Fascinated by the power of PR but unsure how to harness it? In today’s episode, PR expert Gloria Chow guide you through the often misunderstood realm of press relations. She’s not only an expert in the field, but also a former US diplomat, making her uniquely equipped to navigate the world of publicity. Gloria shares her wealth of knowledge, dispelling common myths and offering tangible strategies that can exponentially increase your business’s visibility and lead generation – without spending a penny.

Join us as Gloria shares her proven pitching method that’s got a track record of securing an enthusiastic ‘yes’ from PR opportunities. But that’s not all! She also details her vision of making PR accessible to all, especially founders, irrespective of their backgrounds, while emphasizing the importance of real stories and people in media.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Challenging Misconceptions: Gloria addresses common misconceptions about PR and highlights that it’s not just about connections but about finding newsworthy angles and making predictions.
• Finding Newsworthy Angles: Gloria shares tips on how to identify angles that journalists will find interesting and relevant. She suggests conducting surveys, analyzing trends, and staying up-to-date with industry news to find unique angles for media coverage.
• Engaging with Journalists: Gloria emphasizes the importance of signing up for services like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and engaging with journalists on social media. Building relationships with journalists can lead to valuable media opportunities and coverage.
• Getting Started: The episode concludes with Gloria encouraging listeners to start their PR journey. She reminds us that PR is a long-term strategy and offers a freebie to help entrepreneurs kickstart their PR efforts.

PR, as Gloria explains, is a better time investment than social media. So, if you’re on a budget and trying to make your mark, this episode is a must-listen. Stay with us as Gloria goes on to discuss her proprietary CPR pitching method and the art of crafting a contrarian point of view that grabs journalists’ attention. This illuminating episode is packed with valuable insights that can help skyrocket your business through PR. Tune in – you don’t want to miss this!

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

Gloria Chou’s Links:

• Email Gloria
• Visit Gloria’s Website
• Follow Gloria on Instagram
• Check out Gloria’s YouTube Channel
• Follow Gloria on Pinterest
• Learn more about Gloria on her LinkedIn

Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!

To me or NPR is the key to having more traffic, more visibility and more sales because ads and social media, they’re not sustainable and they’re not optimized. You can’t do a search for social media and you don’t own your social media. So in this day and age, especially when Rick is talking about working smarter and not harder, always ask yourself, am I doing something that is giving me a high ROI for my time? Am I building long term assets that’s searchable, that’s going to continue to give me traffic? And if the answer is yes and this is what you want, then I would definitely say that PR is the way to go.

All right.

What’s up, my friend? Welcome to today’s episode of the podcast. Rick here. This is episode number 711, and today is another guest teaching episode from one of our recent accelerator coaching members, Gloria Chou. And Gloria’s been on the podcast here before, and she specializes in PR, She’s a PR expert, and I asked her to come on here to share with you free strategies, free PR strategies that are really effective for getting you greater visibility and more leads through getting featured, whether it’s in print, whether it’s online, whether it’s morning TV, whatever it might be.

Plenty of examples where she has helped so many people on so many different levels with getting them free publicity through the methodology and framework that she teaches. And you’re going to hear all about that here today. She takes you through exactly step by step, breaks down a lot of the myths that exist when it comes to what we think it takes often in order to get press, in order to get covered, in order to get featured. And she breaks down all those myths and barriers here today. So without further ado, let’s go hang out and talk PR Simplified free and effective strategies for greater visibility and more leads with Gloria Chou.

Hello. Hello. I am so excited to record this. My name is Gloria Chou. Spelled who I am, an award winning small business PR expert. I am a former diplomat turned PR expert by literally cold calling thousands of newsrooms without a single day of experience at a PR agency or marketing agency. And through my time of literally cold calling, Googling, throwing spaghetti on the wall, I have been able to find patterns of what works in a cold pitch and what doesn’t.

And I’ve been able to help. So many founders from all different industries mastered the art of PR without having to pay to play or pay an expensive agency or feel like somehow their business is not ready or worthy yet. I think for a lot of decades we have been told by the industry that in order to get PR, in order to get featured in the top magazines, outlets that can reach millions of people, you need to have some kind of privilege and access, right? I’m here to change all of that. My mission is to make PR accessible for all founders, and that is why this work is sacred to me. You know, growing up as a child of Asian immigrants, I never saw anyone who looked like me in the media. And it is my job on earth, I believe, to help give other people the microphone, the spotlight so that they can tell their story. So in this quick episode, I will be walking through my proprietary pitching method that I came up with from, like I said, cold calling, cold emailing so that you can call pitch to anyone and get a hell yes.

