Everybody gets to that stage in their business when they are ready to pitch themselves to other companies or to be on other people's podcasts or even in their publications. And if you are at that stage and you feel like you're ready to do that, but you're not at the point of wanting to hire a PR agency, you can do so much on your own just by putting together your own package that makes you look amazing. And if you don't know how to do that, I have a guest with us today, Emily Reagan, who is going to explain to you how you can do that and set yourself up for success.
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Welcome to the Breakthrough Mastermind Show. I'm your host, Jen Argue and I facilitate masterminds for women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses to help others and create financial independence. I'm so excited to have Emily Reagan back on the show with us today. Emily is a PR expert, public relations, and she also has a VA business where she teaches other people how to make money as a marketing VA.
Also, I should just say she is a member of my mastermind and is an extraordinary person, so thank you so much for being here, Emily. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited about this conversation because I have this whole secret side of me that comes from being a PR director and a communications director, and I don't get to talk about it that much.
So I'm kind of excited. I'm super excited about it because Emily has this big background where she has done a lot of PR work for people, and even in our mastermind when she talks about helping others, you know, increase their PR and getting visible. She always knows exactly what to do and that's why she's on the show today because, well, the reason I wanted you to come on and speak about this, Emily, is because I have been getting asked a lot about how to increase sponsorships, how to increase affiliate, you know, work, how to make more money in your business by doing those sorts of things.
But it's hard to do those sorts of things, I think unless you know about PR, which is your expertise. So tell me about why you still run this part of your business and what it's about. Okay, so PR is a part of marketing. It's just done free. Although this landscape is changing a little bit, where you'll see podcasts charge people to be on there, you're starting to see magazines like charge for you to be on their feature articles like it's evolving, but generally, PR is free part of marketing, getting your word out there, creating demand, and it's really something that a lot of online entrepreneurs are trying to do to increase their visibility, right?
We can throw money at Facebook ads, but if I search your name and nothing comes up and you don't look like a credible resource that I wanna buy from, I'm not going to.
So PR is a mix of all this marketing stuff we've been doing. It's... you know, showing up number one in Google because you have been featured in all these other different places. Right. And um, I'm thinking of one of my clients where I first started pitching with her, we Googled her name and it was a completely different person who kept coming up.
So if you wanna get featured, I don't know. Not everyone's end goal is to be on the today show. You've gotta get the little wins and the little PR, you know, exposure that you can anywhere for free. And at this point in our business, we kind of want to say yes to everything because we wanna get out there. There is a certain point where we're successful business owners who are seven, eight figures.
They're gonna have a PR team, right? They're gonna be able to pay 12,000 a month or whatever the ridiculous rates are to do that and get featured and they're gonna have a dedicated person. But there's this, this sweet spot when you're starting. Where it's kind of hard, you know, you need to get out there, but you're in the weeds because you're creating your courses, you're doing your services, but you still need to be working on your visibility.
And one of the main reasons why is because it takes time, just like SEO, it doesn't happen overnight and it's small little wins, and it's one of those tasks that all of us, I'm even guilty too, of putting it at the bottom of the stack of the to-do list, right? We keep meaning to get to it. We never do, and then it never gets done, and then two, three years later, you still haven't gotten the features you wanted.
So that's kind of why we're having this conversation today because it is hard when you're first starting out. Yeah. So what can somebody do to set themselves up for success in that area, and what do you help them do specifically? Yeah, what do you do for them. Well, it starts with somebody knowing their speaking topics.
What are you going to talk about? What do you wanna be known for in these speaking topics? They need to lead to an offer. Now I'm kind of focusing on the podcast pitching realm right now, but this applies to any kind of guest blogging. If you wanna be featured in Forbes like you still have to have your angles.
And I actually went to journalism school, and so I have a background in being an editor, like working at an assignment desk, seeing all the press releases come through, and I also know what journalists are looking for. So when I switched over to PR, like I got it, and news editors and podcast editors were all kind of in the same boat.
They're just looking for relevant newsworthy stories. There's certain factors that make something more eligible than another, and you finding that sweet spot of how do I work this into my speaking topic? So there's this sense of urgency of why we need to publish this now. And that really is the art of PR. How do you make your story idea need to go to print today, tomorrow?
Cause otherwise editor can save it for next month and next month. So you can see why it's this like big ecosystem of marketing too, right? It's all like related. It's really fun for me and back in my last full-time job, I was a communications director and it was amazing because we had a very high-level event.
