PR Secrets or Marketing—Which One Works Better?

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome, Megan. Megan Brown Bennett. So I know her since she was only Megan Brown. And Megan Brown is an amazing PR specialist. She had joined back in 2005 with light years ahead. When I saw her, this young woman come in with Betty Light and a couple of other people, Bliss Ellis. I said, look at my memory. And they came in and they pitched themselves for my Dr. Fresh company for a PR agency job. And they were working with Dr. Ibsen, Rembrandt. I had no clue what PR was. Somebody told me, you need to do PR. PR means public relations. Back in the day, it was a lot more important than it is today. Let us go to Megan and let her introduce herself before I start bombarding her with my questions. Go ahead, Megan. Mike is on for you.

Great. Thank you so much for having me on, Puneet. It's so good to see everybody. And I'm really happy to here with my oldest, longest client slash friend that I've had in the PR business. This is like literally, you are my dinosaur client. Even though we're. You and I are not old, our relationship is old. So it's just been the best years of my life working with you, not only as a client, but you've been a mentor as well. Because I've seen you go through so many changes with all of your different brands and been with you through acquisitions and different products and different hurdles.

So let us cut the chase and come to the real deal. So let's say a lot of my followers are young entrepreneurs, people who are trying to get into business now. They don't have the money. They are all bootstrapping. They don't have the money to go and advertise. And let's say we have that toothpaste. Give me that toothpaste. I'm going to show you something and put you on the spot. Let's say we are launching this new product. I put all my life savings, assuming I'm Mr. A, I put all my life saving in this toothpaste. What would you do, Megan, to bring this toothpaste into the public light? Start from scratch.

Okay. So public relations, I would say as far as the marketing overhead, PR is the best bang for your buck financially. Because basically what public relations is, is it's third party endorsement. So. So you might pay, let's say $20,000 for one ad in People magazine or people.com for your product, where you might as well pay us a monthly retainer. And that ad might get you into one paid ad that can do nothing for your brand except for people will look at and say, oh, he paid for that ad. I'm in. They're interested or they're not interested, but it doesn't guarantee anything with public relations. You might hire us for a monthly retainer of, let's say, $4,000 a month. We're going to work for you and we're going to pitch your brand and create like a very. Develop a very compell about your brand and then build a story around it. Get it to the media, which is like producers, editors, hosts. Tell them the story about your brand, get the sample into their hands. So then they do a third party, their opinion about the brand, which is all authentic. It's not paid for. And so that's the difference between advertising and pr, is we're just reaching out to the key media, the movers and shakers on TV and print and digital and telling them about your product and telling them why they need to try it and why it's the best, let's say, toothpaste in the world.

Let's walk the people through. I sent you this toothpaste samples. I told you. Megan. What do I need to do next and how would you cover me? Give out the secret sauce of your. Whatever you do in as few words as possible.

Okay. The secret sauce is, first of all, build a story around you and why you started the company in the brand. Because a product itself, as great as it can be, does not sell a brand as well as the creator behind the brand. So we have to tell your story and about why you made the product and why you created this brand. Second, we think of the key features and benefits of this toothpaste. Why is it different? Why is it different than any other toothpaste on the market? And why would people buy it over other people's toothpaste? And then we sit down and we write really compelling pitches and we get it out to the media every week, finding different ways, different hooks, different ingredients that we can call out so that when they open their inbox, they want to try it.

Let's say I am People magazine or I'm some other major media outlet. How would you pitch me? Pitch me, please.

I wanted to reach out to tell you about a brand that's been around for several years now in the Ayurveda industry. And it started by the wellness guru Gurunanda. What makes this product different is it is completely natural. It has no toxins. It has no chemicals. It features neem. It features other ingredients that give you the cleanest, freshest breath and whitest teeth without you having to compromise what goes into your body. And that's what makes this different. And not only is that the difference, it's also extremely affordable with the most pristine ingredients that are almost like farm to table rather than them taking ingredients that aren't really what they say they are. Like, for example, peppermint. This brand takes the real peppermint, the real essential oils, the real ingredients and creates the most high quality product without compromising the products, but at a very affordable price. And so you're going to get the best cost for your product and you're going to get the most effective toothpaste ever for your mouth and you're not going to worry later about what you put in your body.