And this works for podcasts, for speaking, for submitting yourself for awards. It’s just a way of having a value driven conversation. But I want to keep this focus on PR. To me, urn PR is the key to having more traffic, more visibility and more sales because ads and social media, they’re not sustainable and they’re not SEO optimized. You can’t do a search for social media and you don’t own your social media. So in this day and age, especially when Rick is talking about working smarter and not harder, always ask yourself, Am I doing something that is giving me a high ROI for my time? Am I building long term assets that’s searchable, that’s going to continue to give me traffic? And if the answer is yes and this is what you want, then I would definitely say that PR is the way to go. So again, my name is Gloria. I also host the Small Business podcast where we interviewed journalists and PR students from all walks of life on how they have been able to get onto every type of industry outlet and speaking magazines, online blogs, podcasts and more.

So first, I just want to break down very simply what is right. You’ve heard a lot of things about maybe what PR is and marketing, and it gets kind of very muddled in this noise, especially when we’re getting bombarded with those DMS of, Hey, you want to get into a 40 under 40 or 50 under 50, which by the way, that’s not real earned editorial content. It’s more of an ad that you’re paying. So I would say stay away from that. But PR at its core is literally sending out a cold pitch, knowing two things, which is what to write in the pitch and who to send it to. That’s literally it. And if you know how to structure a form of communication and if you know how to find the journalist, then you can systematize it for yourself, right? And you keep submitting yourself for podcast and for more. And from all the years I’ve learned by literally cold calling and helping so many small businesses is there’s a lot of mindsets around PR that makes people never get started.

So before we get into the teaching, I want to like, just bust those myths right out of the gate because I believe that everyone deserves to be seen, heard and valued, and PR is the best way to do that. I mean, think about just getting featured in a place like Forbes or New York Times or Fast Company or Vogue or Allure. I mean, you’re saving tens of thousands of dollars on ads and the confidence that it builds. It’s just incredible. So the first thing you need to know about PR is that. It’s a lie that only people who know journalists can get featured. Here’s the truth, right? Journalists are looking for real people and their stories to tell. And in fact, they did a recent survey and they said that in journalism, the number one threat to journalism is fake news. So how do journalists maintain their credibility is by making sure that they’re interviewing people from all walks of life. So, yes, there is a chance for you to get featured. There is a playing field for you, right? So you just have to believe that the news cycle runs 24 over seven.

There’s so much media out there that there’s so many opportunities to get featured. So journalists want to talk to real people. They don’t want to talk to a PR rep, so why not have it be you? Another thing, you just need to get out of your mind. If you’re thinking of doing PR and getting more visibility on your business. Is this idea that it takes so long and it’s really not worthy and maybe I should just hire someone or just stay stuck doing the social media dances. And here’s a truth, right? Everything that we want in life takes work, takes effort. But it’s how you’re spending your time. I’d rather spend time to get on a podcast which will give me show notes and can create ten pieces of content than spend all my time on social media that may or may not even be accessible tomorrow. Right? You’ve heard of people’s accounts being banned. Another thing about hiring a publicist is that it’s never truly done for you and you still have to tell them every little thing about your business.

But here’s the thing No one’s going to care about your business or advocate for yourself the way that you do, right? Here’s a lie. Number three, that we need to just come out of the gate and tell you about PR, which is a lot of people think that PR is really expensive because it’s a really difficult thing that only people with specialized skills can do. They have to go to school for it. They have to have a Rolodex, a context, and that’s just simply not true. So going back to what I said, PR is simple. It’s literally what to send and who to send it to, right? So now that we know that and we’ve kind of broken down the barriers of what PR is and we know that we hold our own key, let’s figure out what is the main thing you need to master in order to get PR. Now here, something I learned from cold calling thousands of times, emailing thousands of journalists is this one thing If you lead with your business and your autobiography and your story, the lower your chances are of being featured.

And you might be thinking, Well, why? Here’s the thing you need to know about earned PR and what journalists want. Journalists don’t want a product brochure. They will not be your customers. So don’t talk to them like you’re selling to them. And the more that you talk to them like you’re selling to them, the more they’re going to say, Well, why don’t you just buy an ad instead? So how do we bypass this and allow journalists to actually see us? For the experts that we are, is we need to do this work of transforming our marketing message, which you’re so good at, into something that is newsworthy, leading with the problem or your solution or the insight or the topic, and not leading so much with your business and what you offer. So this point is really, really important and I hope that you’re able to really remember that journalists, they don’t want your business brochure. So the next step is how do I transform my marketing and sales pitch, which I’m so good at? How do I get that into a story or something that a journalist cares about? How can I make what I have to say newsworthy? Well, I have to say there’s no such thing as a newsworthy company.