But even in my job before that, I knew how to write a press release that got printed. I knew and learned how to develop relationships with media so I could call 'em up and be like, we have this thing going on, and I knew how to position it where they're like, yes, we need it. I mean, story editors, like they're drowning too.
They are in this content wheel that we're in too. They just have to have, uh, a filter for the news. Right. You know, they're a gatekeeper there. So what I help people do is write those pitches so that they have that newsworthy angle and then they start getting featured and we start with the low-hanging fruit like podcast that will help you with your exposure with, you know, perfecting your speaking ability.
Because we don't all start out, you know, high level on the top podcast ever, like going straight on Amy Porterfield's podcast. You have to start with the small wins that build up your credibility. And then maybe, you know, Amy's podcast person, her manager, we'll start Googling you and see, okay, she's been on this one, she's been on this one.
She knows what she's talking about. She's not gonna fade away. So yeah, I know, I like, kind of went on a little [inaudible] uh, a rant there. But what I'm offering is a media pitching VIP day with me where we do that pitch. We list out your ideal podcast to start with, and then you have some like, kind of a template to work with and be able to apply it to different, different media situations, different podcast.
Hmm... I love that you offer this custom offer to people in a VIP day so that they can have it done, wrapped up, ready to go in a day. Because nobody wants to have like some kind of service like prepping them and going on and on forever, right? Yeah... especially these fast movers are typically the ones that want this service.
You provide that custom service for them in just a day, which is awesome. So I actually worked with Emily on this in 2020, and it was such an amazing thing. And every time now that I've been asked, you know, for, for a media kit, it's like, yes, here it is. Here's my media kit like, and it looks beautiful because Emily really helped me think through it all and have all the critical elements in it, and it was such a great service.
I felt like this is what I really want people, my listeners here to know about is that they can have this done in a very easy and custom way with your services because I think you're the best in this whole arena. So I love that you're offering that. So once people have that done, what is something very practical they can do with it?
It's really funny cuz we say media kit, but we also can mean like a speaker one sheet. But you can take different variations of this and use it for different parts of your business and we can take that media kit and we can use it to get brand sponsorships and collaborations and kind of add this new revenue stream.
As you grow your audience, you don't need to be someone with a huge media following. Brands want to work with somebody who has engagement. They want the micro-influencers, they want the audience that actually. Is paying attention and taking action. So I think a lot of us think, oh, I'm not ready for this.
And I mean, I know I'm a big black kettle I do this with my own business. But if you have an audience, you can help them and there are brands you can connect them to, that will help too. And so we don't all have to be this, like this large... large email list, large stats and whatnot, and especially this day and age where people are buying followers anyway, I think that really owning that you're a niche, uh, influencer.
Sometimes we have like problems calling ourselves influencers, right? There can be like that negative connotation, but we're just connecting people with solutions that will help them and brands will pay for media shoutouts dedicated emails, they'll pay for sponsored blog posts, and so you can find a way to supplement your main income as you grow your audience.
I think it's actually so creative and so fun that brands are doing that and reaching out to what you're calling micro-influencers, because that would be like us, right? I think anybody with less than 500,000 people on there, you know, follower list. But it, it's so fun to me to see different people if I'm going down the Instagram rabbit hole, you know, and just like wasted time scrolling.
I came across this one guy who works with animals. I don't even remember what shape or form he has like an animal farm or something, but he was sponsored by Mountain Dew. [laughs] He likes Mountain Dew, so it's like, that's so fun. You know, like there's definitely things that I like that I could definitely be reaching out to, you know, that company and asking if they would, you know, work with me on that.
And then I would feel ready because I have this kit put together, I have this strategy. Um, someone like you who's helped me, you know, look at my SEO, am I showing up. Am I optimizing in all the areas? That's really great to have in place before you start doing that, and it makes doing that so much easier knowing it's all taken care of.
Yeah, that media kit is so important. I mean, if I'm reaching out to you to be booked on your podcast like I might not need it, but it does bring a certain level of professionalism. But then think about the gatekeeper. Somebody is managing that inbox. Somebody is going to forward you on or not. Someone's going to print you out and bring you to a meeting, and that's really what the media kit is doing.