I'm an editor of People. I'm saying, but Megan, there's like a million toothpaste brands. Do I need another toothpaste to bother people with? Tell me some other story about it that makes it unique. What would you do?

I would say that this is also founded by somebody who has the number two best selling oil pulling kit on TikTok and he has hundreds of thousands of fans. And so this is his new prized product, baby. And I think that would definitely hook them in and say that, you know, there's been several celebrities and people that have talked about his oil pulling kit and endorsements and it's like the hottest thing since sliced pieces. And now this is like another product that's a spin off of that, that pictures.

I think TikTok hooked me right there.

Yeah.

As an editor, I would say, okay, tell me more about TikTok and tell me success story on TikTok. You got me there.

Yeah.

Let's come to your questions now that we've got the things rolling. Now tell me one thing. In an age of this cancel culture where everybody's canceling everybody and this virality, viral negativity that is spreading, how do you help navigate a PR crisis when the reputation is online, for example? So somebody said in one of my situations on TikTok, somebody said, oh, stevia is a synthetic ingredient. And people started saying, oh, stevia is a synthetic ingredient in Guru Nanda product. And like before I knew, next day, morning I woke up and like it was 50,000 posts about Stevia being a negative. I was shocked. I was shocked. Can you share a particular tough example and how did you overcome it? I'll tell you what I did. I actually went to farmer's market, I bought a stevia plant and I showed them. Then I went to Mexico to a Stevia Plantation. And I took my camera with me and I showed them the Stevia Plantation. That was my way of doing it on TikTok. What would you do it?

I mean, with somebody like you? I would recommend that you do that because you have the following. You have the credibility to show that. But we would come out with. We would pull studies, clinical studies, about the fact that stevia is real and that it's in so many ingredients. And in fact, it's weird that you ask that, because one of my first PR clients I ever worked on was Sweet Leaf Stevia, which was the first stevia company in the United States. And it was hard because we couldn't really make any claims on it. It was the first one. They didn't want Cargill coming after them and copying them, which is essentially what happened. And, you know, with a crisis like this, you have to show backup. You have to have doctors. We would find a doctor that would say that this is not true, that this is incorrect, and quote the doctor and send a study. And then, for example, if you do something where you are wrong or you are in the wrong and you do need help from a PR perspective, what we do is, is we try to find other positive things about the brand or about your company and spin it in a positive way and get coverage on that so that your search, like on Google, those negative reviews are going to go to the bottom and the positive ones are going to pop up. And that's what we've done in the past to really help clients. Is it.

Are there companies that do it? Can you recommend people any such pr? What do you think you can manage it yourself?

You know, we can manage as far as bringing out the positive spin on something. Now, if somebody's coming after you with 500 lawsuits and, you know, you're making false claims and you're doing this, all we can really do is, is say, you know, we're going to try to spin this positively. We're going to get positive reviews on other products, and then also get you to get a statement from your attorney that we can then send to the media saying, you know, we have to debunk this. This is not true. Is it our specialty to do crisis pr? No. We really like to build brands, help entrepreneurs tell their stories. But once in a while, it just happens with some of the brands that we're working on, especially the very successful ones are the ones that get these things that happen to them because people want to come after them, to soil the reputation, because they can see that this David is becoming a Goliath and they don't want them to do that.

So happens with me all the time, trust me.

I mean, you're a good example.

So My question number two, let's say somebody, one of my followers has only $5,000 to spend. And I'm sure many small business owners struggle with tight budgets, right? And in that case, what would you advise? How do they invest? Would they invest 4,000 with you and a thousand in ads?

I would say in a perfect world, if you have a really small budget, the best, like I said, bang for your budget is pr because you might hire us and we might get you 10 to 15 write ups in one month. That where an editor or producer likes your product. But I also think it's extremely important to have a social media presence because you can leverage PR through your social media. For example, if we got you in an article and Vogue or People magazine, you're going to take that article and you're going to share it on all your social media to say that your boiling oil was voted, whatever, the best oral care product of the year. And so that's why it's important to have that presence. Also because a lot of editors want to go and they want to check out your Instagram page just to see what you have going on to see if you have a presence there. If you have a really small budget.

