How Can PR Catapult Your Business

Key Takeaways

right i'm gonna quickly try to take off all right okay start working right now [Music] hey guys thanks for joining today's session we're just going to give it one to two minutes for you to join us nice hey david hey raquel hi john hi asha welcome to today's session [Music] do so a quick question for everyone whilst you wait for one or two to attend how are we all feeling out of ten today got seven in there nice thanks hello [Music] okay cool right let's get started um welcome everyone to october's first event um and first recording for the community um today's session is something that is very very important um to all businesses all small businesses in particular understanding how pr can actually help bolster your business how pr can actually help you grow and how pr can be a secret strategy to enable you to level up your business and the prospects of you guys going international organic national um today i'm joined by two experts two leaders in their field um who will be sharing top tips that they've learned we're gonna be covering things from pr strategies um topics and breakdowns of how to create campaigns defining your brand drafting your press release and hopefully getting a few case studies through um so i hope you guys are looking forward to today's session i'm on b.j malenga the ceo at personal project um i'm just reading the comments i'm seeing that everyone um got excited by sunshine someone's had a you know feeling tired but i had a good day is eight um and someone's had a long day but it's been productive um i hope that this session tops up and it kind of feels good um so let's start with the first panelist uh fazana would you like to come up um introduce yourself and then yeah share some gems with us hello hi my name's susana and um i am based in london and i set up a pr firm about 11 years ago and prior to that um i worked for the conservative party don't hate me for those who don't like them and uh and then before that as an accountant for ten years um which i funnily enough really enjoyed doing tax returns day in day out now uh i have been given a few questions that i can um answer and so the first question i was given is uh what do you wish you knew when you started um and i would say quite a lot because actually when i started i was very green and i you know and i just kind of like launched into um setting up a business without really thinking it through um i think one of the things that i wish i i knew at the outset was actually how useful industry bodies are so um you know obviously every different sector has an industry body and in the pr industry there's two there's a pi prca and the cipr and i just realized over time how useful it is to join the industry bodies because it keeps you updated with what's happening in the industry what's happening in terms of any sort of legislation or any trends or changes and also most importantly it helps you to really network with your peers and get to know people and really take that sort of collaborative approach rather than that competitive approach um because i think it's you know i think if you are in an industry and you get to know people you know in your industry it feels a lot more like a community um which i think is you know um you know it's a better way to sort of operate um because you build positive alliances um i think the other thing that i learned is the importance of doing cpd which is continual professional development um because especially my industry it changes so quickly like when i first started out 10 years ago pr was pretty much synonymous to media relations and now media nations is one aspect of a multitude of channels that pr's operate um and so um and you know now for instance you know pr is very much like at the nexus of data science and um and psychology and you know and content and media um and so forth and so doing the cpd every year and gets me to sort of do lots of mini courses again i do it with the industry bodies and that also i think gives you a lot of confidence because when you go into an industry like i did about you know 10 11 years ago i didn't have any experience um and so i really felt like a sort of i had imposter syndrome quite a lot and i think doing the cpd qualifications and um it gave me a lot of confidence um which i think comes through when you then start speaking to you know clients and and so forth and i think the other thing to that i wish i knew about was um to actually make time to think um i used to just do a lot of stuff just constantly working um and i was like a hamster on a hamster wheel in some years i wouldn't actually um progress really i you know like the year would go by and i think god i've worked so hard and i think well have i achieved a lot have i kind of like moved the needle for my business for myself and i'd think not really um and i think the only time i really made progress was when i actually stopped doing so much stuff and i just started thinking things through like thinking before i i did things and and the way i did it is i just looked at my calendar and instead of like you know working crazy hours i just kind of like decided that okay you know half a day a week friday afternoon or whatever i'm just gonna spend too thinking you know not being anywhere near my laptop my emails or my phone and just actually just going to the park or you know turning my tech off and just sit with a blank piece of paper and just thinking through what are the issues how was my week how can i make things better am i going the right direction is my strategy sound should i be adapting my strategies and new things happening in the market so i think making time to think so you're not this constant hamster on a hamster wheel because actually a lot of um a lot of things about success in life is not necessarily how hard you work but taking that time out to really think do you have the right strategy are you going in the right direction and checking in with yourself i think another thing that um i wish i knew before was was really about being kind to oneself um because i am slightly you know got workaholic tendencies so i just worked all hours and what i realized is actually if you take