UnNoticed Mickie Kennedy

Mickey Kennedy joining me from Maryland, uh, from Baltimore, who's the president of eReleases. Mickey, thanks for joining me so much today.

Thanks for having me.

Now, Mickey, you've run a company for 23 years about helping companies and entrepreneurs to get noticed. Do you want to share with us your proposition? Because in this big world of sending out press releases, you've got a very special offering for business owners. Tell us about that.

So eReleases offers a custom national distribution over PR Newswire. We also offer on a higher end product, an email send to journalists that we feel would be appropriate. Usually they're small email sends, you know, of 100 to 400 of the key media that we feel would be a great fit for this press release. And we've been doing it over the years. As I mentioned, PR Newswire approached more than 10 years ago and said, hey, Mickey, you should send your releases out through us. And I pointed out that I think at the time I was charging $250. And I know that they were charging about $1,000 for a 500-600 word press release to go out nationally. And The thing is that they saw it as a win-win. My client base are small businesses who, you know, would probably never be able to afford to go directly to the newswire to justify the kind of pricing that the newswire charges. And their salespeople wouldn't be interested in someone doing, you know, 1 to 2, 3 releases a year. So we sort of built the relationship to be a win-win. I discovered in meeting with them that they had an overnight editorial team. And I said, well, it wouldn't cost you anything if they worked on the press releases and set them up for the next day. And so all of our releases are scheduled for next-day distribution. And we have some other workflow issues that make it easier. But at the end of the day, we allow small businesses, entrepreneurs, authors, and startups be able to access the wire nationally. And that's a really great value for just a few hundred dollars. And I'm really proud of it. And I'm proud that I sort of, I feel like I'm a co-op of small businesses. And that's really great because together we were able to leverage this Preferred pricing with the newswire.

Yeah, I think that groupage is brilliant because having sent out press releases on behalf of clients, newswires were like $1,000, $2,000, isn't it? So at $250 to $350, what are you doing there, Mickey? Are you sort of culling the irrelevant media in their list? Is that part of how this is happening? Because one of the issues with PR Newswire is if you're a smaller company, maybe 70 or 80% of the list is unnecessary.

Well, we still go out to the, to the, to the big media. And sometimes you're surprised, sometimes they will pick up something and run with it. We did a release last year for the Dining Bond Initiative. And it was to help out a small PR firm that had started it, basically restaurants that were closed down during the pandemic. And it was a perfect storm because, you know, there was a lot of negative news. And here was something that was very positive. And so We got over 150 articles that picked it up, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, all of these major places that we weren't expecting. And so sometimes it's beneficial to have those big guys on the list, even though you feel like that would be great, but it's very unlikely because sometimes you do get that media coverage. And for them, you know, it generated millions of dollars in revenue that went right back immediately into a lot of restaurants that were closed down. So it was something that people really identified with. It was actionable. It was positive news. And, you know, sometimes that leverage that you get by going to the newswire, which at times seems unnecessarily large, can be beneficial.

So Mickey, for those people that don't understand the newswire, do you want to just explain the mechanics? Because people may think they need to go to an agency to send out a press release. Just talk us through, because actually this is within the purview of an owner-operator, isn't it? To get to the newswires. Just explain to us that because it's quite important, I think.

So basically the newswire acts as a distribution platform for press releases. A lot of people are familiar with newswires like Reuters, United Press International, you know, Dow Jones and stuff like that, where their business model is different. They write the content. It's all original reporting by them and they're just licensing it to other people. So a small newspaper may not need to write breaking news right now. They can just pull it off of the wire, the Associated Press or something like that. In the case of the press release newswires, they work similar in that it's transmitted electronically, but often it goes to those points, AP, Reuters, and stuff like that. It doesn't mean that it runs on there. It's, it's up for them to consider. And if they do run it, they generally turn it into an article or something that they've crafted. And it's a wide distribution that is electronic. You can actually go to the website as a journalist and log in and get to customize your feed. You're seeing exactly the type of content that you want to see, and you can include or exclude keywords that can refine what you see so that you're only seeing releases specific to you and what you cover.

