Retail For The Rest Of Us: A Podcast For Indie Retailers Who Want To Make Sales, Build Community and Grow Their Shops

Be Your Own Samantha Jones — PR Advice for Indie Retailers ft. Nora Wolf of Wolf Craft + Wolf PR

• Janine Mulone • Season 3 • Episode 5

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Have you ever wondered if one good piece of press could make your shop successful forever? That’s the magic of public relations! (Sort of.) This week, we have Nora Wolf of Wolf PR and Wolf Craft on the podcast to give us the rundown about what PR can do for small businesses...and what it can’t.

In this episode we cover:

  • What PR is and isn’t (especially now that everything’s digital)
  • When it makes sense to work with a PR agency
  • Why good photos are SO important for your products
  • How to craft a successful pitch
  • When to pitch print vs digital vs holiday features

Tune in to learn why all you need for PR success is one product, good pictures and a story. Plus! It’s time to start pitching holiday gift guides & we’ve got a workshop to help you out. ⤵️

“How to Increase Brand Awareness with Holiday Gift Guide Press” MAY 16th at 10AM EST

Want to learn how to take advantage of the biggest PR opportunity of the year for product-based businesses? During this FREE workshop with Nora & Janine you’ll learn:

  • Why the holidays have 5x the amount of press opportunities
  • Why gift guides should be your media outreach priority if you sell products
  • How gift guide press can supercharge your end of year sales goals
  • When to pitch gift guides editors so you don't miss out on this great media opportunity
  • 5 insider publicist tips so you're sure your product is ready for gift guide outreach

Register for the workshop here.


If you want more from Nora, here are the PR goods —

And we’ve got resources for you, too!


🕸 feelgoodretail.com
📱 @feelgoodretail


 ✨ Thanks for listening to the Retail for the Rest of Us archive! There's tons of great advice in this episode, but you may hear about resources that no longer exist or find broken links in our show notes. Please head to feelgoodretail.com/podcast for our up-to-date offerings!  