time out to eat well to exercise to sleep well to hang out with your friends or do things that you love to do um it actually makes you much more productive in your work and i wish i knew that before now i work a lot less than i used to and i feel i'm much more effective um in the work that i do um then the other question i was asked is what are the key things to think about when building a campaign in 2021 and 2021 is a really hard year because of covert a lot of things were thrown out the window and a lot of things that used to work didn't work um and so you know everyone's always been talking about how you know covet has accelerated um you know pre-existing trends and all of that stuff that we've all heard um i think the key thing to think about when you're you know building a campaign is really taking the time to think so really thinking what do you actually want to achieve try and make them sort of smart objectives if you google smart it sort of tells you about you know smart as an acronym so it's like s for specific and for measured and you know and so forth um and it's really important because the more if your objectives are vague then your results will be vague um and your delivery pretty much will be vague as well so the more sort of granular you go with your objectives the better and then really figure out who are your you know audiences and again to try and go as granular as possible um and then what are the sort of like the messages about your business um and this can even apply to your personal brand as well you know what are the messages about what you stand for and what kind of work that you do and what's your specialisms and your expertise when we talk about brands it's not just businesses also you can identify in terms of building your personal brand in your professional um sort of sector um and then figuring out when you're doing a campaign what are the channels there are so many what i mean by channels channels are like what do you communicate through so for instance media relations is one channel social media is another channel of which social media there is a multitude of social media platforms to choose from um you know when you go down the sort of advertising or blogs route or events you know um you know going going down sort of experiential routes so what are the right channels and really the way to figure out what the right channels are is to figure out well who is your audience and what kind of channels do they consume um you know if your audience are people who actually you know are like i don't know like my daughter 13 year old girls i can't you know get her to read the news um and uh tried bribing and everything she just doesn't read it but where did she get but she still knows what's happening and i'm like well where do you get it from she's like well i get it from tik tok so it's like if your audience i don't teenage teenagers really think about how do they get get information and content and really go on to those channels and so you've got to really think to yourself you know your um target audience what channels do they use really put yourself it's i think there's a lot of it about campaigns it's about empathy to really put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and really think about you know from when they wake up to when they go to bed what's their behavior like where do they consume the information and really think through how can you get your sort of message in front of them using you know the channels that they consume so really developing that empathy for your target audience um a campaign measuring is very important how are you going to measure it um and then and then that will enable you to evaluate was it a good sort of roi or not the one thing about campaigns and one thing about marketing pr so you can spend an awful lot of money and um and what's really key is to ensure before you start any any work in your sort of strategy piece to work out how you're going to measure it uh and you know and how you're going to sort of evaluate it as well um so you know if you you know start with success in mind then you know you know where you're going uh and you can also also correct yourself um at key points um throughout the campaign now the last question um was how to as you gain amazing press coverage now amazing is a subjective word uh so um you know the press coverage that people gain should really be um specific to what your objectives are so you know if your objectives are um you know to sort of communicate with um you know an audience in i don't know guatemala and you're getting media coverage in um you know washington dc it's not really going to work so you've got to really be connected you've got to connect the media coverage that you get to the target audience that you're trying to speak to and you've got to also ensure that the um the media coverage that you get um it includes your key messages it has obviously positive sentiment um and you know you look at the sort of the reach and circulation and you know and so forth now how do you get the great media coverage so there's multiple ways of getting it so first of all of course be strategic think about which media outlets you know the guardian is very different to the daily mail to really think about the nuances of the different media outlets think about what their target audience is what this sort of tone is does it sit well with your brand um do your entire audience actually consume information from that from that media outlet and then the other thing is um really to think about what are the this this main the three main ways to get media coverage so one is obviously you know what news do you have to give and bear in mind that when we talk about news the key word in news is new what is it that is new that you're bringing to the table to a journalist um and you know for instance you know sort of like bog standard news which you know gets picked up mainly by trade media is things like new hires or a new product or service the problem is it's not particularly interesting unless you're hiring richard branson or somebody particularly newsworthy so really think about what new developments do you have to share with the journalists the other