So Mickey, just for your, you know, your business owner then, it sounds as though using a service like yours, eReleases, they can test the big newswires. How does that, if you like, does it complement or substitute the work they might be doing on their social media channels?

Right. I would say that it complements. For example, when you issue a press release and it goes out over the wire, there's no reason you can't then also share it with your social media, a link to the press release. Also, you know, you get earned media as a result of the press release. There's no reason you can't share those articles with your own people as well. I always tell people to, you know, take the earned media that you get, the snapshots, the PDFs and things like that, and record that, but also put it on your website. You know, it's a huge credibility boost. If I'm on a website and I'm like, I've never heard of this company, are they legit? And I see that they have a series of press releases. I know that's too much effort for a company that's, you know, a scam company or something like that. My guard goes down, I feel more comfortable with that. And the same thing with, you know, other types of people, could be your vendors, your suppliers, your partners, you know, also communicating with them as you have newsworthy announcements, sharing the press release, sharing the earned media that you get as a result of that. You have leads in your pipeline. So share with them, you know, when you get earned media, because it is an implied endorsement that happens when a journalist writes about you. You know, one of the things that my customers often tell me is I may not get a huge amount of traffic when I do get earned media. But generally, when they come, they convert, they click.

Oh, interesting.

You know, they just buy, they're not opening a new window and say, can I get this cheaper on Amazon or, or some other website, they're looking to do business with the company they read about, and have this goodwill and this warm feeling about. So they're really great customers, they're generally very loyal. And you know, they're, they're, they're what people are looking for in an optimum audience. I've actually had customers who did so well with that, that they sent pay-per-click traffic to the article, not to their website, but to the article, knowing so many people would convert. And they said, you know, I can't retarget that traffic because they're not on my website. So we're not, you know, giving them a pixel or something like that. But still, it's worth it because the people that read the article, you know, they tend to buy. And so that's just one thing to keep in mind when you are doing earned media is that it does create this sort of And, you know, it does create this opportunity in which a person who discovers about us, discovers you, wants to do business with you.

Mickey, I hadn't thought of that before. So thank you for sharing that idea that you'd actually buy ads to go to the official online media, as opposed to that sort of, what would you call that sort of off-funnel, I suppose, would it be?

Yeah, I think it would, you would consider it definitely off-funnel. But at the end of the day, if that article does such a great job of, you know, introducing you to a company, their service or product and it has the legitimacy of being a third party. It's not a paid sponsorship or something like that. It can do really well.

And what about the follow-up? Because sending a press release through your service eReleases, you know, obviously the journalist understands and knows your email address, which is one of the principal problems when people kind of just find the name of a journalist and send and the journalist doesn't know who they are, right? So they have no credibility there. So they know who you are already. What about the follow-up? Because journalists, you know better than I, get hundreds of press releases, certainly a week, if not a day, some of them.

Right. So unlike a PR firm, we don't do follow-up of the traditional press release. What we try to instill in our customers is just to be strategic every time you are sending a message. And if you are sending out strategic press releases, strategic announcements, you're more likely to get media pickup. But we don't sort of like do the follow- up email sends. We're not a PR firm and we work with a lot of small PR firms, but, you know, we, we don't go that extra mile and try to, to really coax someone and reposition a pitch or something like that.

So Mickey, when you say a strategic release, you know what that means, but what does that mean to, you know, people like me who may not know exactly what you mean by that as opposed to a press release?

Right. So I say a newsworthy press release. And for example, during the pandemic, looking at my customers that get favorable media outcomes. Sometimes it's a one-off, but I also have clients that get media coverage almost every single time they do a press release. And, you know, one that I saw was the survey or study. I have one client that does 30 to 40 surveys a year. They cover lots of little niches and, and they profile companies in each niche. And there's sort of like a platform where people go and find information about different companies. For example, who's got the best scanning software, who's got the best accounting software, right?

