How to get press coverage and build links

Carrie Rose, CEO & Co-Founder of Rise at Seven
How do you get press and build links? Enter Carrie Rose of Rise at Seven. In this talk, she unpacks her process.

Rise at Seven positions themselves as champions in ‘creative campaigns designed for global media impact’. They exist to change the PR game. 

In her own words. Carrie says she ‘has always been rebellious, just to prove a point’. She believes in being brave, bold, and pushing boundaries. Creating ‘random acts of creativity’ in a reactive way to what is trending, can be an excellent way to have an impact. And Carrie encourages us all as marketers to do the same. 

You too can challenge the way that PR and content is approached. First, consider the 3 step process:

It’s simple: Brand+Trend=Increased Spread. 

PR stunts are great when they are done right. But how many PR stunts have we seen that don’t connect back to the brand?
Examples such as the Disney gingerbread Home Alone house, and the Christmas in a Tin stunt were shared (which Carrie subsequently fixed by the way)

Second, to create impactful PR, always consider these 4 key criteria:

Carrie proposed If it doesn’t fit these 4 criteria, go back to the drawing board. Start again.
Here’s how you can meet this criterion:

Encourage brands to be relevant NOW and to react quickly. That’s the key to making it sharable. 

Rise at Seven have built their very own tool to help them to act fast. But Carrie also kindly shared tools which can help us all identify trends such as:

  • Buzzsumo API
  • Google Trends
  • Exploding topics
  • Shared count
  • Ahrefs
  • SEM Rush
  • sharedcount.com

These can help us all to keep our fingers on the pulse of what’s going on

Think more about your audience. 

Carrie suggests not to target customers, but to open up the space, and target the wider circle- the people who are connected to your target customers, the people who influence them.
Think of creative ways you can build a fun stunt that is relevant right now, that will have an impact on these people. 

Most companies flip this model upside down, and focus on the very bottom and target the tiny group of direct customers. Sure, you can do it this way, but what if you went for the middle segment? By thinking bigger you will get a bigger reach and have bigger impact. 

Be curious, ask questions to the target audience:

  • -Where do you get your news
  • -Which publications do you read
  • -Dig deeper, look at which get the most social engagement. 

 

This will allow you to think bigger, and reach a larger pool of people.
Often the people who start the conversations, share the content, that reach the people you want to get to are unexpected. To reach the tech and gaming community, Carrie targeted Drum magazine, to get the attention of the marketing community, who she knew would care that the Christmas Tinner was back, and start to share it. 

And the results….

Understand your audience, understand who influences them and how to get links. Know where to get it trending. Know how to get it back to the brand. 

Create the kind of content that people talk about at the pub. 

Have amazing, relevant creative ideas… then ask your team, ask your friends, ask your family:
Do you give a fuck? Would you talk about it in the pub? If they don’t say yes immediately, and want to know more, it should go in the bin. Start again. 

Sharable and engaging content should be the kind of stuff people cant help but talk about, no matter who they are

Evoke emotion

It’s simple really. The best campaigns always do. That’s why we remember them and share them. 

Finally, think about the value of the content… your aim is to get links. Have people click back to your brand. The key to ensuring you get this is to check that your idea ticks AT LEAST ONE of these boxes:

  • -Adds value
  • -Positions you as an expert
  • -Acts as a resource
  • -Is engaging

Ultimately, if a journalist can cover the story you are proposing, WITHOUT linking, then start again. 

………………………

Finally, a reminder shared with us throughout was:

DON’T FORGET:

Taking the four top tips above is great, but always remember to think like a marketer:

Focus on engagement, traffic and brand awareness. Always bring it back to the brand. The stunt should always be traced back and connected to the brand. 

Like Carrie’s Ikea Bernie Chair (yep that was her!), the Mariah Carey pay per play report, Misguided’s jumpers for you and the dog, and her adult-friendly easter egg complete with sex toy inside. These were all about leading with the brand, being smart, creative, and relevant to now.

We all know the importance of omnichannel marketing, so be smart with it and connect the dots. Keep the brand at the forefront. No marketing should ever sit in isolation. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The Q&A:

Q: how would you approach this for B2B- the kind of companies people go to the pub to escape from?
A: Find a topic people are interested in. PR is all about using what you have got. Find something people want to talk about, something customer facing- you will always find something.