piece to think about how to get media coverage is opinion pieces um so opinion pieces are basically you writing a piece yourself um and you know and pitching it to the opinions editor and that really is good because a you can you can control the content that goes in um and then b it really positions you as a thought leader and um and so um and i think opinion pieces are you know definitely um you know very sort of valuable in the um you know in your sort of media coverage approach and the third way is really horizon scanning what's happening around you what's happening around the industry what are the sort of you know wider business trends and the geopolitical trends and issues um and what can you and what's running in the news agenda and and can it bridge to what you're doing um and so that and you can pitch you know based upon on there a lot of stories in in the media they have like a limited news cycle and if you and often when a journalist breaks a story um if you pitch to some other journalist but with a slightly different nuanced angle um and giving yourself expert sort of commentary uh you can position yourself to be able to be in the next article that is you know relevant to the initial story that broke so it's really three things what is the news that you have got to give in terms of you know your company or yourself to the journalist um and making sure that's interesting and engaging um otherwise i'll send you to the advertising department uh the second is pitching opinion pieces but again you've got to have something very differentiated and insightful it can't just be like saying the same thing as everybody else in the industry you've really got to demonstrate a strategic insight that kind of elevates you from what other people are saying in the industry and then the third is really horizon scanning what's happening in the media and how can you really bridge your company to what's and i'll give you an example like for instance for pr i don't know if there's you know um elon musk says in the media that oh you know i don't use media relations anymore that would be an opportunity for say pr agencies such as myself to pitch myself to the media and say well actually i think he's wrong because of blah blah blah and here's my expert commentary um and so that is like an example of seeing what's running the news agenda and then kind of jumping into the conversation um by pitching you know your two pennies uh to the journalist and seeing if you know if that works and the most important thing to bear in mind is when you're pitching to the journalists understand their mindset they're not there to serve you or do you favors they have a serious job they have to inform and engage their readers which is becoming increasingly difficult for journalists because they are also fighting for attention alongside all the social media netflix streaming and so forth so it's a dwindling attention base and that they're fighting for and they need to inform and engage and so you need to approach them with content that will help them do their job help them inform help them engage um and that is and i think if you understand what the position the journalist is in and you understand the target audience that they're writing for ie their readership then that will enable you to pitch journalists and also not treat them in terms of just transactional but really look to build relationships with them and not take a scattergun approach a real bespoke approach a journalist can read an email and tell a mile off it's if it's a cookie kind of generic email rather than something that's you know truly bespoke and sort of relationship building approach will serve you well um and yeah that's the end of my questions thank you thank you so much forzana um we'll be bringing you back up in a minute if camille can join us now hello camille hi hi everyone thanks for the thanks for the little noises i liked it all right should i kick off all right so hi guys um i'm camille i'm the head of emerge which is um a unit within edelman edelman being the world's largest pr agency um so my unit works with startups only so i create program communications program dedicated for startup high innovation and high growth companies and and the way i do that is by trying to make the kind of typical agency model of working with really big companies with loads of marketing people and accessible and available to startups um by trying to work in a flexible and lean way and so i've been doing that for three years i've worked with startups across lots of different sectors fintech health tech tech mobility and loads of different sectors and before that i was um deputy head of a team within a boutique agency managing financial services and corporate communications so i've got a background in asset management investor pr which ties in well with the kind of startup challenges of today of getting funding and and i did that for five years and before that i was in france um studying politics so that's me um obviously very tough act to follow but i will try and add value to whatever um to to what for santa has said in terms of of pr and hopefully give you some some useful background um today so one of my questions was similar to santa what i wish i'd known before i started my career and i think being in a client servicing industry which i imagine a lot of startups and new business um are i wish i'd known um that it's okay to be honest with your clients and it's okay not to say yes to everything so early on in in the days of working in pr i was quite stressed with deadline and and and disappointing clients and not delivering on what they wanted or you know managing clients in a way that i would manage um friends and families and being like um extremely focused on on results and and saying yes but later on i realized that actually people pay you and especially in my industry they pay you for your honesty and your thoughtful feedback and and a thoughtful approach and and um smart commons they want you to level with them they want you to be smart and straightforward with them and as soon as i realized that everything was a lot easier to manage um and it was a lot um easier to just talk to them taking them as a human