Speaker 1 (00:08:45) – There is such a thing as a newsworthy pitch, so you don’t have to have reached a certain level of business to be newsworthy. You just need to know what to say. So here are some questions you might start to ask yourself when finding What is my newsworthy angle and how can I turn my sales message into one that is more leading with the news that journalists will care about? Right? Because then if they care about you, they will write you up and basically treat you as a source for their stories. And there’s no limit to the amount of times they can call you and ask you about something because you will be their go to person. So here are some questions you might ask to start to brainstorm things like what are the changes in your industry? Right? I don’t care what industry you’re in with AI and Covid and remote work, everything has changed so much. I feel like we literally have ten years of changes in one year alone. And how can you give the journalist audiences some ways to interpret that? Maybe it’s predicting something.

Now, the thing about predictions I love, I call it like a PR secret weapon is that you’re not held accountable for it. Really, a lot of the times when I see people talking on the news, they’re just giving predictions. They have no clue. So why not just give a simple prediction? It could be something like, I predict that I will change the world of marketing by X, Y, and Z, or I predict something about ads and tracking and third party data or whatever that is. Right? Whatever predictions that you might have put it in a pitch that is leading with something that is relevant, that has a point of view and point of view is so important. Another thing you might think about when trying to find your newsworthy angle and anyone point you might have a multitude of them is asking yourself, Well, what specific solutions can I provide that journalist audience? And here’s the thing I want you to know about that There is no level that’s like too early or to advance. I think a lot of times, because we’re so expert on our business, we feel like, well, this is common knowledge and that everyone knows and it’s so not true.

I had someone in my PR program who is a Pilates teacher and she has an online business and she literally got written up in an article called What is Pilates in 2000. Then 23. So don’t stop yourself by thinking, well, everything has already been said because there is always someone to talk about at every level. There’s people consuming news at every level. So don’t stop yourself. Okay? Another thing that I love when thinking about what angles to pitch is, what season are we in? Right? If it’s New Year, it could be New Year, new you. If it’s something around graduation, it could be about summer. It could be about the new trends or skills or personal development things that the job market is looking for. If it’s end of year, great. There’s a lot of things happening. Then the economy, consumerism, shopping, family times. Maybe it’s something about mental health day or maybe it’s something about what’s already happening in the news. And piggybacking on what is a breaking story.

Right? Maybe it’s something that a Fortune 500 company did and you might want to offer commentary on that. So you have no shortage of angles. I just want you to know that and feel confident because a lot of times we stop ourselves from even starting PR because we just feel like everything has already been said. And I trust you without you saying it. The puzzle piece, the puzzle board of your industry will be incomplete. So I really want to cheer you on and say that you deserve to put your little piece in there. Another thing you can do is conduct a very simple survey so you can use a Google forms, you can go on LinkedIn, you can even use the poll feature on Instagram and say, Hey guys, I’m thinking of pitching a story about X, Y, and Z. What do you think about this? Don’t ask yes or no question. Maybe something like strongly agree, disagree, something in a range. Right? So I’ll give you an example. I worked with someone who is a career coach and he started a career platform for people to find jobs and for recruiters.

And this was around the time of Covid. So he literally went on to his LinkedIn and said, Hey, guys, I want you to fill out a very simple survey. Would help me a lot. How do you compare your 2008 grads with 2020 grad? And I only want to interview people who graduated during those two really difficult times. So he was able to get a small sample set of two different populations. Compare their attitudes about how bleak or optimistic the job market was, and he was able to get featured in so many places. He started connecting with TechCrunch and Entrepreneur and New York Times. He ended up getting featured on The Tennessean, Inc, Forbes and so many more. So use a survey and guess what? You can also use third party data. So as long as it’s a credible industry report, we had someone who was a coach for introverts to help them stand out in a world of loud extrovert. So what did she do? She took a third party report from like an Accenture or a consulting company.

