested in?

Annie Jennings: Well, Barbara, you have asked my favorite question of all time. I am the queen of notebook. No problem. Yes, people could find that funny because I’m kind of a book publicist. If you look online, I mean I do have a lot of book clients, right, but no book, no problem, because the book is simply a showcase of your knowledge and experience and wisdom credentials over time, as you’ve developed an opinion on things you’ve written probably most likely a nonfiction book, we deal most likely a nonfiction, fiction if they have some undertones and the author is qualified to discuss them socially relevant undertones.

No book, no problem. It acts as a qualifier in many click cases, but not in all cases, so I ignore the book for now and I focus on the person. The only important person in this world to me when I’m working with a client is the client themselves. A book has immediate asset, the same way an article in a magazine would be a media asset. These all exist for me to leverage the same way a radio show is a media asset, but it’s the core essence of the expert that matters in building brand and the reason books don’t book build brand, so books don’t build brand. The author or the expert themselves build brand by being associated with major online media, major radio talk shows, major TV where they’re the authority of that brand transfers to the guest and that’s the important thing in not having a book.

Right now writing a book is a big expense. Authors tell me they’ve spent all their money, usually they get signed out for publicity. I got a good story for you. They signed up for publicity early on and then later on when they realize become a little more savvy that wasn’t quite the type of publicity that they really wanted for themselves. Today, someone told me that they were encouraged to sign up for a distribution service that would write a press release. First of all, a press release doesn’t bring bookings, okay. Press releases, nice. Now talks a little bit about the features of the book, who published in the pub date and various other factors, the facts of the book, but you’re leaving the audience to say, yes, but how do I use the book to my advantage? So, a press release has its role in marketing, but it does not have its role in building your brand.

Building your brand is how you use your knowledge and credentials and experience to help society. As you said, dress socially relevant conversations currently going on in our society today and the book can be a qualifier. I can use it if it’s very closely related to the subject matter I would say author of, and then the name of the book, if it was appropriately named. By the way, a tip don’t have such a long subject line. Don’t make it two three to paragraph long and you could just one line the promises, the benefit to the reader and then I can use the book if it’s socially or if it’s closely related to the topic being discussed as a qualifier but it’s the person, it’s their credentials, it’s their experience and their associations with bigger brand media, their organizations that they belong to, other major firms that they have perhaps worked with.

All these things allow me to get the placement, not whether or not the client has a book, so no book, no problem.

Barbara Hales: Do you believe that dentists and all types of health professionals could benefit from having publicity?

Annie Jennings: Oh, absolutely. Again, no book, no problem. Who cares? Why spend all that money and all that time, you of course know what it takes to write a book. It’s not easy and when they could just go out there, work with someone like our firm, which understands how to develop in anyone, develop anyone from a level zero to a level 10 to a level minus zero. People come into me not even knowing really why they matter. The idea is to find out why you do matter in today’s world and then start to build out on that very authentically so that you’re able to now start sharing in the world in a meaningful and valuable way.

A dentist, absolutely, I can think of 10 ways we would be able to market a dentist, when the dentist pulls down a USA today article, right on everything you didn’t know about keeping your mouth healthy, right, or early warning mouth cancer signs. These are all very important things that he can talk about. Why most people floss incorrectly. Why philosophy can be the worst thing you can do for your teeth. He’ll talk about how people mess up the flossing method but those are just some very quick ideas. You see how his knowledge can be leveraged. Do we really need six months checkups? Absolutely, if not more he might say right. Keeps your teeth in better shape.

Barbara Hales: Yes. I think all of this is great advice so how can my audience reach you?

Annie Jennings: Well thank you very much Barbara. I’d like to speak to anyone who’s interested in building media assets that is being thought of as a top-level expert in their field who has credentials.

That is some type of credentials that shows that they have the knowledge and experience in their field to be able to talk a responsibly honest subject matter. Those are the clients that work extremely well for us, and I’d like people to contact me at Annie Jenningspr.com that’s Annie, A-N-N-I-E, Jennings, J-E-N-I-N-G-S pr.com and of course, Barbara, if anyone has follow up questions, you’re welcome to ask them to send them into you. You are welcome to forward them to make this are so much, like I said, there’s an encyclopedia on this stuff. I’d be happy to answer any questions for your audience. I want to thank you so much for having me on today.

Barbara Hales: Thanks as well, and thank you both for being on the show. My audience is going to be very excited. You gave some really great pearls of wisdom here.

Annie Jennings: Well, thank you, Barbara. I appreciate it, and you’re one of our favorite clients.

Connect with Annie Jennings:  

Twitter: @anniejenningspr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnnieJenningsPRUSAPublicRelations

Website: www.anniejenningspr.com

Email: anniejenningspr.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniejennings/

Connect with Barbara Hales: 

Twitter:   @DrBarbaraHales

Facebook:   www.facebook.com/theMedicalStrategist

Business website:http://www.TheMedicalStrategist.com

Email:   Barbara@TheMedicalStrategist.com