It's, it's so you can go up that chain of command and get in. Get visible in front of the person who has the powers to make decisions. And so one of the first, I don't know if I ever told you this. One of my first projects in this online space was creating a media kit, and I just started working with Jennifer Allwood and she had put a post out there that she needed that.
And I had done so many press kits. I'd made them, I'd worked at the assignment desk where I've seen 'em all. I've collected the swag for it for myself. Uh, I distributed it in the newsroom, so I'd seen these like printed tangible kits which are still relevant, but this whole online space has shifted so much.
And so my first job was to, to position her from furniture painter, uh, to like a blogger and an influencer. And so that was what I did, was gathering her stats, like diving deeper into her business. And then from there, my, all of this marketing took off because I was seeing patterns. And so if anyone's like, oh my gosh, this sounds overwhelming.
Just start with Google Analytics. Like, get that going. Start tracking your numbers, uh, your social media following, being featured on even baby podcasts. Like all of this will add up for you to be a stronger brand down the road. You might not think you want that right now. You need to be thinking about that forward future business where, what if I did have an audience and they were buying, how else could I help like tap into Black Friday?
I don't have to promote my own products. I could, you know, work with so and so. And it's so funny, I just filled out an Amazon, just released some kind of, I'm gonna butcher the name creative community. Like everyone's coming up with these creative, like content creator communities like Pinterest, Instagram, and they're like, what brands do you wanna work with?
And so I like put in there. [laugh] I didn't really know what I was doing, I was like Apple, I didn't think about Mountain Dew, but maybe I should have put an espresso and margaritas. I don't know. [laughs] Yes, this landscape is changing and so it's all about setting yourself up. So you're ready for the opportunities. Yes. Yes.
Okay. Emily, you had mentioned, uh, Google Analytics, you know, I've worked with a lot of business owners and typically the classic business owner that I've worked with barely has their numbers together in QuickBooks. So let alone even knowing how to look into their Google Analytics, is that something like in that custom VIP day that you would help them with?
We can start absolutely looking at those numbers and if it's something that you need help with in a retainer fashion, we can talk about those type of services. I also have this whole network of marketing assistants, so I am happy to refer this on when we start getting into the media kit. It really does uncover things in our business that can be improved or what should be focused on.
So I definitely love all the marketing things. I love the VIP day because we walk away with a tangible pitch, uh, a template, we can hand it off to our team so they can keep it going. But the, the truth is, Jen, I love all the marketing. I think this talk has been so valuable.
I love that you're coming at this angle to help people make more money in their business by doing something that's really on, you know, on something that's increasing a lot right now. And that's sponsorships and affiliate work. And you know, it's always been big to try and pitch yourself to get on podcasts or into publications of some sort.
So, I love that you're facilitating this for the entrepreneur to make it easy for them to make sure they're set up for success. So if somebody wanted to work with you on this, what would be their next steps after listening to this podcast? Oh my goodness. If you are in that spot where you're not ready to commit to a high-level PR agency, you don't need a podcast picture.
You know, signing a six-month contract at 2K a month. If you're not ready for that, that's okay. I've got your back. I can get you started so you can DIY and start moving the needle. Just go to @emilyreaganpr.com for public relations. And if you go to my rate section, you'll see my media pitching, uh, VIP day.
And again, you walk away with that podcast pitch, you get a tracker because it's really important to know who you've pitched to and what they've said and the fortunes in the follow-up. You've gotta, you know, unfortunately, with PR, it's not just one email and done. We've gotta follow up and you'll also get access to my mini course podcast guesting 101, so you can be empowered to find the perfect podcast and for you and figure out how to reach out and get on the show. Oh, that is such a great service. If you're listening to this, definitely go check Emily out and get set up for success for this part of your business. Thank you so much for joining us today, Emily. Thanks, Jen, it was fun.
I'm so glad you joined us today because as you can tell, getting sponsored is really on the rise for micro-influencers, and you might not think of yourself as a micro-influencer, but if you have any type of audience you are, you can find products that you love and pitch to that company.
That you would be a great sponsor for them and get paid for making a post or making a story, or even you can get a link from that company and get an affiliate amount every time somebody purchases. So there are so many ways that you can use the service that Emily provides to help you grow your business and increase your bottom line. So definitely, go check her out at all of the links that are in the show notes or connected somewhere to the show. Thank you so much for joining.
And if you are looking for more support, challenge, and inspiration in running your online business, I would love to have you apply to my mastermind.
Check it out! @jenargue.com
