How to Pitch The Media & Win Over Influencers on A Very Tight Budget

Beauty pr, Brand Awareness, collaborations, digital content strategy, How to Do Your Own PR, Influencer marketing, Marketing Technology, media relations, Owned Media, press liaison, Public Relations, Uncatergorized

Every day I speak with business owners from around the world. Personal trainers, nutritionists, physicians, cosmetic formulators, fashion designers, spa owners, hair stylists, pharmaceutical companies and so on. I really specialize in anything that makes us look and feel good. New exercise classes, superfood snacks, wearable tech, athletic wear, healthy food services, a breakthrough drug, beautiful apparel, etc.

It’s a part of what I do each day and I learn so much about the real pain points that entrepreneurs face as they try to expand their business and build brand awareness.

Every so often I will post real questions from brave bosses and start-up founders hustling to create their dream businesses. Everybody seems to have similar problems and questions, even though they are in different industries. They’re all trying to figure out this marketing game.

I am a business marketing consultant trying to help them. Sometimes I consult and sometimes I build strategies to help organize entrepreneurs so there not marketing by the seat of their pants. I meet all these brave souls on sites like Upwork, LinkedIn Profinder, YouTube, Angel.co, Clarity.fm, etc.

I love working with startups and passionate people in general. It just makes the day better. They are working on the coolest things. What kinds of things? Apps to help us stick to our diet when we eat out; evidence-based reviews of alternative therapies like acupuncture and cryotherapy; a new health and wellness club that incorporates the newest in tech like DNA testing; a seasonless line of women’s wear with styles that enhance what you already have in your closet; a better bone broth; a way to help people allocated their paycheck and a path to financial wellness, and so forth.

One particular entrepreneur/blogger was looking to pitch journalists about her new website. She is obsessed with how technology is helping women stay healthier and live longer.

She sent the link to her new website and had placeholders for blog posts and zero social media content, but she wanted to build a plan to pitch the media and collaborate with influencers to build her network.

Her questions –

1) Can I use the same pitch for lifestyle and health (journalists)?

Short answer, no. Best practices include tailoring the pitch to each individual writer and website/program. General pitching is rarely picked up unless it is a very timely news story. Pitching should be thoughtful. You’re developing relationships with these writers and you won’t be off on the right foot if you start with “here’s my story, now please write it.”

2) Which news categories should I target?

Health + tech. I’d start with those two categories. It helps if you do a Google news search to see who is hot on your topic. Just search in Google News and read the first ten most recent articles. Recent is important. In this ever-changing, fast-paced world, yesterday’s news is long gone. Then start a simple excel sheet and dig for the email address of the writers who are covering your topics. This will be the beginning of your media list.

3) Best channels (online platforms) to approach media for the site?

Email and Twitter. However, you need to start a relationship first. For example, you don’t just DM on Twitter. Retweet some of their stories, comment and like. Don’t just start pitching, it looks like stalking.

4) Other ideas you can provide to accelerate traction (brand awareness) on a tight budget?

Write or film amazing blog content and be the publisher of all things health + tech. That’s what you should be doing in the first place. Media attention and collaborations come naturally from producing excellent work built on honesty and integrity that gets shared.

How To Score Media Coverage for Your Brand

collaborations, creative collaboration, Digital Newsroom, Earned Media, Fitness Marketing, growth hacking, Integrated public relations plan, marketing muscle, media relations, Public Relations, The PR Playbook

Yes you need press coverage. No you don’t need a press release. What you need are answers to the most important questions that writers, reporters and bloggers want to know.

In this video, I quickly move through the top 20 questions on every media influencer’s mind.

The Top Three Questions on every writer’s mind. . .

What makes your story newsworthy right now? Why is it so timely?
What problem does it solve? And, is it a big problem?
Will readers and viewers want to share your story?

If you need help reaching out to bloggers, vloggers and writers about your brand story, check out The PR Playbook, a crash course in winning over the media and collaborating with influencers.

Win Over Media & Influencer Like a PR Pro

collaborations, Digital Newsroom, How to Do Your Own PR, Key Messaging and Talking Points, press coverage, Press Kits, The PR Playbook

I am very excited to be editing a course that will help fitness, health, wellness and nutrition startups build their businesses with ThePRPlaybook.com.

This is your essential guide, basically your road map to growing your business while winning over top-tier media and your very favorite influencers.

You know that building buzz and sharing your journey will boost brand awareness and consumer engagement that leads to an increase in sales for you. This is your marketing manual for success and it was created for people who don’t have the time to spend on social media 24/7.

If you are struggling with finding customers & clients, then this course is for you. If you need more eyeballs on your website then enroll your ass in this course right now.

Whether you’ve written a book, built an online course yourself or you’re opening a new retail store, maybe an e-commerce shop or you have created a breakthrough product or service, you will learn the most critical and effective marketing and PR tactics to reach your audience and audiences you never knew you would attract. Yes, that is right, the people who want to buy your stuff.

You will learn how to grow brand awareness about your business with press coverage in leading media like The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch and USA Today and how to collaborate with influential bloggers and vloggers to reach new customers and clients.

I created this course to help startups and new brands cut through the clutter of repetitive, abundant and downright confusing marketing advice and understand and execute only the most productive marketing activities to build upon success.

Who am I?

My name is Madeline Johnson and I am a Marketing & Media Strategist & Consultant based in NYC. I am a no BS PR pro who specializes in health, wellness, fitness & nutrition. I have over 15 years of experience working with amazing brands like Reebok, Fairmont Hotels & Spas, Aveda and startups in the world of health and wellness tech.

I enjoy working with startups and entrepreneurs who are basically creating anything that makes us look and feel great. Send me a Tweet @MarketCouncil

Creating More Shareable Content

Brand Awareness, collaborations, Content management, Content strategy, Creative Marketing Campaigns, future of marketing, Social Content Management, social media marketing, social media statistics

In this video, I explain how to use the free version of software like Buzzsumo to find content that has been shared so you can get inspired to make your next video, article or post even that more viral.

Big news today. I was approved as a expert for Clarity.fm. Clarity links you with expert consultants to help you with your business. You can connect with me here and we can schedule a call to help take your brand to the next level.

How to Reach Out to Influencers Like a Pro

collaborations, Influencer marketing, Uncatergorized

Summary

You increase your chances of collaborating with others when you make it easy to work with you. You remove the major barrier of time loss aversion from the equation. You’ve basically created the content you want to share with the influencer. All they need to do is “weigh in” and add their point of view.

Advice

Make it easy to share stories, be interviewed, get your product reviewed or work on a creative collaboration. You want the influencer to know you are professionally prepared.
Being professional and prepared helps overcome the barrier of loss aversion on the influencers part. He/She may be concerned that they won’t have the time to collaborate, so take that anxiety away. You do the prep work.
If you have an aversion to selling yourself, then don’t sell. Educate, enlighten and inspire others. No need to come in hot and hard. Chill out and create useful and helpful content for your collaborators, influencers and customers

Your Collaboration Checklist

Be ready to serve up your fresh idea for a collaboration with everything you need to get the story done.
Make sure your bio is interesting to read and your photo is fresh.
Review high res photos and crisp video content. Make sure it is good to go.
You have done all the legwork. You have the facts, research and studies to back it up.
You’ve included the state of the market, the background story, the players in your pitch.
Finally make sure it’s easy to contact you to get moving on the story now.

Let’s Connect

Do you have a new health, wellness or fitness brand you are marketing? I’d love to hear about it. Please comment below and follow me @marketcouncil on Twitter.