beings as well rather than just like wallets that bring revenue is often a good way to just find ways around um agreeing um finding some form of agreement with them so whenever i treated them as as people rather than clients we wouldn't necessarily come to an agreement but we would always find a way to make something work together so that's one thing i would have known um my other question was and this will tie in with a lot of what rosanna has said and was how do you craft the winning press release now i work with a lot of startups obviously at the beginning you don't have time to hire someone to do that for you so you probably are on the lookout for quick tips um on how to make it as impactful now as it's been said the media landscape today is not what it was even just two years ago pre-covered because journalists teams are understaffed there has been a lot of laid-off layoffs and there has been also a big focus on news cycle much less feature let peace so your news needs to be quite quite massive to cut through and journalists are exhausted they're getting 50 more pictures in their inboxes than they used to like three years ago so bottom line is it needs to be good um so some some tips um quickly and then obviously i can follow up with anyone because we've i've actually got a document that can help some of you just it's it's on paper so i will send that with to the group afterwards but basically the first thing is the subject line of the email that's the first thing that um journalists see and just getting them to open the email is the first battle so you probably want to make that super sharp eye-catching relevant not more than like five words um so that they can see it when the inbox shows up um on the on the kind of preview on the side um then obviously the next most important thing is the headline so you want it to be snappy and interesting to grab media's attention and and and one of the the tricks that we we apply is like how would you write that would it be a headline in a media article because that's ultimately how journalists will look at your wrestlers very like do i want to put my name to this this is a story i want to write so if you can give a headline to them um not as in product announcement headline but as in story headline then you know half the job's almost done then the rest of the body of the press release i mean i can go in much detail about first paragraph second paragraph third paragraph but i think you'll be it'll be more useful for you to read that afterwards but basically i think you want your readers the journalists and their readership because that's who they care about ultimately you know click rates views etc to understand what the news is about why they should care and why it's important right now um that's the way to make something newsworthy and you probably want to make that very clear in the first sentence first three sentences and so that people want to keep reading and then i think prasanna also alluded to this but linking that to a bigger industry picture or societal trend uh will make it a a much better story because if it's just about a product launch around the funding a higher no one will care like unless it's ridiculous numbers or ridiculous people journalists want one even bother so linking to a broader story is that product and you know engagement or adoption means something bigger for the sector you operate in is the funding round you've been able to secured um so revolutionary because something happened that unlocked capital things like that then like very easy ones just um use hyperlinks visuals screenshots as visual like we're moving away from the standard three page press release with like a head a header and very formal writing i think the shorter you can make it and with visuals and links and very digital friendly the better and then finally just make sure that your cover email which goes with the press release and is you know you don't want to waste your time um with nice press release when your picture is bad so make sure that's tight and that often gives you a bit more room because it's not going to be directly quotable content necessarily so you can just be a bit more informal with the journalist exactly put it in like layman's terms what you think the story is um so tailor and also make sure that you tailor your pitch to the specific media you're sending it if it's a health story you want to outline the health benefit if it's a consumer story you want to talk about the impact on um the man on the street if it's you know etc etc so that's the press release writing it's very concrete very detailed rather than top level but i always thought that that's that's the most useful things to have at the stage um and then my third question was one of my favorite campaigns that i've worked on in the past few years and wanted to deliver to the client so mine is less about media coverage and it's about an investor a funding story so one of my clients is a company called conicterra an agritech startup they're basically revolutionizing the world of dairy farming by using ai to connect dairy farmers between them and help them track individual cows to improve on farm breeding and performance very niche very complicated to explain doesn't take just one sentence um and they were about to raise a series b a couple of years ago and they realized very quickly that the way they were talking about the company the way they were talking about the potential for what was coming next and like an enterprise product much more complex like supply chain products and wasn't cutting through people didn't understand it people didn't really react to it um no one saw the potential and why it made so much sense and because the team was so knee-deep into the product building they couldn't really take a helicopter view and really you know sit down and be like okay what if i was an investor what would i want to see there so we did that for them we basically did a workshop with my team including some investor communications people some agritech people and some like what we call storyteller who are really good at like narratives and things like that and so we completely overhauled their pitch deck works with them obviously