Music. Hi everyone welcome back to retail for the rest of us I'm your host Janine mulone the founder. And head Andy brand cheerleader fine feel good retail. I am thrilled to be back and bringing you this conversation we do have an interview episode for you answering questions that I get all the time. But am in no position to answer so today I'm super excited to introduce you to nor a wolf who is the founder of not one. But to businesses both wolf PR and wolf. And so today nor is going to share so much with us about increasing your brand awareness getting. Press crafting your own pitch crafting your own story and when you're ready for press for your business and what it could mean for you. I have heard the question so many times over my decade of retail Consulting. How do I get press I want to get pressed how do I get pressed how do I get out there do I need to have a big huge retainer that cost me thousands of thousands of dollars who do I reach out to. Is it all pay to play like these are questions that. I think we've all wondered I certainly have as you'll hear in this interview have also wondered how to get press for myself and for feel good retail and. What stories are. Press-worthy so Nora swooped in with all of her genius answered all of my questions from the big what even is PR2 very granular. Going through exactly what time of the year you should be pitching certain Publications for things like holiday gift guides and specific product launches how to do press research. I left this conversation having learnt so much so I'm so excited to get into it. As always I want to put a little plug in here for the library feel good retail.com Library it is our communal space for Indie retailers to get resources and get the support they need to grow their shops. It is five dollars a month or 55 dollars a year and it is a great way to say thank you for the show to continue to get resources that you can't get anywhere else. To get an Archive of Our Favorite resources that have now been retired replays of all of our free workshops that we do it's really great and I also create exclusive content every month to pop in there and help you grow. We call those little bundles of resources are seasonal Stacks get it. Like a library and they launched on the full moon of every single month so this month our seasonal stack revolves around creating context around your shop how do you, make it so that the content you're putting out both on social through your email list, even just the things that you're thinking about and talking about with your customers and store how does that relate to your customers life their experience what's going on in the world pop culture the news all of the things so. I am thrilled to be dropping that content, the stuff that's in there right now are pretty iconic not gonna lie we've got our sales cycle calculator a 30-day content calendar nine ways to grow without ads. Three surprising Secrets behind million dollar shops that Workshop was super popular. The ultimate Indie resource guide as well as last month seasonal stack which was about growing your audience so how to build momentum beyond the algorithm. How to test a referral program that's a step-by-step guide that I have never released publicly anywhere else as well as 11 ideas to grow your audience so there's all sorts of stuff in there it's five dollars a month I would love to have you. And what I am really excited about in terms of this library is that they're going to be replays of amazing workshops which we are aiming to do monthly so we're going to try to create free workshops every single month. The replay will be available for 24 hours for everyone who signs up but if you're a member of the library you have access to it forever which seamlessly. Leads me into the announcement that not only is Nora an amazing podcast guest that she is coming to teach our community I am. Pumped this Workshop is going to be called how to increase brand awareness with holiday gift guides so she's going to teach us why the holidays have five times the amount of press opportunities why gift guides should be your media outreach priority if you're the one selling products which many of you are. How much consumers spend around the holiday Insider publicist tips to make sure that your product is ready for gift guides and when to start pitching as well as how to craft a pitch I am, pumped like personally I'm very very very excited to take this workshop and I'm so excited that Nora agreed to teach the community so if you're interested in signing up, that Workshop is going to be May 16th at 10 a.m. There's a link in the show notes to sign up again totally free and if you're a member of the library you will get access to that recording. In perpetuity to as we like to say or I'll tear so. Before we get into the episode who is Nora wolf besides girl genius woman genius let's say, so Nora has worked in PR for her entire professional life and has been running her own Boutique public relations shop. Wolf PR since 2011 so she has been in the game for a long time she has an undergraduate degree in art and design which continues to inform and Inspire her current work as a design publicist. Wolf PR specializes in Furniture textiles lighting and collectible design and have also consulted with a wide range of companies from Fortune 300 multinational chemical companies to Dida see cat food startup so she does it all she welcomes A diversity of clients which we absolutely love it means the things that we talked about in this conversation are applicable to you no matter what industry you're in in 2020 during a crazy time one could say. Nora partnered with Kirsten Larson to found wolf craft in comparison to Wolf PR wolf craft was born out of the desire to work with companies who aren't able to engage a large PR firm in the past maybe due to budget or content constraints so wolf craft offers PR strategy that uses research-based design thinking, to guide offerings including one-on-one Consulting audits reporting and digital courses, centered around the pain points of PR and DIY PR for yourself which is where we really Center this conversation so. I am so excited again if you love this conversation if you take things away please. Take a screenshot share it on social media tag us at feel good retail tag Nora go dot wolf dot Craft on Instagram sign up for this Workshop it is going to be. Incredible how to increase brand awareness with holiday gift guide press Link in the show notes and that will be on May 16th at 10 a.m. eastern if you're in the library you get access forever. And yeah that's it let's get into the conversation talk to you soon. Music. Hi Nora welcome to retail for the rest of us thank you so much for having me I am thrilled. To have you because we are spoiler alert. If you've gotten to this part of the episode you know we're talking about press and getting pressed and getting your brand seeing today and Nora is the founder of two businesses. Love to see it. Wolf PR as well as wolf crafts and Nora why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and your businesses. Yes absolutely I would love to, so I went to I'm going to go back to college which Levy feels like a century ago I studied Art and Design in undergrad and graduated and kind of wasn't really sure like so many college grads what I was doing with my life. And apply to jobs I had no business applying to and one of those was a PR firm. And they hired me and they did PR in design and so that was kind of the beginning of the end for me I started a PR firm of my own called wolf PR my last name is Wolf so I just named it after me I mean pretty badass name so thanks Dad yeah so I started that in 2011. And about two years ago right when everything shut down I started wolf craft and so wolf PR the first business. We do full-service retainer PR work so we'll take our clients on for the long term and will do all their Outreach and kind of Soup To Nuts everything that happens that involves reach out to the media or presenting them publicly we kind of manage and then that kind of. Exercise isn't always accessible or useful like if you don't have a budget obviously this isn't the right, choice for you but also if you don't have stuff coming out every couple of months like why would you have if you have one big launch a year or you know not enough content for the year like it doesn't make sense to invest in a Year's worth of PR so we wanted to create something that felt accessible to this incredible design community that I have just a lot of personal interest going back to kind of like you can young designer being a young artist so that's kind of the the background story of how I started doing all this work and why we're talking team today yeah I love that because I think that there's obviously a huge gap in the market like you said and we'll get into this. A lot more in this conversation but just like the difference between the press needs of yeah like a huge company with lot of resources not just in terms of you know paying your retainer with a worth every cent but also like keeping up with inventory if you're getting a huge product placement or something like that so I think you know, while it's like crazy to thank you just started wolf craft two years ago and these wild times it's also so needed right for all of these people