Q: How do you build your press contacts?
A: Connect with them on twitter. They are just people. DM the people that have written an article, and share something with them. Not enough people give back. On twitter there is a list function, if you type in something you are interested in, twitter gives you a list of people and accounts to follow. Interact with people once you have connected. 

Q: Which metrics do you track?
A: DA is pointless. I track follow and no follow, traffic from social shares (sharedcount.com), keyword movements, ratings… we track everything. Sign-ups to newsletters, social media following and interactions. 

Q:How do you apply this thinking to small companies (B2B)?
A: Think impact for the company. Get the coverage from the local and regional press instead of the global. Use the owner/CEO to provide comments about press and companies. Use their expertise, then send that out to the local press. 

Q: What’s the most effective thing you have done to grow your own agency?
A: I have always just gone and done it. Run campaigns just to prove that we can do it as an agency. Building our personal brand has been our biggest success. We have a fully transparent and honest to approach to our brand. I think more brands in the future will be doing this, and its definitely the way forward. 

Q: Aren’t you afraid people will copy you with that approach?
A: Well no, because they may know about what we do, and how to do it, but none of them have me. YOU are the thing that makes your brand and company different, so own it. 

Q: What top tips would you give to get your press release noticed?
A: When you’re emailing or contacting someone, make what you say stand out. Use emojis, use the word REVEALED in capital letters, mention keywords, write how they write. If it’s the sun, capture their attention with just two words. Create a story that you sell using two words, or just one line. Also use tools like Email hunt (hunter.io) to find the right people. 

Q: What can I do if my company doesn’t move fast enough? – i.e. it takes 6 months and lots of levels of signoffs to get things done
A: Be proactive by planning ahead. Know what has happened in the last 6 months and what will happen in the next 6. Buzz Sumo timeline can help by showing you the big topics that trend each year in each category such as car accidents in December.
We used to be 70% plan ahead and 30% reactive. Now, because of Covid things have changed, and brands are being braver, so now more like 50% planned and 50% reactive.

Q: How can you target more conservative sectors
A: We have even worked with Financial companies. Just find what’s trending then be relevant to that. When something big in the finance world trends, like the sale of a company, or the fall of a brand, create content that reacts and adds value like what impact that will have on the economy, and what that means for the sector going forward. 

Q: How do you convince a client to release a new product? How did you go about making the sex toy egg?
A: We just collaborated with a local chocolatier to get it made. You can wrap anything in chocolate really, even an Iphone. Imagine that! The best advice I can give is do it for someone else first, use that as a case study of how it can work, then present it. Do it so well it sells out. Drive traffic and create something sharable, then provide that evidence. I always create campaigns for myself just to prove a point. Do it for a local café or your hairdresser or something!

Q: How do you go about seeding an idea on other platforms.
A: We hire people that work within the niches, people who are part of their communities, trusted and cemented within it. When they mention our campaign, it isn’t a plug, its just something interesting they want to share, like have you seen this?! So really we hire people to just be themselves and keep doing what they love. 

Transcript

Good morning, everyone. I hope you didn’t write that video. It just brings the right kind of energy hierarchy. Good morning, and welcome to the market. Timmy. Thank you all so, so much for being here this morning. Uh, and I actually want to start off this morning by just saying a big, big, big, big, thank you.

Last week’s chat was a real, the chat feature down below that you’ll see right now it was a meal. It added such a crazy dimension to the session. Um, last week, we’re speaking about mental health, but like the support that was going on in there, the conversation, the connections that people were making between one another, it was a meal and it added such an amazing element to the event.

So, uh, my point of encouragement for today is let’s try and do exactly the same today. Use that chat feature, make it go on fire. Look after each other, be positively lovely because like we’re here to present an amazing session this morning. That is truly you, that make you special. So thank you. And let’s do it again.

Uh, let’s have some fun. Um, and on that subject of the chat feature, don’t forget to switch it to all panelists and attendees so everyone can see your chat messages. Uh, in honor of today’s guest. I think you’d be wicked. If you drop where you’re watching from. And your favorite news headline of all time.

Uh, just to see if there’s any of that sort of hit your mind straight away today, I’m buzzing. Absolutely buzzing that our guest is Carrie Rose, CEO of rise at seven. If you haven’t heard of Carrie yet. And let me leave you with one guarantee, this will not be the last that you hear of her. Uh, it’s already too late to be calling Carrie a up and comer.