collaboratively to do it and help with a bit of design and then put a one pager together on on investor narrative to make sure that they were um it was all very clear the potential of this and um we worked very closely with the ceo and the people and on the on the communications team to deliver that and it was done in like three weeks because they just had invested like investment meeting in london like literally three weeks later so it was all very quick but we worked really well with them and as a result of that they took on board most of our suggestions and then they raised a few months later in the midst of the pandemic where was really difficult getting funding they raised um a 7 million series b which was i think the biggest ever investment for a european livestock company tech company so that's me that's my campaign and my questions awesome awesome thank you camille if we will come back up for zano as well we can now um yeah open up to the crowd thank you both thank you both so um i'll kick off obviously everyone who's watching right now if you have any questions please send them in i had a few pre questions sent in by the community on newsletter last week that i'm going to run through um i suppose we spoke very positively about the industry about you know dealing with pr um there were some some lessons learned that you both shared at the start which obviously was really good i suppose for the individual here who is the head of pr and the ceo and the head of product which often is the case for many first-time founders um how do you deal with rejection is um the first question i have for both of you as i suppose you both have probably had to send and send and send and said but if there any nuggets we can kind of deal with in terms of the rejection side of things i would say don't take it personally as soon as you start making it personal it becomes really hard to distance yourself um from what it is that's being rejected you're not being rejected as a person you're not being rejected as a human being something that was probably not worded exactly like it should have been was rejected by someone who didn't have the context and as soon as you understand that i think it's a lot easier to take feedback on board and not like fall down every time someone says no yes not that yeah i love that and i'd also just say maybe to take a positive approach in the sense that um if it wasn't picked up to sort of look at it why um and then take that learning for your sort of future pictures because everyone you know all pr's with you know we we've sent out pictures that are ignored that we think are absolutely amazing and we just don't get it and we don't understand and you know sometimes i would then show it to my colleagues and say you know i thought this was a really good pitch i don't understand and you know and sometimes actually by showing it to some of your other colleagues your other pr people they can kind of pick things up because sometimes you know we all have blind spots um and i think the more we sort of you know sort of share um our work and get feedback then that can kind of help us to sort of strengthen our pitches going forward i love that i love that um next question i had which came from the community was um how do they find contacts this is the age-old question the magic question um is there you know sources that you guys use um is everything you recommend that individual can do do they have to just sign up with you guys it's not to actually give away the whole playbook but what's something that an individual can do to start building their relationship with the press almost before they need that that kind of that like article done for them later i mean i mean you do have like softwares um like databases uh such as gorkhana and gorkana and there are others uh you basically pay a subscription and it's a little bit like google you sort of type in i don't know health or you know ugly tech or whatever and then all the journalists who write about it come up and it has their contact details and you can export it into a spreadsheet or you can send pictures and press releases to them within the software and then these and then also they also have something called media requests where journalists write into the software and say you know can you tell all the pr's who i don't know whose clients have pink sofas to email us all the pink sofas you've got on high res images you know before tuesday 3 p.m and it's usually tuesday 2 30 p.m when we get the email and then everyone scrambles and sends everything to them um and uh and you know but i would say that over the years you know it used to be really good and effective and it's become kind of less so especially the media requests just because as camille was mentioning there's just is a lot less journalists out there they don't they have less support teams they're overworked um they don't have the time to read emails anyway um and so it's um so it's become incredibly tough um and you know and then the other way is obviously you know sometimes having a look at what media outlets are the right ones looking at which the you know which journalists write about the sort of topics um and then having a look at them on social media uh following them you know you sometimes have contact details there and you'd be surprised you know sometimes you call up and you get through it's you know and some journalists are much more open to um to phone calls and it's you know and even you know sort of uh social media sort of um messages others absolutely hate them um so it's you know every they're all human they have different sort of preferences i like that yeah i would just add to that there's actually we also use roxil which i think is a bit less expensive than raw cat yeah and a bit more user-friendly generally so i would recommend that one and then if you don't have the budget for that yeah exactly sorry are you rock still r o c r o x h i double l um and there's loads of new things that i'm sure i'm not aware of i mean they are i shouldn't be saying that because it's competitive competition to my industry but there are companies that automate that sort of stuff using ai you know like kind of looking at what journalists