who, I've started small businesses or for small businesses who are trying to find ways to grow that are sustainable so I'm. Really excited to pick your brain like even personally like because I've never really had any press. At all you know what cell find that surprising given your success so. I'm excited to learn about what you what you what you do more in depth as well that's very kind but I think I have a very like 90's movie. Kim Cattrall in Sex in the City idea of what. Press and what PR is and so can you kind of break down like what does enlisting in a PR agency like yours entail generally and then. Has that shifted like you said in kind of your introduction around like. Anything that's public facing which I feel like in the last 10-15 years that has changed so significantly because of social media so, you gonna break the iris I do want to just really quickly shout-out Samantha as like an icon and I feel like God truly like the outfits the attitude just everything about her the self-sustainability like everything about her is amazing and I feel like as women as we get older we realize how amazing she is like every year like deep Dives a little bit more into like she was the best one thousand verses I mean and just like that proved it are we floating text message yeah and everyone was like ya know this show actually sucks. She made the right choice so what does PR entails that was that your question yeah I like let's just talk about I yeah so I think like my idea PR maybe this would be helpful my idea of what PR is like you. Throw like huge events or you're like best friend with all these editors and you like get your clients to have you know product placements and like big magazines or things like that. But I'm sure it's a lot more nuanced and probably also a lot more like far-reaching than that so we, I've been doing this job for 15 years so yes I do have media friends and it can be helpful but I am probably one of the less cooler publicist in my industry and especially with the pandemic I've also been like more conservative in my like pandemic safety because I've been recovering from an ankle surgery so I was like I can't really contract Cobalt and trying to like learn how to walk again so I have my relationships like how taken a nosedive and I think everyone's has just in general because because we're not doing in-person stuff so I do want to stress that like yes that's my job my job, is to have those relationships I also really like my industry and I like the people I work with but it's certainly not the most important part and I think. That that's really important to stress because we have gotten so much press for our clients without seeing these people in person for two years and we've taught a few people how to get that price for themselves so. What's important is having, good work and then taking good pictures of that work and having it on a website and. Instagram that is professional there's a word that I really like to stress a lot. Industry standard you can take a picture of your work and I can understand it it could be really artsy-fartsy and beautiful but it may not be at an industry standard and that means like an editor can't use it and or a customer isn't going to convert into someone who buys it even if it's a beautiful picture so like understanding the language visually that like helps tell the story of your product and helps sell it, is more important than having an editor as your best friend so yeah relationships are important there are like sometimes some glamorous stuff in my job but like the last two years has been. Glamour I'm just over my computer like doing research and doing this Outreach and like bugging my clients for those kind of like industry-standard assets right so what should a someone expect from a PR agency like what is the goal, of working with somewhat let's start with the retainer on a retainer basis and then let's talk about doing it yourself because we love a DIY moment we're out here at the moment so, right this is a really good question something that comes up a lot when we're either like, about to onboard a new client or people ask me just like in a Q&A format like what's the ROI on PR and we basically have a really hard line rule not all PR firms do this but it's something I feel really strongly about and I think it helps manage expectations and helps the way you think about PR what we don't do is we don't do any reports we don't tell you how to Value it it's up to our clients to decide how to leverage that. Because our goal is to get you placed to get stories written about you and your product and so if you are in, real simple we have succeeded you got a press placement we can't control if a reader buys it based on looking at that publication we can't control if you put it in your newsletter and put the logo on your website and like Rave about it and your stories and on your Instagram we can't control if you put it in your deck so when you're reaching out for outside investment like they see that you know you've leveraged that press and your relevant to a broader audience like we can't make you do all that stuff although we encourage it so we can just get the story and so that is kind of like why they refused to say how much it's worth because it's really worth a lot and it's an ongoing practice so like one placement in real simple. Might sell like 200 300 products the next one might sell like 50 so it's kind of like over the year you will see an increase but if you're like looking at it one placement 21 placement it's not like a sustainable way to think about PR and we don't encourage our clients to think about it that way so. I hope that answers your question yeah I mean I think it really does because you bring up such a good point and I talked about this a lot with. Retailers and. In a different context because obviously I'm not doing press for them but I think there is it's not as linear like you're saying is like you got us, placement in real simple and that immediately it equals this much like you said there's like different ways to leverage it and it's not in your control but I think that like building awareness is also something that's just awareness and attribution are. Challenging and so for everyone listening those feel like dark any words like awareness is how many people know about your brand and attribution is. What channel a purchase was inspired from and as we all know. If you see something in real simple and then you go to the website and then that website because you don't purchase sends ads to Instagram and then you're seeing those ads. What channel gets the credit right like she was your website get it does the Press get excetera so what's kind of the standard y'all hold yourself to. In terms of placements like how do you structure even if a client will be successful because I'm sure that happens sometimes where you're like. Okay someone wants to engage with us and we want to help them do press and get seen but I don't know that we'll what is a brand need for success. In PR I guess yeah so. We make no guarantees and that's really important this is like a huge difference between marketing and PR we work with like earned editorial an earned editorial sounds like there's money being exchanged because the word earned is in there but it just means you're earning that editorial based on your merits so not pay no it's or not paid it's organic and it means that the editor the social-media influencer. Podcast producer whoever was interested in what you're bringing to the table whereas an ad you just like here's money great what I told you include what I told you so not to say there isn't like editorial decision making with ads as well but generally you have a lot more control so we have no control we just try and set our clients up for Success I'm at the point in my life now I've been doing this. Almost 16 years like in two weeks I'll be 16 years so I kind of have a very good spidey sense as far as. You guys don't have all your ducks in a row and we will not be successful with you and so at that point some of the things that we look at is photography that's you know all my clients make our things that you put in your home and most people selling stuff make a thing that you look at like very rarely am I working with so many screen like a medical device where doesn't matter how it looks because it'll save your life or whatever and that's a story like everything and I imagine the vast majority of the folks that you also work with like there is an aesthetic component to the product total so. This is where like branding comes into play so like if your brandings off if your photography is off if your website looks wack we can't work with you like we're not going to do a good job so we won't even take you on until you got those ducks in a row and that's where wealth craft comes in because we will go through kind of like the Proto PR stuff. Before you're ready for PR so that way you're not like falling flat on your face I will say younger Nora who was like figuring out how to run her business did take on clients that I knew in my heart of hearts was a bad choice but like you make those choices when you're a young business person which is a message to everyone starting a business like, make those mistakes there's no way to avoid them you just aren't going to like