Uh, but she does represent one of the industry’s most exciting prospects is only going to grow and grow and grow and grow over the course of the years to come. She was saying just before we went on the company, she’s 27. And like, how exciting is that? Like I’m buzzing from her energy this morning. I know that you will be too.

Um, I’m trying to not lay my, the pressure on really quick lens through Carrie’s. Twitter will give you a glimpse of someone who’s working with diligence, intelligence, creativity, having fun, and also sit in the realm of, of an absolute rocket ship and that excited to see you actually goes. But I’m grateful for being here today too.

Um, today’s session is all about getting impressed and building links. And despite this being one of the fundamental skills of marketing in 2021 and having been around forever, it’s still something that feels a little bit like a bit of a dark art. Um, I can profess as a marketer of nearly 10 years now, it is still something that I haven’t mailed.

Uh, so today I’m going to be sat watching on the presentation. And, uh, learning like the rest of everyone else because, uh, the questions that come out at the end, whether they’re from you or whether they’re from me, they can be paced in genuine curiosity into how to get better at this fundamental skill of marketing.

Uh, stay session has a presentation element and then we’ll have time for Q and a afterwards. Hopefully Carrie’s already warned me that she did. You can go over. So we’ll see, we’ll try and get those Q and A’s in, um, and do drop those in the Q and a feature. Uh, that’s found down below, uh, you just need to wiggle your mouse.

You’ll see the Q and a feature, drop your questions in, uh, and the most important thing there is that. There’s questions that get asked first tend to be the ones that get the most thumbs up cause people see them more and also to use the thumbs up feature. So we asked the questions that you want answering the most.

Uh, finally, I just want to thank all of our sponsors for enabling us to do this sessions a day, to be able to deliver it to you for free to be able to deliver it’s all for the Mark to me to exist. Um, it’s been a crazy year and I, I am the sentimental type. So, you know, I sit by all these folks and I just sort of think Christ how lucky we are that they asked investing in them, in the marketing community and enabling us to do what we’re doing this morning.

So, uh, you’ve had these folks in a message before and you get them in the message afterwards in the follow-up email. I just really really ask if you take the time. Just to say thank you to the sponsors and those that they seem like logos to some folks, but there’s human beings behind them. And just a quick, thank you.

It really, really goes a long way. So thank you for me, uh, to content cow pitch fiver red gate, who are hiring right now, by the way, came to Martin college brand graphic label, third light, Bravo and human. Just take the time to thank them. So, uh, that’s my introduction done. So, uh, Carrie, it’s over to you.

Thank you for doing this today. Thank you. Um, I don’t know if it’s your calming voice, but it made me feel like really like emotional when you spoke. I think it’s that the music that hype, I feel it’s still early in my eyes. This is probably the earliest we’ve got for a long time. Well, I’m happy. I’m happy to bring their patients.

Well, Ooh, pitches, let me present my screen. So I’m hopefully going to keep you all hooked for the next 40 minutes. That’s my job. Um, I’m trying not to be boring as one thing. I’m definitely not. Um, I do speak a million miles an hour, but apparently that’s a good thing people have told me. Um, but yeah, I am.

I’m going to be covering. Press coverage and get links. And I’m going to be both practical, giving you exactly like how we do what we do. Give you some tips of tools to use all that sort of stuff. I hate when people do talks and don’t really give you anything to take away, but I’m also going to be inspirational.

So some of the sort of stuff that we’ve done not to sell it, but just to give you just to inspire you really. So I’m going to, Oh, that didn’t work. I’m going to start off with this. Um, you’ve probably seen it if anybody’s on Twitter, um, and works in, I guess our industry, everybody’s talking about digital PR right now.

Um, couple of days ago, John Mueller, who works at Google basically tweeted that digital PR has a bigger impact than tech SEO right now. And that obviously ruffled some feathers in the SEO community and everybody’s discussing it, debating it. What is the joker mean? And somebody said there’s digital PR is just a PR that builds links.

They’re wrong. And there’s never been a more important time for PR PR professionals to prove their value of their work. And I think this for all industries, so that’s creative industries, advertising industries, all industries right now we’re having to prove return on investment. We’re having to prove why their work actually is good enough.

Take this. So this was a campaign done by Disney plus, um, in December. Um, if you didn’t see it or they, all they did is basically create the home alone house, which is obviously a very popular house. And when it comes to TV and movies, it gingerbread, and they created this house to promote the fact, I think they had home alone, um, on, on their Disney plus channels.