writes about and and and kind of compiling it in kind of an intelligence report so that you don't have to do it because i will say this if you don't invest the time in exactly what farsana said invests at the time in what those guys like to write about what their contact preferences chances are you're just going to piss them off so social media yes there are also some trade media where the editorial team's contact details are listed on their website which is easy enough to get but before basically before you contact any of these guys um and once you've found their contact details just make sure that you know what you're pitching love that um so kip said one of the audience members is it possible to post a link for example pr now so it doesn't get forgotten so you know the pr thing you mentioned coming if you send it to us so it's a pdf do you want me to send it to you and then you can share it with the group send it to us i have a group exactly um the next question i had there's quite a few coming in now um which of your most recent campaigns do you find interesting twenty three one of us has been issuing i know can we kind of touch on it but yeah which of your your most recent campaigns have you found interesting and why i think my one is probably um there's a space tech client that i'm working with i've always watched star trek and star wars and and i'm just like so excited about it and i'm just and and i find it really interesting because it's a nascent industry um and i think a lot of pr people are attracted to pr because it's very dynamic um and therefore quite a lot of pr people therefore attracted to nascent industries um and so um you know for me space tech is it's a little bit like ai robotics before it took off a little bit like before the internet took off it's just this whole new sort of virgin territory and i find it really fascinating to just watch this emerging industry take place um and um so you know and our client sort of launches satellites into space so it's just i love learning about things i know nothing about um and then immersing myself in doing a deep dive yeah i'm exactly the same i was going to say well i work a lot in nation tech as well and so one of the things that i've been doing with a client that i can't name unfortunately but they're doing something with psychedelics assisted um therapy so yeah so talking about amazing and it's really cool and it's basically it there's a big revolution happening in that space and because um basically scientists have found out that it's very effective on disorders like um post-traumatic disorders and um addiction um yeah and alcoholism exactly and so there's a whole lot of startups that are looking at solutions on how to scale and how what when they get fda approval which should be in the next couple of years how to scale those treatments how to make them safe et cetera and so that that company does that and we did a whole kind of brand positioning messaging thing which is obviously they need they need to build understanding and trust of this in a in a you know in a public an audience that has strong prejudices about it so really interesting communications challenge for sure that's absolutely fascinating and you know there's this book um i've been reading by michael pollan how to change your mind yes i'm aware of that one it's really it's yeah and then netflix also did a really good documentary on it so many documentaries on this yeah really fascinating it's you know it's such a fascinating area that's typical i'm just making notes of all of these things adding it to my list um okay so the next question i've got in here is um obviously you might you know you both probably look at in different ways but um how do you make sure you keep up to date with trends um are you guys using twitter i see that you're working with interesting clients obviously inspire you to go read around the industries but yeah as a practice how do you how do you both keep up with trends um i love newsletters they're my favorite like format so i sign up to the ft one first fg in the morning 6am so roundup of the news it's what i like about is that it's not just uk it's um europe world focus and it's just really well written and and packaged i also feel the sifted which is the ft's um startup newsletter which i'm sure a lot of you will be aware of because they're all things startups really cool it was only launched like a few years ago but it's been massively successful um so i read those two and then i have i'm lucky enough that my team puts together a roundup of all the really cool text stories of the day which i also read with great interest and then i also decent listen to radio for the day program in the morning which is a lot actually and it's quite repetitive but i quite like that mix i love that so i guess i guess when you work in pr you tend to understand the trends because what happens is um especially if you work in new business in pr um all the sort of new startups who are um you know looking for prs to help them tell their story to journalists means that we tend to know what's happening even before journalists so actually working in pr you're really at these you know at the sort of like the frontier of trends um which is you know what i love about pr so much um i think in terms of you know getting information in terms of trends other than that i tend to be a bit of an early adopter so whenever i see anything that's new i sort of you know i think new and shiny i'm like a magpie i just go towards it and you know i'm really interested and um and you know even like when there's new um but even for instance you know you've got like tick-tock that is you know isn't new at all but what i find interesting is how it evolves and you now begin to see b2b content um on it as well and so even existing you know channels and social media platforms that you know have been around for years evolve so it's just kind of like analyzing and looking and seeing those like shifts and those changes but i think also with trends um it's really important to look at culture um and really take that time to really think about what is you know the culture shifts what's happening and also looking at you know the the national