do things that you know is about choice and you will learn from them and then you will never do it again yes, exactly. So yeah I think we look to make sure our clients are taking their business as seriously as we're going to take it and that the media expects us to deliver and so that's why we're really good at our job as we don't really bring the media, things that kind of are subpar for the most part yeah I think that's great and I think that to your point. It's because you're working with earned placement which is something I wanted to ask about because you know I think that. I don't know it's I do feel like people are in there's like two camps around like big press placements where it's like I think there are some people who, I think everything is paid like it's like you have to pay to play like if you want to get on those big lists or get big placements like you definitely are investing like thousands and thousands of dollars there's like that conspiracy theory. And then there's also the people who are just like oh like if I work hard enough I'll just get recognized and like get the placement and I. I mean what's your general feeling like a holistic press strategy like without your exact work like what. Yeah both of the Tripoli yeah things are true the cynicism is true and like working really hard and having a good product that you put a lot of effort into like. Meeting your business standards because like I think a lot of like. Especially with small business there's a lot of like heart in it and a lot of creative individuals, cool really work hard on making the thing and then they forget about the business side which is like less shiny and less kind of like lauded as like oh your creative like beautiful work like no you have to like sit there. And do your research and like get your line sheets ready and figure out who your buyer contacts are whatever so like I think yes if you work really hard at the business in addition to the product you can have a lot of success in PR. I want to talk a little bit about what you said as far as like pay-to-play and like where money comes in so wolf crap, was founded by myself and my business partner and we met an undergrad studying Art and Design. There is this thing called design thinking and I thinking theory it's part of. Good design process and so we modeled how we built wealth craft after some of the phases and design thinking and it's kind of like the scientific method for design I won't go too, deep dive into it because you can like find people who are much more eloquent than me speaking about that online but one of the phases is empathy and in this case we have to be empathetic to the needs of the media and so if I am pitching something to an editor and I think about what's happened to the media in like just even the last few years a lot of their revenue sources have changed they used to be able to sell print advertising we ten years ago print was King and a page in a magazine cost a lot of money and that's how they made their bills until they paid their staff that's how they created you know that legitimacy and that prestige now everything's moved to digital like this week I don't know when this is going to go live but this week or maybe early last week Martha Stewart Living said we're no longer creating print Publications like everything's going digital which is crazy also just. Sorry to interrupt so yeah you have amazing press placements shout out to five fork Farms who's a local Massachusetts flower farm who was on the cover of the last Martha Stewart Living. I grew up right next to that farm it's unbelievably beautiful and it just made me really happy to see like an indie. Business like a family owned and be business have that like historic placement seeking love that yeah see it's for all sizes of businesses yes exactly okay so you know Martha Stewart Living For example all their revenue, you know after this last issue is 100% going to come from digital sources and so the way that. These folks fun themselves is really different than how it used to be one of the things that's come into play that is kind of important to talk about is like affiliate links which I don't know how much you've talked about that with your audience before but. Like it rarely it the Reader's Digest version is it's kind of a profit share so if you Martha Stewart Living sends me the reader a link like you know cool things to buy the spring for outdoor entertaining and I like wanna buy those carafes that you've mentioned they know I bought it and they get you know some portion of the sail ten percent seven percent I percent whatever, the manufacturer in Martha Stewart Living of agreed upon and so that's part of PR. Is that paid for or is that profit sharing is that how journalists its decision should be made are they including people who can't afford that yet. Yes and no each publication is different it gets a little bit more complicated as everything that goes to digital does get more complicated because you can measure it and do kind of like infinite things to it. I think it's kind of interesting. It gets really really hairy I feel like we could spend a whole other podcast talking about like the very intricate parts of digital advertising and just revenue-generating schemes for Publications in general but yeah. Yeah that's really helpful and I think you're so right there's like a lot of gray area. And what digital looks like and what those Publications look like and again what the. Impact is you know something we don't really talk about affiliate but something we do talk about is like you know referral programs and things like that, very similar yeah and there is kind of a similar model it's just like are you sharing the profits with your customers are you sharing profits with. Huge kinda like media organization or even a small video organization you know and. What the long-term messaging and impact our of that so interesting but. I have one more point to make on that offend yeah so the other thing about empathy right is like their job is to make money for their publisher so that they get a paycheck, La that's another shop there are other job is to their readership and to their like editorial director at at Oriel bosses editors-in-chief. Surface the coolest stuff for the readership that's why we keep reading these Publications because they have like a very clear point of view and so if you can't afford to profit share if you can't afford advertising but you have dope stuff. Like they still want a surface that and that's their job and if you have something very interesting it differentiates itself and you have the right photography and like your website works then you are still good to go like they will still write about you so I don't want to discourage people who don't have big budgets, you need money to take good photos and you need money for website and kind of like your beginner text act like all that stuff is kind of inherent in like the upstart costs but I think you can do all that for like not that much money and still get attention from the media so as long as you're doing something interesting like they want to write about you yeah I think that's a really good point and definitely encouraging so before we before I pick your brain on some kind of like nitty-gritty is or like tips, I definitely want to do because we love actionable takeaways here but I'm curious just like on the opposite side like what role do you think press please. In let's say a small business because the reason I asked a because I'm curious about your answer and be because I do think that it feels so elusive to some people even speaking from the I it feels really elusive to me and I've definitely felt like oh my gosh I feel good retail could just get like. A spotlight in like some kind of newspaper or something like that would be so amazing because it's hard to reach. New people and you know feels like really good for my ego and it also feels like it could be like the Magic Bullet like the thing that I'm missing but. Is that the case ER can do magic things like one of my favorite things to point to that it's kind of an old, example now is when worry Parker launch I think they had one really good editorial in like Esquire Wall Street Journal I forget where it was they had like one really good article when they launched kind of like put them on the map similarly. One of our clients pivoted to making face masks right at the right time. And they made really good one so this is where like you having a good business is out of our control and really good ones we sent them our company sent them to the times. The times basically it's there like fabric mask off record and now we're kind of like past that because. We've all agreed that k95 is are like the best one but for a while you could not buy those and you needed like really high quality fabric mass and there's perform the best and we doubled. Their mailing list because that many people bought it because the times you know like there's a certain demographic that just was like oh the times told me to Amadou Italy total so yes TR can be explosive that way, but I always encourage people to not think of PR as a sales tool and to think of it as like a branding awareness tool kind of what you were saying earlier so. I want to talk about like you getting your like profile in