Use PR Opportunities to Grow Your Audience

Have you ever seen a blogger or influencer featured on TV, in a publication, or on a podcast and wondered how they got there? Did you know you can pitch yourself for those PR opportunities? There are so many audiences out there! They are listening to shows, they're reading other publications and they are out there, just waiting to learn about you. Today we're diving into how to pitch yourself, things to do before pitching yourself, and the many benefits of getting featured!

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

"What I am not seeing bloggers do is pitch themselves for other PR opportunities. And let's just keep it real, we are leaving an audience on the table. There are so many audiences out there that are your target audience. They are listening to other shows, they're reading other publications and they're just waiting to learn about you!"

Discussed in this episode...

There are so many benefits to being featured! Bree breaks down the how and why in this episode!

PR Opportunities for Bloggers

• Podcasts
  • Did you know that there are over 850 million podcasts?! Isn't that crazy? I guarantee you there are ones in your niche!
• Larger Media Publications
  • I'm thinking things like BuzzFeed Huffington Post, the Today show, and so on.
• Local TV Shows
• Local Magazines
• Facebook Groups

Benefits of Getting Featured on Media Outlets as a Blogger

Increased Credibility

This is a perfect example of the power of third party endorsement. You can tell others that you are amazing, and that you have all of these awesome things. But to have a credible third party endorse you can completely change the game.

Increased Visibility

You can reach new audiences in ways that go beyond your own social media or a mailing list!

Elevate a Special Promotion

Utilizing PR for something like a book launch, new product launch, etc. is a great way to gain extra visibility and sales! We have one person inside of the Profitable Blogger Society who is focused on helping women elevate their careers and get into the careers that they want. I 100% recommend that she does PR, even locally, to get in front of new people! She has awesome resources and even awesome tools that they can purchase. Even if it's something like a small product it can be super beneficial to this new audience.

Positive Brand Image and SEO

Getting placements with high authority brands will reflect your brand in a positive light! It will also help to boost the search engine rankings for your brand. Whenever you get linked to a website that has a higher domain authority than you, that is just going to elevate your own website.

Let's say that you're a blog contributor, and you contribute once a quarter to a blogger site that is established and larger than you (like Every Girl, BuzzFeed, or a Beautiful Mess), getting featured in a publication like that is just going to elevate your website. Not only will it get you in front of new people, and get your name out there in front of a new audience, it's also going to help boost your website.

6 Things to Do Before Pitching Yourself for PR Opportunities

Ready to grow your audience by being on a podcast, writing or being interviewed for a larger media publication, or even going on a local tv show?

Know your content

Select a topic that you know well. When you select a topic that you know well it’s easier to create your speech, and then to make it all flow naturally. You can’t speak about something that you don’t know about. That doesn’t make sense.

Know how will it resonate with the audience

Evaluate the potential audience and know how your content can truly resonate with them. This is the research part of it! If you're looking at a podcast, a magazine, or another publication, who is their audience? And how can you tailor your message to really fit their audience? Your job here is to make sure that they are going to want to tune in and engage with what it is you're sharing.

Have your bio and a good headshot ready to go

Have a great bio! Make sure it talks about who you are and what you do. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point, but showcase what they can expect when they go and seek out your brand for themselves. And always a good headshot!

Connect

Now you need to like follow their accounts, interact with them on social media, make sure you know all about the PR avenues that you were pitching. Make sure you really know all about them! Similar to how we work with brands, we want to be a fan of the brand before we promote it. Showing that you actually care about them will go a long way.

Create a template email or short inquiry message.

I'll share much more on how to write your template in the next section. Having a template email, though, will make is so much easier to be continually reaching out to multiple opportunities!

Be brave and go for it!

Seriously. The whole talk of “fake it ‘till you make it” is only semi-real. You obviously can’t fake being an expert at a specific topic or being a speaker. But, have faith in who you are, what you have to offer, and the fact that your audience is out there. Make it your goal and go for it!

How to Write Your Pitch Template:

• Your first line should address the reporter (or podcast host, or publisher, whoever it may be) by name if possible.
• Introduce the story, leading into the “hook”
• “Hook” the reporter with the main pitch of the story
  • The hook is where knowing your content and knowing their audience comes in; because you need to stand out. What is the different angle, or the different spin that you are able to bring to things? What is that one thing that you're wanting to share from your unique perspective, that's different than everybody else? This is very similar to when you're doing your research for a blog post title. You want to make sure that it's catchy, that it's going to also perform well on social media, but that it's really going to catch people's attention. The formula is similar. Don't go too far and make it click-bait, but you do want to be click-baiting in that you want them to think, "I can't help but click on this".
• Talk about yourself, the audience, and how it relates back to the pitch
  • You want to share how this is going to affect their audience or why their audience is going to love this.
• Closeout the pitch with a call to action.
  • Make it easy on them! Just say something like "Is this something that you think would fit into an upcoming show?" Or "Is this something that would be valuable to your audience?"

That's really the pitch! I encourage you to keep it brief. If you're pitching reporters or hosts, they're crunched on time. Keep it really short and sweet; maybe two paragraphs at a max!

Follow Up

Two to three days after you send your pitch out you can follow up with something short and simple. And here's the thing, you don't have to come up with a bunch of different pitches! All you need to come up with is one or two and then send them everywhere!

You guys are amazing. Go and share your magic content with everyone. There are so many people out there that want to hear from you that want to know about you. You just got to go and get yourself out there in front of people and these are new and different ways that so many people aren't utilizing.

 

Resources Mentioned

• The Profitable Blogger Society
• Shift
• Thrive Blogging Community FB Group
• Podcast Episode 121
• Podcast Episode 127

More about Bree Pair:

Bree Pair is a blogging coach and founder of Thrive - A blogging community built to empower and educate bloggers to make a full-time income by spending time on the right things. Her passion is helping bloggers create a strategy for growth and working with them on every side of their business to give them the confidence they need to be successful. Bree is propelled by the results of seeing bloggers go from overwhelmed to steady and sustained growth and creating the lifestyle they want.

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