Sorry, which social media is your media of choice? Rate them. Instagram. TikTok. Like for me, TikTok is number one.

Yes. Of my choice. I would say that, I mean you're lucky because you have TikTok. But for most brands Instagram is the number one. Number two is TikTok and number three is usually Facebook. But it also depends on the brand and their audience. You know, if it's an older audience that say let's it's a brand for seniors or something, you're gonna have a better chance of targeting them on Facebook and Instagram over TikTok just because it's a younger viewership for the most part, even though more older people are on TikTok now. And then one other thing I was going to say is like, you know, if you have a really small budget, don't waste that on advertising because you're going to pay for something but you're not going to know what the return on investment is. And you might pay for one ad and get absolutely nothing and then you have money down the drain. So for a small budget, I think it's a lot more important to get samples to the media which is through print. Get products into their hands where they can write these unbiased review. Well, it's biased from them, but it's not paid. So they're not paid to say whether they like something or not. If they like it, they're going to cover it. And that is what is going to build your brand awareness more than anything else is getting those media coverages because it's authentic, it's not paid.

Very interesting. Somebody actually I met at Expo west, he told me he sent a package to all the celebrities of his tea. And Kim Kardashian picked up his tea product and said, oh my God, I'm in love with this tea. And before he knew, his entire stock was sold out on Amazon. And he's built a brand out of it, like a decent sized brand. Are you also focused on that kind of effort?

Don't really focus on celebrities. It's a whole nother ballpark because you have to get in touch with the manager. Then you. I mean, we used to do a lot of stuff with celebrities where we would get lists of different agencies and we would create these huge gift baskets. And this was back in like 2026. And we would deliver the baskets to their talent agents, their managers. You mean to say, no, I'm sorry, 2006.

Okay.

Because I've traveled through time into the future. No, I mean, this was like almost 20 years ago. We, when I lived in LA, we would go and we drop off these baskets at like, you know, William Morris and CAA and put, you know, attention Angelina Jolie or whatever. But you never know who's going to get it. It would usually go into a black hole. And once in a while we would get an endorsement. But that is just another beast that, you know, we don't try to be all things to all peoples. And so celebrity endorsements is not really our. It's not our bread and butter. It's not what we focus on because it's just a different. It's more like media and influencer samples. Now, whoever got that into the hands of Kim Kardashian, congratulations, because she gets hundreds of samples. And the fact that that cut through the clutter.

Tell me one thing. What is the biggest mistake brands make when telling their story through pr? How can entrepreneurs craft a message that the media and the public actually care about?

I would say a mistake that a lot of people make and you have not made this mistake mistake. But other entrepreneurs might create a brand that has no backstory. They are creating, for example, a CBD skin care line that's all cbd. And. Well, why does it have, why did you create this brand? Because it has CBD in it. Well, what else? Well, there is no story. Well, what are the main ingredients? I don't know. Cbd. That is the biggest mistake that we've had with brands is where they create these products that have no backstory. They have ingredients that everybody else has and there's no selling point. Now if this was a brand that just had CBD and it was founded by somebody who went through a midlife crisis and decided that they needed to change their lifestyle and that would be a story, you know, that would be a hook, but somebody that's just. I wanted to start a skin care brand because everybody else is doing it and I like CBD and I don't know the ingredients. I'm not an aesthetic, I have no background in skin care. That that can be a mistake. It can. And so in those cases, we have to find a way to spin the story. Another mistake is when we work with entrepreneurs who are too like closed lipped and they don't want to tell their story. And so then it's really hard because we're just promoting a product or like some of these private equity firms that we work with where there isn't, you know, the founder of the brand has been out of the company for 30 years. It's been sold to five PE firms and there is no brand voice. That's another mistake. When there's nobody behind the brand, then we don't have that credible source. I would say that's a big mistake.