a publication because you brought that up you're like I want this so let's just let's talk about let's jump into it oh God okay do you know be on the cover of Fortune so what can you do for me yeah no problem I'll just like call it that and she yeah Kylie do you have time. So we can also talk about Kylie like I don't really pay too much attention to the Kardashians but even I know that like she's gotten all these stories of like the first like self-made billionaire under 30 I think it's her story. Which is, exactly what PR does it wasn't like oh she's a Kardashian and she has lipstick which is what she does the story was she is the first self-made billionaire so I think the story for you would be not like I'm a small business person helping other small business people that's what you do day to day the story would be I've helped transform you know 10 businesses it from making 5K a year to making it like 100k year or whatever your stats are that's the story and that's what you would start pitching so you you know you would either mine it you would work with someone like me to like bounce ideas around or we look through your, you know your stats I don't give you prompts, you figure out your problems on your own however you do it to figure out like what are some stories that I can run with and one of the ways that we do this also is not just to like be myopic looking at your own work. In a silo it's to read those Publications that you're excited about I'm sure if you actually read Forbes you'd be like oh like they don't really write about businesses like mine a lot of clients because I work in designer like we really want to be a narc digest and I was like I digest writes about the Kardashians they write about Drake's house like they're you know like they do write about other businesses but are you actually a candidate for what this publication covers or let's look at Publications that actually cover what you write about that's actually a good, for you and so once we start looking at that will say how do they structure their stories do they feature a small businesses do they do founder profiles what kind of things do they like to know about the founder and so then we're like okay they talked about like a whole history of like how they grew up or their school they have like a whole thing about how their undergrad you I'm making this about the turn my head but like how their undergrad impacted like where they are now like what's your story there too we pitch for this column so you start looking at the silos that they create and then how do you plug in your story into those silos so every pitch is going to be a little bit different based on the publication's format. Based on like what the editor seems to like all this stuff is online it's just like a big Google research whole but it's very it's very good to look at what is being written already so that way when you're pitching your not just like I don't know you should write about me like that serves no one if you're being apathetic they want to meet their needs it's like I see that you write a lot about female Founders in my city I'm a female founder in your city like can I tell you a little bit about what you're interested in and then you're starting to meet their needs yeah I love that I think that that's like. First of all I love that you use design thinking and that empathy I love that you used the example of empathy because I think that that's something that. We talked about a lot to and I think what you're saying is really resonant Beyond press as well if you think about the stories that you're telling as even just on your actual owned Instagram or your newsletter or something like that like. What is the have empathy for your reader or your audience member or follower whatever and put context around the thing because yeah just saying like hey do you want to write about me or hey do you want to buy this product like not really the vibe yeah you would want to read that story you wouldn't want to like that post you wouldn't want to engage with that content because it's. Feels really transactional right totally and I think you know it's funny my business partner and I really met while we were Ras and we have like a whole like training session of course there was an aura and I we had a whole training session about like empathy and like listening to your residence and that was kind of my first time understanding the difference between empathy and sympathy but it was like very much in like a therapeutic here's the listening stick Talking Stick kind of like contacts and I feel like that word is so powerful and we only use it as a society through the context of like feelings and relationships and it's like it really is good for professional relationships it's really good for things outside of feelings it's like what are your needs how can I meet them how can I listen to you and provide value to you and so that's kind of like through a business context how I like to use this word, yeah I love that and I totally agree I think it's really necessary and I think it's kind of like you know it. I mean I think that's like the definition of pornography which is funny but like you know what you see it like you know like it's you I think that it's very clear when you're following certain brands are certain you are introduced to a company and they consider empathy when they're engaging With Their audience and when other brands don't and it just gives you gives you the ick you know what I mean. It's totally blah but I'm curious so that actually leads me into I have like a couple areas. Specifically and again I want like some of your best. Tips if you have something that I don't cover you can totally add on but the things I was sort of thinking of we're like finding the Publications that are a good fit. Building relationships if that's necessary or not. Man also like how to even like tips for structure pitch like I don't even know again. It's very it feels very like vulnerable even thinking about pitching yourself especially you know like. It's one thing if you have the resources to hire someone to be like cool you go like tell everyone how amazing I am but it's so uncomfortable for me yes lie to like, break I'm surprised to hear that because I feel like you're such a badass so like every time we've only talked like twice my like I don't know this lady has it all together so whatever my God I'm so glad that's coming across that way whatever insecurities you have which we all have they don't like shine that bright I think you're like enthusiasm for what you're doing is really like the star so I hope you take that away I definitely see that so the first thing I'll say is like the it's not a plug we have a free. Pitch writing course it's a five-day pitch course and oh my god do that and it's like step-by-step so all the time, yeah it's there as well I think RAF.com so that's her free and you're welcome to do that but I will talk about like the advice that I give to everyone who works with me if their retainer client at like a high price point all the way down to like a person working at me one on one. This is the first thing we do onboarding is identify five to seven, peers or competitors or kind of like aspirational Pier so where you'd like to be in about three to five years. Sometimes we'll look at like 10 years but only look at one or two of them. And we don't care about what they look like if we like their work or not like a lot of people are like oh this lame designer is doing really well but I hate them, but they do I was like I don't care they're doing really well they're getting the Press you want to get there getting the collaborations you want to have their working with like the showrooms you want to work with are being sold at the boutiques you want to be sold at like I don't care if you like their work. That's like we're not talking about that we're talking about the work that they're doing do you like how their business is shaped and so we always like now. Will PR uses a very sophisticated software because we do this day in and day out but for literally eight of the ten years that I've had wolf car we just use Google Alerts like everyone else so you put alerts for your competitors, and you see what press they're getting and so that's a really good way to start you could spend all day every day researching because there's kind of like unlimited peers and competitors and I'm limited blocks so I don't think that's a good idea I think like find your boundaries we started like five and like it kind of grows from there and they always change because people realize I'm not learning enough from this person but I could be learning a whole lot from that person and so we like shift the goalposts but it's really good to start with like who's kind of where you want to be what are they doing. So that you can get there you'll make your own mistakes no need to like totally reinvent the wheel you can learn a lot from someone else's roadmap and so they're writing about. Like a new product that your competitor made you like oh this editor is really interested in this kind of work I make this kind of work. I'm going to write this editors name down and I'm going to send them a pitch you never want the pitch to be like include me in that piece you just wrote like editors don't go back and like rewrite