Sort of a CapTerra style.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so they do press releases on each little area. So they might do one about accounting, and they will do a survey of, you know, people in that industry— bookkeepers, CPAs, accountants, and stuff like that— and they will determine what is really trending right now, and they'll make sure that they that industry's temperature. And it's very specific and they do really well. They usually get between 8 and 14 earned media articles every time they do a press release on one of these surveys or studies. That's something anyone can do. And I've actually coached a local auto repair shop in Pennsylvania that was looking to get in auto industry trade publications because long story short, their website went down. It was through the Yellow Pages that they got the domain name. And it went dark. So they got a new domain name and it had no links to it. And an SEO guy says, if you can get auto industry publications linking to you, it's the quickest and easiest way to start ranking. And so they came to me with that as their goal. And I said, you're not newsworthy. We're going to have to— you're going to have to become the news by doing a survey. And always suggest when you do a survey to throw 1 or 2 oddball questions towards the end. And in their case, the question was, what's the strangest thing a customer left in their car while being repaired? And it was just an open Field where they could write a sentence or two. We sent it to other auto repair shops. It was very easy. They did— they thought that would be the stumbling block. And we just reached out to the first trade association of independent auto repair centers. And it turns out there's like 400 of these different auto repair trade associations out there. There's some of them are regional. Some of them are— have all these other alliances. We just picked the, one of the smaller ones and asked them and 800 of their members responded in the survey.

No way.

It was the question that we asked was out of left field, which really had no statistical evidence in it because every response was a different response. We just curated what we thought were the most interesting ones. And those were the ones that got in stories and articles. 10 auto trade publications picked it up, numerous newspapers, including their local newspaper. And I had warned them that there was this— your customers would never see this, but their goal was different. It was to get those auto trade publications. And it did very well. Within 3 months, they were ranking number 1 with the new domain name and they had those articles that linked back to them, which helped them and gave them a lot of credibility. And their own customers came in and said, that was really strange, that story. A boa constrictor, grandma left in an urn in the back and they had to retrieve it for memorial service. Just little quirky stories that people like. People, at the end of the day, it's all about stories and about communicating and creating something that an audience would be interested in reading more about. And, you know, if you, if you take it as the journalist is a gatekeeper and write content to sort of help them do their job of passing along really great information to their audience, you know, that's, that's the secret sauce. And so many people are writing saying, this is important to me, I want to promote this product or service, and I'm making it very me-centric. And you're, you're not really coming across with something that would be captivating or really interesting to someone to read about or learn more.

Mickey, that's a fabulous case study. And, you know, one of the things that we talk about in the Speed PR program is about, it's not about you, you know, it's not about your company. It's about what your customers and the marketplace is doing. And then you're facilitating the conversation, aren't you really? That's a wonderful, wonderful example. Now, Mickey, you're an entrepreneur 23 years, so hats off to you. For running a business for that long. How have you got your own business noticed?

I think for me, we do a lot of pay-per-click advertising among people who are in the buying process of a press release. We also are out there doing blogging and communicating and talking about the subject matter. I'm doing interviews like this one where I'm talking to a lot of podcasters and their audiences about press releases and the value of it. You know, these are all things that I do. I get articles out there and placed in the media as well. And so Anything that can sort of get me out there, I'm making myself available to. I utilize social media. Don't feel that it's a huge driver of all this, but I do feel like it's a piece, a necessary piece in the puzzle that sort of supports and links and, you know, can help, you know, interact with all these other forms that we do, including email. I find very important as well. So I do have a lot of quick start guides and things that I give away so that people can, you know, join and learn more. And I can Build a relationship with them.

Yeah, I saw that, Mickey. You've got sort of PR 101 and you've got video instructions and so on. So in fact, very little about in a way what you do, but more about how you're helping everybody that might be interested in, in your services. So in terms of when you look at the social media versus say the earned media, are you using earned media as well for those links into your own business?