Um, and, um, they put out depress, went viral. I think off the top of my head, maybe got 200, 300 media placements, however, How many people then went and signed up to Disney. Plus how many, you know, how did that impact their brand? How many people went to Disney plus to go and watch home alone? This isn’t something that people know this isn’t something that people have tracked.

Another example, John Lewis, John Lewis spend millions Christmas ads every single day. So this was maybe what a year ago or two years when it was all about Elton John. And what I did at the time is I Googled the word pianos. So the whole advert was all around pushing pianos. And when you Googled pianos at the time, John Lewis didn’t even run for pianos.

So although there was pushing that one product, they didn’t even rank for it. So if they was creating this demand for people to buy a piano, what I did not think about search, why I did not think about the content on that website, and this is exactly why I launched rise at seven. So we are a search first creative agency.

And what that means is we actually called ourselves. We’ve had a bit of change over the last 12 months. We called ourselves an SEO agency. That’s why our background, we do SEO. We do search, but we take the creative approach to it. We thought SEO has never really been creative. It’s never really been sexy.

And you know, the likes of John Lewis, the likes of Disney plus their big creative campaigns never really worked for search, but now they come to them. So we build in target sites like this. When it comes to our campaigns, we get, you know, your national press coverage for clients like this. We’re looking we’re only a year and a half old, and I’m already working with game X-Box park, Dean calf kids, and you know, pretty little thing we won last week.

That’s insane. But what we did is we basically said we do SEO this way. We do SEO creatively. And if you believe it should be done that way, come this way too. So the sort of things we do is this Christmas tenor went viral. We create graphs that go up. So we don’t just, you know, do a big brand campaign, but we actually make sure that people are searching for us.

And that actually, when people are not searching for us, we’re still at the top of Google. We actually drive revenue and transactions. Everything has a search and traffic behind it. So how do we need to think. This is the thought process we need to think about is the three step process. Firstly, what are we wanting to achieve?

Is it brand awareness? Are we wanting to sell more dog jumpers or we want into rank for pianos? What is it that we’re trying to achieve? What can we do to earn that coverage and engagement? So what is the story? And then think, how can we turn that coverage into links and search impact? So you have to think about it because a lot of people get it wrong.

A lot of people create a story, that’ll get the coverage and they don’t get any links. They don’t get search impact because they just don’t know how so I’m going to show you. Well, PR stories have in common is that they’re relevant to now and that’s because they’re jumping on trends and it doesn’t mean trends in the last week.

The fact, I think yesterday I saw, um, Katie price trending. Um, I think she might’ve done some sort of video announcement or documentary or something. I haven’t looked into it, but I just saw that she was trending. Um, and. It doesn’t mean in the last week, but it also means that in the last six months, you know, what’s going on in the press, what are people searching for?

What search behaviors are there. Um, and I would want, when I look back at the last year and a half, our best campaigns have responded to current trends. So take the one on the left future game. And we basically visualize what a gaming addict would look like in the, in the next 20 years, we used a 3d designer to basically look at the eyes, the skin, the hair, it was all of this.

The global media placements, because what happened was locked down hid and everybody was gaming. Gave me, went on a rise. It was in the press. Everyone was talking about, you know, gaming addiction, spending too many hours online. Um, another one has a Fraser, nobody could go out and party. So we created a dress in gown.

What it was is again, like you could wear for the Christmas party, that was actually a dressing gown, um, that got, um, loaded media press. Drove 20,000 people to their website to buy this. Everybody was going crazy on it and Catholic kids and, um, animal crossing was going viral at the time everybody was using it.

So we basically put packets on animal crossing and that’s what we’re really good at putting a brand with a trending topic to make our content spread. Good example of that is this as everybody I know, obviously no one can respond right now, but is everybody seeing the Ikea Bernie chair? Yeah, by the way you actually get exclusive content of this it’s fake.

I kid didn’t do it. I did. Um, on Saturday I basically run into my boyfriend, went into the bedroom and my boyfriend’s a designer. So I’ve got this idea. I want to prove that. Campaigns and content, all they need to do is be relevant to now. That’s all they need to do. So I created this, it was a fake eyecare ad and it was clearly fake.

Cause the E isn’t a Swedish letter. I care, usually on their adverts have the price tags. So I made sure it was fake, but all I did is tweeted it and it’s got. Nearly a million impressions and thousands of likes on Twitter with them. And it fosters the likes of LinkedIn. This is spread because I made it relevant to now it was all around the Bernie Sanders.