work they've already written but you can say like oh I see you're interested in female Founders OS you're interested in like eco-friendly. Sofas which is what our client one of our clients does like thing yeah so whatever it is you can start to think about. Tracking what your industry does reading the Publications that your industry is part of I don't necessarily mean like. Trade Publications it can be like Cosmo like that's fine if you're a cosmic candidate then you should be reading Cosmo and understanding like how they cover product in that publication how they cover female Founders how they cover, business whatever it is like so that way you can appropriately reach out to them that is. So simple but also like so mind-blowing like I just again putting my retail hat on. I think everyone who's listening who has let's say you have a brick and mortar shop or you have an online shop where you carry third-party vendors everyone. Has received a cold pitch from a new vendor who clearly has never. What to your website looked at what you carry been to your store followed you on Instagram and it's like. You're everyone's reaction I'm going to paint with a broad brush I'm going to say everyone's reaction is like. What the hell was do you have you even ever been to our website like dude why are you even pitching me like it feels so bad and so just like the thought of like he's just said like if you want to be in Cosmo or if you wanted to be in. All right P Martha Stewart Living like. You need to understand the publication if you want to be in the New York Times you should probably read the New York Times yeah I don't know why that's like. And I think like if you want to pitch your product for a store or if you are a store and you want to understand how other like. Gosh this is dating me but bird in New York was like the retail store and you know now they're just like kind of comfortably sitting at the top of the game still well Jen. Oh I don't know honestly I was one school but I am like the opposite of cool that's I mean here's the thing it's like these last two years it's like the coolest places I'm almost positive I will fact check this yeah but I'm almost positive they're fully closed but they are a great example of like. Batman needs Supply they got incredible press I mean the Press is totally changed since their Heyday but but like. So much of the press was like not just about the store like obviously it was about Jen's point of view it was also about like who she's wearing what she's doing her home interior like it was about the store it always circled back to the store but it was like who she is as a person so if I was if I want to be the next bird I would like look at that I mean. Not literally because that's like 15 years old press but like I would look at the next whoever the next bird is and like, figure out okay what is what does it look like for me when what were the stories I want to talk about what do I have to like curate in my life that I'm already doing and I just haven't packaged into something that makes sense. For story so it's never like make shit up that's fake but like take what you're doing. Maybe take a few more photos or liked by a nice flower or like whatever it is and like you're basically 98% there you just have to like put it all together in a package for someone else to digest it yeah yeah I think that's really critical to and thinking you know I think there's two categories of course of people who we work with who are some our product makers you know they create the product they make the product manufacturer they sell their own. Thing and then others are you no more of like the curator and I think that to that point and why I really like that you used an example like bird because I think we've all seen the success of something like. Let's go back to Warby Parker we go they make their own glasses they sell their own glasses they have their own shops what they sell is what they make but an example like bird I really like the idea of like also challenging I think it's very easy for our more like boutique-style listeners to maybe be thinking right now. That won't work for me because I don't have enough of one thing to be promoting but there's a whole story around you and your shop though. Don't opt out. And girl you can like promote with one thing Ryan product like it doesn't you don't have to have enough of anything you just have to have good pictures in a story right right yes, I love that so okay so first the first thing we're doing is we're looking at competitors and we're looking at press that they have gotten in the past to understand. The trajectory and the Publications yes okay so then say you find someone. Do you need to build a relationship with that order like what is the etiquette the best etiquette is to be in service of the editor to never take things personally like they. Get over 100 emails a day probably closer to 200 emails a day. Which is a lot of emails that they have to Wade through so like I'm a big fan of like my email my pitch them is like short sweet it gives them like the information right off the bat so. They have an idea of what the photography already looks like they have like an idea of the price point that's meaningful. Whatever it is they have an idea of when things are launching if they've already launched and kind of just like what they need to move forward if they want to. So that is one way that you can reach out to them but, there is no harm in saying like hey I don't have a story for you right now I just wanted to reach out and introduce myself I'm going to have a few things coming up that I think you're interested in here's three bullet points, about me or about my work or about my business I hope it's okay if I reach out to you the future you do you have to respond to this email by, right like very simple just like I exist I want to give you interesting stuff I anticipate stuff coming up in our future. That will be useful for you to put together your stories and like now you know me for the times that I reach out and I'm like kind of telling you about my stuff. And I want to like make a big distinction you are never asking people to write about you you are telling them about your stuff because if you ask people to write about you you have switched from empathizing with their needs of like they need to surface cool things to their audience to making about you and you want them to help get you in front of their audience and like they don't care about you that's not their job their job isn't to service you their job is to service their editors and Their audience and their publisher so yes you can start a relationship I just be like I'm reading what you're writing, and I think I'll be a good source for you in the future totally fine if you have something immediately pertinent to what they write about you should reach out with that feel like I have something for you I've never reach out to you before but I have something for you I think it's interesting maybe you're working on like a Mother's Day. Gift guide Roundup and I have Mother's Day gifts like here they are so that's also a totally fine way to begin a relationship I also want to say. We have like maybe a twenty percent success rate of responses and that's after like to follow up so. Do not get discouraged just like continue to reach out to those people no one answers their door the first time it's knocked on so just continue to be tenacious and not. A weird and aggressive way but like a respectful way like to emails. Following up you're done with that story and like reach out again when you have something new for that yeah I think that that feels like a lot less pressure and. At least again I think in my experience it's always felt like oh we have this big thing and we really want to get press around it to let's start now and it's like that's. 20% is even just a response rate then obviously it doesn't seem like that's the most sustainable approach to like just start when you immediately need it which does bring up another question before we get into like structuring a good pitch. Okay it means your answer made me think of something else which is the timeline that typically you see so if I was to pitch. Mother wanted to pitch Mother's Day when am I sending those pictures. Great because I don't think on it we're recording this on April 22nd I don't think that's the right time probably not so great question print National Publications those are the Publications that you see in the airport. New stands like they're all over the country those generally have a timeline of like three to four months because they need a little bit more time because they're like printing an actual book. And then Distributing it nationally so they just need time for that, print a regional Publications have a slightly shorter timeline because they're generally only Distributing regionally and then newspapers kind of have similar to that kind of depends on how they're structured but usually it's a little bit shorter because, they print almost every day and you know. They have their distribution figure it out because it's a daily distribution digital you could do like a day turnaround time so everything kind of like Zooms in on the launch day so if you have something for Mother's Day and you have as well you said example. Because it'll