I am. I do try to, I target mine a little more specifically where I offer to write or author an article for an actual publication and make it specific to them. So it's a lot more work, but I'm able to craft a message that's a lot more relevant for my audience and to get it out there to some key publications. It's probably, most of them are probably less recognized as a news source, but they're more of, you know, there's a lot of business strategy websites and places that people go for resources. And so I want to be one of those resources on those pages. So I make content available and get that placed there.

Mickey, that's fantastic. And then if people want to find out about you, Mickey Kennedy in Baltimore, how can they do that? Because it's a really great service that you're offering, those sort of prices to get to those media with those kinds of results. It's exceptional. Sure. So tell people how they can find you.

Just visit ereleases.com. All my social media is on the lower right, including my personal LinkedIn. That's usually a great way to interact with me and talk with me. It's just It just, the flow of it works very well. And I, and I find that it's more business related as opposed to Facebook or something like that. And if you interact with our website or give us a phone call, the only people you'll speak with at eReleases are editors. We have no salespeople. So, you know, level with you, if they feel we can be helpful, they can walk you through the process of drafting a release or something like that. And we sort of hold people's hands through the process because a lot of people will do their first press release with eReleases and We get them to see the idea that one press release is part of an ongoing PR campaign, and then how to be more strategic to do continued press releases on subject matters that might— are more likely to get media pickup.

Mickey, I am going to ask you then that one last question, because people ask, how often should they issue press releases? In your position, I can't think of anyone better to ask. One-off is plainly not enough.

No. So I always say, if you're going to test press releases and see if they work, do at least a PR campaign, which is usually 6 or more releases. Generally, you will have a good understanding at 6 to 8 releases of trying different strategic messages. Did any of them resonate with your audience? Did you get inquiries? Did any of those inquiries lead to earned media, actual articles being written about you? And, you know, one of the things that I say is try to be really strategic with the types of press releases that you're doing. Try to look at it as the journalist as a gatekeeper, and what could you do that would, you know, really help them do their job. A lot of people are familiar with newsjacking, where you try to align yourself with a hot topic that's trending. I always say try to elevate the conversation, make it very specific if you can, so that you're introducing something new to the conversation rather than just joining on board with everybody else. I did that with a client back when Target was doing the— there was a big scandal of hacking of credit card numbers and personal information. And so there was a lot of people doing press releases for the next 6 months The target case study and why we, we as a cybersecurity outfit or something like that have a solution for you. And so this client was wanting to do the same thing. And I said, those people aren't getting a lot of media play or coverage because there's so many of them out there. Focus on something very narrow. And one of their things was to help small merchants that actually have a credit card terminal on their counter. But, you know, think the pizza shop, the cleaners and other places like that. And basically they created a free audit to say, If you're a business with a credit card terminal on your countertop, this is the 10 things you need to do right now to determine if you're at risk of the same thing that happened at Target. And so by focusing it very narrowly, they actually did get a few articles written about it. And I think if they had done their other approach where they just joined the conversation and said the same thing about the same incident, I don't think much would have happened. So anytime that you can sort of take something that's trending and stand out as taking a slice of it, in this case, retail, small businesses, and focus on that. Or if you can say something that's contrarian, that goes against what the rest of the people are saying, again, you stand a stronger chance of getting noticed there as well, because journalists want to be objective and cover both sides. And if you're the only person out there saying something contrarian to everyone else, you're much more likely to be that guy that every place goes to, to be quoted and to include information about.

Mickey Kennedy, eReleases, Baltimore, Maryland. Thank you so much for joining me, and I can really see why eReleases has been noticed as a great business for the last 23 years. Thank you so much for sharing all your ideas today.

Thank you for having me.

You've been listening to Mickey Kennedy, president, founder of eReleases, all the way in Baltimore. So thank you for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Show, and until we meet again, wish you the best of health and that you keep on communicating.