Next question. So a PR often lacks the clear ROI metrics. Let's say I spent $5,000 and you may give me a report saying, oh, you got ad dollars worth about 50,000 or whatever. How do you measure the success of for your clients and prove the worth of the PR agency? Maybe you may say it's $50,000 worth of ad, but I didn't see that translate actually into real dollars in sales.

I mean, we always tell every client that we start with that we can never ever guarantee roi. We might get you into Today show, which we did with one client and they made like two sales from being on the Today show, whereas we worked with another client that was on, I think it was you that was on the Today show and you sold a bunch of stuff, your product. So it depends on who's watching and the time. But I will say that, okay, we never guarantee roi, but we do have some case studies where it can happen. Like for example, if something, it's the right place in the right time, and somebody's watching it or reading it. Like, we have this brand that was a veteran, founded Wagyu Beef company and they came out with these hot dogs and we pitch them to Food and Wine is the best beef Wagyu hot dogs in the country. And the client sent it to Food and Wine and they. And then they. They lost the samples, and they're perishable. And I said, you got to send another box. And the client said, well, that's really expensive. And I said, it's food and wine. You send the samples no matter what. Three weeks later, I got a call from him, and this is back in 2019. And he's like, I don't know what's going on. My website's blowing up. We're making so many sales. Well, like two days later, they've made a quarter of a million dollars in sales of hot dogs just from that article. And it almost put them out of business because they didn't have the inventory to fill the orders. So that is an example of, like, direct roi. And I've seen that more with food brands than with personal care products. But I've seen it with you too. I mean, with some of the stuff that we promoted before, you'll call me and you'll be like, oh, my gosh, something's flying. Oh, yeah.

When Tondy Williams show, that was $92,000 worth of oil pulling in one single day on Amazon, I went crazy. That was.

Yeah, so there are examples, but I never promised it because I don't want to lie because it's just. I can't guarantee it. Like I said, I mean, I've had clients that are on the biggest websites and they get.

You have any relationship where you can guarantee a new customer something, maybe you can guarantee them that you'll get them on Puneet Nanda's podcast.

But apart from that, if I guarantee you, I think it's a definite yes, you will get sales. But no, I just. I can't do it. I can't guarantee it because. But you'll talk to a lot of PR firms that'll be like, yes, I guarantee you this is gonna, you know, blow up your brand or whatever. But you just don't know. You don't know.

Tell me, in this unrealistic world where everything is racing through time, dominated by influencers, tiktokers, short form content, how do you stay relevant?

We stay relevant by staying in our lane. We don't try to be all things to all people, you know, we're really here to help entrepreneurs or brands that have been around for 30 years and never had PR just to build that brand awareness. And that's the relevance, is that we have the proof in the pudding. We have case studies, we have, you know, spreadsheets that show all of the PR and media coverage that we've garnered for other clients. And so when we're reaching out to brands that nobody's known about, we stay relevant by taking them on and getting them really high placement coverage. So that when people do, you know, read about something, they say, oh, I saw that on Good Morning America. I saw that on today's show. We stay relevant because we're not a huge PR firm that charges, you know, $15,000 a month where you're going to talk to me once and then you'll never see me again because I'm going to put you with some intern. I do all the pitching myself and I stay relevant because I make myself stay relevant.

I can vouch for that, that she is probably the hardest working person I've met. So that is true. So that said, tell me one thing. A lot of businesses nowadays especially I'm seeing, there's companies from China, India, other countries because they can sell on Amazon, they've turned on to paid reviews, they have fake media placements means I see strange names that have no English meanings. They are now getting media placements. Influencers for hire are really talking about them. As a veteran and people, PR that you are, where do you draw the ethical line and what's your take on this trend? Before I forget, I also like to ask you about this new AI trend, but we'll come to that in a second, so go ahead.