be passed you by the time this goes live so it's a good example if today is the day that you want that gift guide to go live. Four months ago you were pitching it to a Longley publication three months ago you were pitching it to a regional print publication. Two months ago you're pinching at to your newspapers and then like within the month you're pitching it to your digital so it kind of like all Zooms in so that way they're Li X all match or the launch day, got it yes really helpful yeah I will say and I think we will get into this because we're doing workshop together about holiday gift guide we are. So the timelines are holiday gift guides are the only things that are not like this which is why we kind of created a course around it because they have like a much bigger lift so like they are the timelines all increase it gets kind of like wacky we start catching for gift guides in. Energy in July so it gets a little bit like crazier and well deep dive into that that's the only exception to what I just said yeah that's really helpful because again it's just like. When you're thinking about like your marketing as an ecosystem and press would fall into that like you just need to have that kind of planning you know like you need to either you have like Evergreen stories that you're kind of pitching based on. The stories and empathy that you have for Publications or if you have something very very specific for like a specific time of year or a specific launch date that you have you need to build that timeline thank you for answering that because I think that's one that, is definitely tricky so I want to plug again your free tool that's on your website the five days what is it called specifically I'd a pitch trading course perfect that's how we call it I love it I will put that in the show notes I think that's going to be I will also be doing it because apparently we've had uncovered that. Want to be seen yes I love that and not to toot my own horn but we get people saying like we got a we got a placement using this pitch chorus so, it's free to that horn yeah 22 so go check it out with yeah we think it's worth your time. It definitely is I'm telling you all probably is before that what are some of like the biggest tips if you were. Really just getting started in terms of like yeah what the structure. Of that pictures I'm sure you go into this in the course I don't want to step on that but I mean you can step on an all you want like it's for free we don't make money okay so I'm not like withholding any information but give her a ride yeah oh yeah we take your email address whatever if you hate our newsletter you can absolutely unsubscribe we think it's a good newsletter the best things that you want for your pitch is to be concise and brief and specific I find that it's very easy to get myopic into what you're doing because you're doing it every day and think about your business and life you want people to know every single Choice you've made and they're all really good choices and blah blah blah so that's not helpful to someone who's getting 200 emails a day what's helpful is like what are the three things they need to know and it's probably like, where to buy at price point and like a description of the product and the description should be you know helping us understand maybe it's inspiration if you are the product maker if you are the retailer you know why your audience likes it or it could be like how it serves the user pretty concise so like I think. That these vases will be a good fit for you know like I'd love for you to consider them for your Mother's Day round up if you're doing any. I think they're good fit because they're like under $100 and here are links to them and everything you need to know so it's like very concise you don't want to like be like oh I started this business because I'm a mother and like. Little of of well like they don't care if they're doing a product and it is there an editor that also respect products like generally they don't care unless you tend to notice that they cover a lot about doing the curation of the products of mr. right like. Look at your editor but generally you want to be very concise about what their needs are for The Story You're pitching. Awesome all the time this story you're pitching is a product story so they want to just know about the product yeah and in in the. Other case of like not a specific product yes would is that the same way you would go about it for like more of like a story editorial. Yes and you were talking about Evergreen which I will Define just in case some folks don't know it means you can tell that story at any time so it's not related to a holiday it's not related to an initiative in your business Evergreen stories are lovely the pitch those when we have nothing else going on for our client at that specific time we can always go back to like. A general information about our client do you generally want to find a hook. So that they don't kick the can down the road oh well tell that story like another time like you want them to tell it you want to compel them to tell it now like that benefits you so take your Evergreen story and attach it to like you know. Something interesting that you're doing maybe you're collaborating with interesting local artists and because your. Independent female business you're working with other independent female businesses to collaborate with like your new store interior so like here's all the Evergreen Information here's the that you're collaborating with someone or you're launching a whole in store product line designed internally or whatever it is like you kind of want to like add hooks to your Evergreen stories whenever possible but yeah you would still keep it pretty concise, bullet points are your best friend it helps them read, we you know they're still humans on the other end of that email so anything that you can do to make your information digestible bullet points really help. Make a paragraph easy to understand easy re through that sort of stuff no I think that that makes a lot of sense to because I also think again one of the misconceptions is that you do need like all of this information and like your first email has to be. A little flowery like it has to like romance the person but what you're saying is like no these editors are bombarded and the more you can just be like. Here's the basics if you want more of the context yeah let's get in touch. My God a dream sentence I would love to share more of my story with you please let me know if you're interested love copy paste amazing well before we talk a little bit about the workshop that you are graciously hosting which I'm so excited for I do want to say because we have this in common and like I said at the top. We've both kind of touched on a handful of times is like the importance of having your website and like your digital presence in Tip-Top shape because sending traffic. So I'm saying that doesn't really work or an Instagram account that has pictures of your kids on it as well as product no shade I know some of you are out there. I think we probably covered why that's important right because if you're getting more attention you want that attention to convert into whatever, way that is makes sense whether that sales or additional press pieces or. You know collaborators viewing your site etc etc etc but what are some things that you look for like some give me like three red flags when you look at a brand, who that's such a juicy question thank you the readiest flag is red flag. Of all red flags is terrible photography or just unusable photography that's it like that is I it's a full stop for me if the photography doesn't work I cannot work with you, so we have a service called tweak and edit where we will go through your assets will go through your website and be like these are all the things that aren't serving you here is an example of a real world example going back to this research and looking at your peers of like how your photo should look or like how you can communicate here's good example of copy because your copy doesn't serve you so yes red flag number one is photography and it's probably like red flag number one and two because it's so meaningful to me the second is I like before I get a second one yes. What in your mind is like what is what is good photography great question. Go back to looking at the publication and what they're publishing so. We talked a lot about story angles and looking through like what are they saying but the other thing that you should always be auditing for is photography so if its product roundups odds are. It's just a Ecommerce like solo against white shot that they've kind of collage into a bunch of them on one page. And that's probably how it's done even on digital that's probably how it's done it'll just be like in a list format so do you want to see those I want to see them clean like the other day I got photography of like gorgeous lamb. And the pictures totally unusable but you can see the crease in the white seamless in the back and you can see on the left side it's like more shadow on the bright side it's kind of blown out white like the lighting's off like you're asking the photo editor to cut out your image and put it against a white background instead of you doing it yourself and they just won't do it