um office of statistics and others you know you get all these surveys that shows you about what's happening in terms of the attitudes um in in the country and how it's shifting on different sort of like topics um i'm not sure how kind of like um good they are but you know because because it's a lot of it's also flawed and how do you gather the information and who engages with um you know with the surveys and who doesn't but i think it's you know i think definitely keeping an eye and also understanding psychology and understanding how culture shifts and how um societies um are shaped by you know by various different um sort of opinion makers and and content i think yeah yeah podcasts i love as well it's good to like deep dive on a specific trend like you don't know anything about ai you want to understand that just type in best podcast on ai and then listen to a couple of episodes and that usually is such a good way of like understanding something at a top level yeah and also understanding like you know for instance twitter you know there's a very certain sort of demographic that's on it you know and sort of understanding it's not reflective of the entire you know um you know uk uh understanding that there's general there's sort of generational nuances there's socio-economic nuances there's regional nuances understanding that you know the uk is made up of you know a multitude of communities um and therefore when you're looking at trends you need to sort of understand what are you what sort of what are the parameters of these trends that you're looking at i love that there's a lot there that people can take trends is something that people will obviously love love love love to see um we've got a really interesting question that's coming here around a niche the niche is around um they're kind of like the menstrual cycle kind of washable knickers i love it i'm actually wearing washable knickers right now um i actually i came across this brand called thinx and um and it and it was very kind of nerve-wracking because i thought does it really work and you know and all of that sort of stuff um and i saw thinks was um and i came across things on instagram const i'm gonna check you guys out bp3 i'm gonna write down right now um and and i was reading about things actually when i was in the us i started my cousins were using things and they're like oh you should use it to use it i was like oh i don't know um and then i um and then i remember in the uk it was just kept on popping up my instagram feed and then obviously they sell it in selfridges and i think their designs are a bit boring to be honest so i'm totally up for checking out your brand because i think with you know the washable knickers i think people know about it but now it's kind of like move it move it one step up i.e let's get some decent design um around the product as well on your pr question kelly i think so you've got competitors in that space and they have a big marketing budget because i see ads everywhere in the tube online and so it's difficult difficult to compete with that when you don't when you're a small company and you don't have a big budget i would spend a bit of time figuring out what makes you different from the competitors out there what you bring that's really different is it the material is it the technique is it the you know what feedback do you get from women and customers that say to you um why they love your product and then use that as a proof point and find a way i don't know if you're planning to raise funding or just go like i don't i don't know anything about your company but i would try and figure out what makes you unique what do you have coming up that could be considered as like a piece of news and then try and package it up and and and see who are the journalists who've written about other products and try and get to build a relationship with them as a starting point rather than just say please talk about my product i mean a technique is also sending products to journalists for them to try them on and ask if you know they'd write a review for you that's that's something that you can also do i would i mean i'm on your website right now it's bp3 underwear.com so i think the first thing is you know the logo that you've got on the left hand side i can't read what it says underneath so i think the you need a bit more for high-res image for the actual logo it says play don't pause but it strains my eye to see it so i think i think there needs to be some kind of housekeeping on the website also um you know they look like nice products and and stuff but um and and it's very functional your messaging it's like you know fed up with the leaks and stuff like that kind of you know to differentiate yourself maybe a bit of story like you know who are you yeah what's your journey your female founder you know why did you decide to do it you know um what makes you different so there is a story on there now again i'm i'm on it but the thing is it's not coming across like i've been on your website for about 20 seconds now and and what i what i look what i see is um is functional messaging um but to kind of elevate it a little bit in terms of story i mean you say you've got it but i'm you know i can't find it um and you know what sometimes i tend to do that i'd look at the website and i'd really look at other people's websites and sometimes if it's your own business it's really difficult to really see it so get somebody else um to objectively look at yours versus other people and just look at the little nuances and the difference um but ultimately i think that what's kind of missing is why should i buy from yours rather than someone else um what's what's that sort of difference you know and i think you know i know things you know it's been out there and all of that but if if you wrapped me up in this whole story about who you are and your journey and you know why you decided to do this and um and you know and something and what's different about me buying knickers from your brand rather than things that needs to come across because not everyone wants to just buy from the biggest you know um outlet like i'm i've bought some things i'm totally open to buying from other