And she literally wrote in her email, you know, this report says that certain introverts are better primed for certain C-level position. And she was featured in a lot of different magazines. So you can totally use third party data as well. So the world is your oyster. There’s a lot of things to talk about. Another thing that I really love to pitch is a contrarian point of view. So when all the gurus and experts in your industry are talking about something, maybe you can say, Well, here’s what the gurus aren’t telling you, or here’s what I don’t agree with. We had someone who is a video creator and a content influencer, and he taught people how to make viral content. And the pitch we wrote for him was three things that the Instagram gurus and Garyvee and those people that are telling you that’s no longer true today and this year right? So think about the relevance. Put a time frame on it, and in my masterclass we go into more detail about exactly what the pitch is.

But this should get you started. Now, you might be thinking, okay, I have so many light bulb moments now. I have so many things running through my head. How can I actually put it into a pitch? Well, that’s where my proprietary pitching method comes in. So this method is a structure of a pitch, a structure of any kind of value driven conversation that allows you to get a hell yes from the other person. It positions you as an expert with a point of view, because that’s what journalists want to interview, experts with point of view, and it allows you not to be salesy or like too much heavy into marketing your own business. Right? And in doing so, it allows you to lead with the solution or the value, right? Not your product and your business. Because remember, the journalist is not going to buy from you, so don’t talk like you’re selling to them. So here’s what the method is. The C stands for credibility somewhere in your pitch. And this is very kind of not as important.

It’s just one sentence of I am a XYZ and I’ve seen this problem firsthand. Right? So it could be if you are someone who is a teacher or you have an online course for home schooling, it could be you know, I have also homeschooled my children and I have seen this firsthand. Right. So that’s just really the one line of credibility. P And stands for point of view. So remember, journalists want to talk to people with point of view. So it’s about positioning you as someone with a point of view. And it could be three tips or three things you need to know or three changes. So it could be about three time hack productivity, Things you need to know in 2023 or 3 things you didn’t know that ChatGPT could do for you or, you know, anything that leads with some kind of insight or opinion, right? I like threes. I like bullet points because it makes it easy for the journalist to read and it breaks up the text because they’re reading so many emails and you want to get them quickly.

Now, the R and R stands for relevance, which is the most important part of the pitch. Why? Because if it’s not relevant right now, then the journalist will be like, maybe later. So what do we want to do? We want to make the pitch super relevant to this season, to this year. To this time, to this economy, to this society, to what people are feeling. So in the actual pitch, and I do a lot of pitch writing for my clients and we we teach this in our program is I want you to actually think about keep narrowing down your pitch like peeling away the layers of an onion. So you might start with something like, you know, five ways I is is changing business, right? That’s the first layer of the onion. It’s fine. It’s relevant. But do I know that it’s relevant for 2023 or 2033? I don’t know. So how can we peel the way the layer of onion to get to that juicy core? And that’s with specificity.

So be specific. So the next iteration of that that’s even better would be how is changing online marketing business? Now let’s get one level even more relevant how Q4 will see changes in AI in 2023, Right? You see how there’s levels of relevancy and dates and times and seasons. So whenever you’re writing a pitch to a journalist, you always want it to be specific and just think about peeling away the layers of an onion to get to that relevancy and specificity, right? So peel away the onion. I hope you like onion because I talk about it a lot. And this has worked for so many people. So that’s just a really quick recap. The way I usually like to write the pitch is the subject line to the journalist is really what the email is about. I don’t like anything that’s spammy or gimmicky, like you would do an online marketing. It’s just going to go straight into trash. So it could be like three ways AI is changing X, y, z industry for XYZ demographic or three things people are not telling you about the self care industry or whatever that is, right? And then in the body of the pitch, I usually like to lead with relevance because again, you’re fighting for their attention every single second, every single word, and you want to hook them with that relevance.

So start with what’s happening right now. It could be since this happened in the news or since everyone is talking about this or since we’re in this season. Right. That’s irrelevant. And the P and PR are usually three bullet points. So three tips, three tricks, three things you didn’t know, three things I learned so in bullet points. And then you conclude with the c n, which stands for credibility. It could be very simple. Like I’ve seen this firsthand or I’ve talked about this on a podcast or what have you, and there you have it. That is really kind of a high level way that I would write a pitch, right? Obviously, we teach this in my program the nooks and crannies about it, but that really is the essence of using the method, this method that has allowed so many founders with no experience and no network to be able to get featured. So yes, you can do it. The cold pitch absolutely works and you just need to know how to translate your marketing and sales message into one.