You know, I would say that there is a fine line. If I have a client that is like, I need to be in Forbes, I don't care how you get me on there, I will pay then. Yeah, I mean, if they want something guaranteed or like maybe there's an advertorial section in well and good or pure wow, and you want to reach, you know, however many newsletter subscribers that they have, then I'll bring this to your attention and say, hey, I know this is something you really want to do. And since I can't guarantee it, this is a guarantee you're going to get in. But for the most part, everything that we do is not paid. And even when a Forbes editor comes to me, which you've seen in the past, and said, oh, you know, I can get punied on for $5,000. It's completely unethical. And I say no, because they're not supposed to charge in those magazines. They're not supposed to. Some of the big ones. If it's a newsletter or something like that or it's an email, I understand, you know, if somebody wants to pay. But otherwise, I think a lot of these things are just bogus. And you can tell when you're reading them, too, because it says sponsor, you know, a sponsor or whatever. And then even when I'm reading stuff now, I get ads. And as soon as I see it's a sponsor, I delete or I close the page because I'm like, I don't even believe this because it's the brand that's telling the story. You know, I think that there are a few that if, if somebody really wants to try something, like we had one client, all they wanted to do was be on Popsugar. That's all they wanted. And they were willing to, you know, pay to be on. And so, because otherwise it was a company that had to do with fitness and there were like 100 other brands that were exactly the same. How do you get through that clutter? Especially when there is no founder story? So sometimes, you know, if you're desperate to have that to put on your website, you're desperate for that content. And if you really want to control your message, like you want to control everything you say, then, yeah, that's the only way to do it is paid. Because if you do something editorially, you cannot control the messaging. You just can't.

So, last two questions.

Okay.

For entrepreneurs, PR often becomes about building a personal brand, right? Do you believe every small business owner needs to be the face of their company? Because I built two businesses like that. Dr. Fresh, Guru Nanda. I've been the face of the company and I've done it successfully. And do you believe this is the best way, or can brands succeed without the human element?

It really depends. I mean, you know, it's important to have a story.

Can you give us examples quickly though?

Yeah. Like if I'm working with a brand where the person has no media training and doesn't want to be interviewed, doesn't want to be the face, doesn't want to talk about it, then I am not going to push it and I'm just going to focus on features and benefits of the brand and find other experts that can come in and say, hey, you know, this is a health product. Let's get a doctor to give a quote to endorse the brand, rather than you because once in a while we do work with companies where they do.

Not want to talk becomes more successful.

I would say the one where there is a story, there is a person behind the brand that can promote the brand. I think it's just more important. It's what sells the store. I mean, that's how I get business is from my personality. And I think it's really important in most cases. It does help.

And a last question and then I'll let you have one moment of shameless plug where you can tell people about what you charge, where you are, how to contact you and everything. The question is, as someone who has seen PR evolve since 2005, what advice would you give me as a wellness entrepreneur and a content creator? What would you do differently if you were running my brand's PR strategy exclusively without my intervention? Like what would be your opinion? Let's say I didn't even talk to you. I just. You are the person in charge and you came in although you do it and we both connect to each other every two weeks. What would you do different if I was not bothering you at all and.

There was no face behind the brand?

No face behind the brand.

I would recommend that we find a really crazy fun dentist with a great personality that could be the face behind the brand because it's not only bring credibility but it's also bringing like a professional in the area that can speak to it. It also, I don't know, you've got to have. It would bring like a fun character that would help to build your messaging, which is what you do. I mean, I can't think of life without you. I don't. I don't know, Puneet. I just don't know.

Our time is running out, so I will hand over the mic just to you. Tell people what do they need to do to connect with you or anything you want to say. It's your one minute.

All right. My agency is light years ahead. Public relations. We are a boutique PR firm and we are national and we're women owned. We're small, but we're mighty. We work on all sorts of different consumer products, gadgets, experts, services, along with really anything in the personal care business. We can help build your brand and build a very compelling story. I call myself a certified stalker because I'm literally stalking the media every single day and I love doing it. I'm very passionate about my job and PR is out all about rejection and hearing people say no. And the more nos that I get, the more driven I am to get a yes, you can check out our website@lightyearsahead.com or or you can reach out to me directly@meganightyearsahead.com and I would love to help you or ask Puneet for a reference.

So guys, in case you want to know my honest testimony, and I know you follow me because you trust me, she's the one. In case you are in the United States or even if you're outside looking to come into the U.S. you're a small company. And even though our company is no longer very small company, I still stick to Megan. Megan is the best. Thank you, Megan.