brands but i want to know why should i what is different yeah echoing about your knickers what's up um this was like real practical advice um i've got a few more questions i'd like to run through if you guys don't mind um okay let's maybe take it a bit more personal uh we both have got so much experience but what's been the highlight of your media career uh both ladies i think mine has been teaching actually i am i've been teaching for the last four years uh public relations and i really enjoy it i didn't think i would um and i really i i find that i learn more from the students then they learn from me because they're just a different generation and you just see the world through their eyes um and you know and they're just doing such incredible work uh i will teach an entrepreneurship center and so i see this you know like uh these students who are setting up businesses and they're very sort of early stage and it's just fascinating and then i've been doing it for four years then i see them raising you know 5 million 50 million you know because they're all on my linkedin and it's just really nice to sort of you know watch that growth yeah i would take a similar approach like to your team and clients like when i work with a startup and i see them succeed so i worked with startup three years ago that was pre-series b and you know struggling to get a bit of media attention struggling to make people understand why they were different and they ipo'd on the nasdaq yesterday three years later um being one of the most yes and the funny thing is i don't even work with them i haven't worked with them in in a long time because i was just part of the initial kind of project in first year or second year but that is a very proud moment for me and i think like anything that where i see how my council or our council makes a real impact on a business is is where i think i have once had a client cry in a workshop where we presented back to to him um like a brand narrative for his company and that's the kind of stuff i live for like it's just like because working with startups the emotion um of comms is so strong because this is people who like people like you guys who you know sweat and tears that's got have got into the business so when you hire a pr agency like you the the stakes are high for you personally as well so there's something really nice about knowing that you're making an impact and helping that journey oh i love that from both of you i can see why you're both like passionate about your field um i just wanted to get a like yeah two more questions and then we'll maybe wrap um so we've tackled trends we've tackled you know the highlight into your career we've obviously helped kelly out a bit there with some context um when people are like building their own pr strategy or working with others what would you guys consider to be success um or what is the goal like how do you set metrics around goal setting and kpis especially in the field where in some campaigns you might get 10 pieces of coverage by the time you might get two but those two might be game changing for that business right yeah i mean i would normally look at the business strategy and you know or the organizational strategy and then you know we would normally sort of on the back of the business organization strategy would create a com strategy because ultimately the communications is to support the organizations or the business objectives so if you're for instance a startup um some of your key objectives would be to raise money to hire talent um and also to just get the sales in um and so um and so it's about creating a strategy that supports them and and and then converting it into sort of you know comms metrics so for instance you know awareness is obviously very important which is obviously the media coverage and then what awareness you look at into circulation reach but then also for getting people to actually not just know that you exist but do something i invest in you or you know come and join your team or you know buy from you the messaging is important um so you know it's the awareness it's just getting your name in front and then the messaging and the positioning is important i.e the conversation that we had um you know earlier with the washable knickers is like if somebody like i know that you exist with in the awareness is there because you know you mentioned um your company and i went on the website but the messaging wasn't isn't there and compelling for me to be like well what's different about it so it's not just about awareness it's also about messaging and also positioning and getting that piece right um and so i think it's you know sort of important to look at um what do you want to achieve and then you work your way backwards to see what's the sort of comms channels to use and what's the messaging to use and you know and ultimately everyone's restrained by budget so it's really figuring out you know what's most optimum use of your budget um to achieve your objectives it sounds very corporation sorry yeah the only thing i'd add to that is don't ask the pr agency to commit to certain number of pieces of coverage because that one that is really difficult to commit to without knowing anything about a company and having worked with them before and two i don't think quantity of coverage as rosanna said is a good enough metric to measure success you need to know like is it going to be as you know one article in a very targeted press is going to be much more impactful than like four in really low level publications so don't focus on volume because i know it's a difficult conversation the roi one when you hire a peer agency because it's so intangible as an asset as a tactic so i would also not shut the door to people from agencies who are suggesting other tactics than media relations everyone's really set on media everyone's like oh we want media coverage but there's a lot of smart things you can do with content on your website on linkedin on twitter that sometimes is less expensive than just human cost of calling journalists and has a very clear roi because you can measure it with views and click open rates and that kind of stuff so yeah be open love that and um another question