For journalists to understand that you are a source, that you can co-create something with them, that you have a lot of information to share. And that’s really it. That’s really the essence. So now you might be thinking, okay, now I have the gist of how to write a pitch and how to code pitch, and I’m ready to do it. How do I find journalists? Well, here are some things you can do very easily for free to connect with journalists. The first thing is I want you to set up a Google News alert so that you literally Google Google News Alert and you type in your industry keywords. And every day all of the publications and all of the articles about your industry will be emailed to you. That does two things. It allows you to start to train your brain to think in terms of subject lines and in terms of news stories. Another thing is you can start to add those journalists into an Excel file or a sheet. That way you can start to compile this names of journalists who are covering your beat.

Another thing I would like you to do is sign up for Haro, which stands for Help a reporter out so that way you can sign up as a source and you can kind of sift through everyday how many journalists are asking for people to comment on a certain topic that might be related to your industry? Third thing you should do is on Twitter or LinkedIn. There is a hashtag called Journal request, and that is journalists who are looking for subject matter experts or people to interview. It might be someone looking for a photography teacher to talk about X, Y, and Z, or someone who is looking for a marketing expert to talk about X, Y, and Z. Right? So signing up for those things are kind of very grassroots way. You can start to learn how journalists like to write, what topics they like to cover and start to think in terms of subject lines and really punchy stories. And that’s really going to help you enable to use the method that I just taught you and take it a step further.

Here’s the thing about connecting with journalists Don’t be intimidated. They’re just normal people, right? They’re not sitting on their heavily thrones judging us. They are busy people and they’re looking for a variety of stories and authentic people to interview. So you are simply putting your name in the hat and you never know where they’re going to go back to the email and do a quick search because they’re tasked with that assignment and that time. It might be someone to interview like you. Right? Another thing is journalists, they actually write stories. So be a good steward of their news, be a good consumer of their writing and turn on notifications. It could be very simple LinkedIn notification where you’re following a journalist who writes your beats and you could just comment on their latest post and be like, Hey, I really loved your article that you wrote about X, Y, and Z. I thought it was really interesting for this reason, right? It’s really a long term relationship building. It’s not a one and done. So if you can start to plant the seeds and you water that garden and you cultivate that, you’re going to have so many relationships.

That’s going to be. Be able to be beneficial for you. But it all starts with a cold pitch and that confidence and being of service, which means bring something of value to the journalist that’s not your product brochure or your marketing pitch, but something that leads with the topic, the idea, the insight and the discussions that people are already having. So hopefully I’ve been able to break this down for you and I cannot wait for you to get started with PR no matter where your journey is. I really see as something that is the foundation for all of our marketing, and it’s really the gift that keeps on giving. Unlike ads where the moment you start paying for it, the faucet runs dry. With PR, you’re still getting that traffic, that visibility even years later, right? It’s SEO, it’s backlinks. So I always encourage you and like Rick says, is audit your time. Think about how you’re spending your time. Think about spending your time on those tasks that can give a long term asset building for your business.

And to me, that is all about PR, So I encourage you to get on to your first, second, 50th 100th podcast. I encourage you to pitch to that very intimidating outlet that you’ve always loved as a kid and you thought there was no way I could get featured, because I absolutely guarantee it is possible. So again, my name is Gloria Chou. You can find me on all the things at Gloria Chou PR that’s spelled Gloria PR, and if you DM me the word pitch, I’ll give you a freebie. And I cannot wait to see where you take your journey this year so that you can get more visible, get in front of more people, get more organic traffic and grow your business.

All right. Hey, there’s no excuse now, right? To get yourself PR, to get yourself featured. What Gloria just did is just break this down step by step for you and busted so many myths that it is hard to get featured in some of the biggest publications. Definitely check out Gloria’s PR Starter Pack, which is her program teaching you going in depth, giving you a huge database of contacts and media outlets that you can be reaching out to using her methodology.

So many of her she’s got countless case studies of her students being featured. I mean, she has other accelerator members that she’s worked with and helped, and they all come back to me and say, she is brilliant. So definitely check out her starter pack. I will link all the links up that we talked about are that she talked about, I should say, in the show notes for today’s episode, which is over on my website. Rick Mulroy Go to the podcast section and you will see Gloria’s episode right there. As always, thank you, my friend, for tuning in. If you haven’t already, please leave a quick rating and review for the show. Over on Apple. Podcasts is still super helpful. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you don’t miss any episodes coming right into your podcast feed. And as always, thank you, my friend, for coming to hang out. Until next time, be well. I’ll chat with you soon. We?