they're just going to work with someone who gave them an image they can use so like it doesn't matter how cool your product is it should be very cool but you still have to have it documented properly for it to work so that's one of the important ones lifestyle images are really important also and that's kind of like where you get to have a little bit more creativity as a brand like is this like fun and accessible and bright is this like, Moody and dark is this like cool Shiki like exclusive seen so however your product that's into a home it's on a body if it's like not. B on a body like how it fits but like how it looks who's wearing it what their style is what their age with their demographic like all those things you start to get to really tell the point of view of the brand through about lifestyle photography there's a couple other sections of Photography to like there's that seamless white but like editorialized so it's not necessarily in a space but it kind of like starts to hint at how you might use it there's renderings which can work really well in very specific situations so we also have a photography guide for different kinds of products incredible yeah that goes through all that a little bit more in-depth but you can teach it to yourself if you're just kind of like really looking at where you want to be yeah. I love that okay thank you for getting specific so yes photography number one number one number one Queen on top. Yes does it all, what's our second I think just a general disorganization it's kind of sound kind of funny but like people who can't write an email almost everyone who reaches out to work with me reaches out via email and like that first email like they don't really describe what they want properly and like you don't know who you are or what you want they're just like we want to press and I like okay what are your goals are like well. I don't know we just want to be in places is like okay we're going to you're going to be disappointed off the bat because you don't know what you want so like. Usually I can work with someone like that and be like let's do an education session together we're like we look at different Publications or we look at different brands and you're like I like that I don't like that and then we can start to like increase the media literacy of that person or that client but yeah they're just like. We just want pressed it's like that is not a holistic thought yeah because it's like so I mean. There's so many. Please publication so yeah totally makes sense any other you have a last Red Flag or do you want photos to be the top two. I kind of love photos being like everything I think like the last one. And this goes a little bit more into I'm sure things that you talk about also but like if you're kind of sales presence is Wackadoo especially with affiliate links being kind of increasingly important if your website like it feels confusing and navigate it and really hard to buy on it or like I don't understand how the product works because it's not properly understood on your website like. You know we can probably work with you but like why am I sending people to your website it's like a catastrophe so yeah that would be like the third one we have like a client working on an app right now and I was like well we're not going to give this the media you guys get another wants to develop especially feel like yeah it's just like you know like it works I was like no we're not showing this to people yet so I think it's like just making sure and I'm kind of ice and a little sassy explain that I very much unlike in regular communication and we're like very aligned the way they're very very very sweet guy and I really I'm excited about what they're bringing to the scene I think it's going to change the law but like yeah if you're kind of product is fine but like how, people engage with it digitally is not that's a pretty big red flag yeah amazing that's so helpful so. This is so informative and it's made me even more excited for the workshop that you're hosting so graciously for free. Feel free to go to the community so just as a reminder I said this at the top of the show in our intro but we are with Nora. Hosting a workshop called how to increase brand awareness with holiday gift guide press which is like a dream so she mentioned, got to get on that holiday pitching early and this is a great time to do it as a community we can all learn together and we're hosting that on May 16th at 10 a.m. but. I'd love to hear from your perspective nor like what should people be excited about well this works I love this question I just had like a little Oprah moment there I love it so the context for this is right I've had wolf PR for almost 11 years they made will be 11 years and something that I've gotten really really really good at is holiday gift guide pitching and taught my protege and like gal Friday who works for me and so now she's really good at it and we've just like Ping Pong back and forth about how to like a get this like really tight because so many of our clients, a product that they want to sell during the holidays and. You know consumers by more during the time of the year so it's like a very important time to be plugged into this to getting pressed some people have only hired us to do that so it's like something that I just got. I think we're like masterful at it and I know it took to it again but like I think of it just like really good at it and so a lot of people will be like oh I got like this one random piece of press like 2 years ago and it was really impactful for me during the holidays but like I've never been able to replicate it like how do I do that alright you know younger Brands who can't afford us but like definitely have, really amazing product that is good for the holiday I wanted to serve those people those brands. So you created a course and it's basically like step-by-step because almost every week there's like a thing to do so we give you like. A breakdown of like this is what a pitch script looks like so you're not like high-end Drive pray figure it out yourself all right so this is the calendar this is the thought process behind the calendar this is by the lead times are different. This is like the kinds of Photography we include that photography guide I mentioned that's like included and everything we're going to talk about I don't know it should set you up for success people get real simple placements I think someone got a group placement last year thing I kind of anticipated for the first year of some folks just kind of getting like lower tier stuff which is also very important like the local pubs really important and impactful but they like these kids just went out and like, blew me away today we're going to talk about like kind of some 101 stuff about how to do this kind of pitching for yourself. Perfect yeah I think it sounds like such a good introduction to press to because I think all retailers can relate to the holiday gift guide you know it's definitely. Photography is queen and the holiday gift guide may be king but I yeah I'm so thrilled I've just. Because I also feel like this conversation I learned so much and I can't thank you lasso. Please I'll have the link in the bio or in the show notes in the bio not on Instagram. When can buy all thanks for thanking that like oh my God like and sub smash that subscribe button oh my gosh. I'll have the link to sign up for that free course breathe last Workshop however you want to call it. And that again is on May 16th at 10 a.m. and I mean this has just been. Such a pleasure I'm so grateful for your time and your Brilliance in your. Like really down-to-earth way of explaining press and making it not so scary. Oh I'm so glad to hear that I really means a lot thank you for saying that yeah no I loved it and I really love that you have such. Expertise with these like high retainer like clients but that you're also teaching people how to. Like do it themselves or you know work a little bit more slowly towards that because I think that's a huge huge huge need though. Oh yeah I think this is a practice and this is a part of the practice of business like you do a little bit of this every month you do a little bit of that every month and like it comes together it's hard to get everything going all at once so I'm glad you found it helpful yeah well I will see you soon. Yes I can't wait I can't wait thank you for the great interview you asked wonderful questions you thank you so much I'll talk to you soon Nora. Thanks everyone cheers to feeling good. Retail for the rest of us is a podcast by feel-good retail if you'd like to learn more about how we can help you scale and grow your shop in a way that. You can visit us a feel-good retail.com the show is produced by softer Sound Studio and if you'd like to support our independently run woman powered podcast. You can leave us a 5-star review take a screenshot share it to social media tell your shop BFFs or join our retail resource Library a communal space for Indie retailers to access resources and tools that will support their shop. For just five dollars a month you can not only support the show but get a. To an archive of our most popular resources and exclusive seasonal content we'd love to see you in there in the meantime thanks for listening cheers to feeling good.