Um, so yeah, I do a lot of this. I do a lot of things to prove why, what I say is actually right. And yeah. If you can make your content and brand a relevant, and I know a lot of people will be going, yeah, well it’s Ikea because it’s easy for them to go buy. Well, that’s the brand. We put the name on. Um, however, um, I’ve got plenty of examples of, you know yeah.

People that are not eyecare that people have never heard of doing the exact same. So we want it to prove how relevance to a trend trending topics helps brands get media. Um, so how do I know what’s trending first of all, and that’s what I’ve got to know about. We’ve built our own internal tool. Um, now alerting us of every trend in the last day.

We want to react fast so we can immediately see that, um, a good example when lockdown got first lifted, I think it was like April time, something like that, or maybe. Fair for back. Um, we’ve Providence Johnson announced the lockdown lift. Basically we saw that, um, laundry black laundry went up like 300% on misguided.

So we knew everybody was going for some sexy time because locked down and lifted. They want it to meet their partner. Um, and there was obviously wanting to feel confident. So we knew immediately because of our tool, but that’s only built through tools like this. So prosumer, we pull it from their API. If you use BuzzSumo, it’s not that expensive, but you can literally see every single topic that’s trending in every single niche from fashion to food to, I think this one’s more in the marketing space for tech, et cetera.

So you can literally just click on tech and find out what’s trending in tech this week, or what’s trending in tech this month. And you can, like, you can select it by location, by area. Um, so you can really be on the pulse of what’s going on. Google trends really simple. So, yeah. Um, Devin is trending right now and I think that was yesterday or because of the, who be in bow.

So we knew to create content around eponyms I tweeted about yesterday. I think I’ve got a couple of hundred likes on my Twitter. You just got to react to what’s going on in the press. And one of the best tools as well that we use our API for is explode, explode in topics. So this one, for example, is often shown that Bitcoin is on the rise and vital proteins, et cetera.

But these are just people’s searches of what people are searching my mind. These are just, these are free tools by the way, except from Basu mail, you have to pay for this email, but it’s not that expensive if you have a look into it. And, but these are just ways to keep on the pulse, know what’s going on in the media now what’s going on on social media and in the trends.

A good example of this is there. So obviously you, I mentioned before, it’s easy for our care to get, go, go trending, go viral. However, broadband deals is a small affiliate site. All they do is basically send people to go buy broadband for 20 quid. That’s basically their job and to get as much traffic to go by broadband.

And what we did is a bit of a data piece around, um, how much, how much artists are earning on stuff. Spotify for every stream, we create an asset. Um, I’ll skip this. What we did is we created an asset looking at John Lewis songs, Disney songs, Mo the top 100 most streamed songs to look at how much they are.

So for every stream on Spotify, you get paid. I think it’s like zero. Point zero four free pay or something like that. And we looked at okay for every stream then how many, how much are they getting paid? We pushed this out and it got a couple of weeks of coverage coverage, and we struggled. We really struggled to get the pickup.

However, what happened was at the time is Mariah Carey hit number one in the charts. For all I want for Christmas this year. And obviously that song is the most annoying song comes around every single year, but it hit number one for the first time. And because we had how much Mariah Carey owns from that, we pushed that out.

We’ve got 200 media placements we’ve got on CNN TV. We got on Yahoo, AOL, daily mail LABA, will you name it? All of these kinds of national publications was talking about broadband deals and their data. Um, and that just proves that. At first, we really struggled. But as soon as something started trending such as Mariah Carey hitting number one, and we pushed out the fact she ends, I think it’s 7 million on Spotify royalties, um, et cetera.

And that’s when we get started getting the pickup. Um, so yeah, on TV, et cetera. So overall it was 200 media placements across the world. 12 different countries was talking about this and so it just proves it. So talking to a bigger audience than your customer. Um, this is something that Ash from X social chain, um, now a great influence.

He talked about this to me and what a lot of people get wrong is this Sophie Turner funnel upside down like this at the bottom. The small point is your direct customer. So in my eyes, if I flick it’s SEO, SEO is my, what my customer is. However, the middle line is your customer in their circle. And then the top line is everyone.

And what a lot of people get wrong is they speak to this really small little point at the bottom. They create content that just their direct customer is going to like the middle line is really what you need to target to start off with your customer in their circle. So for an example, I want to be talking to marketers.

Uh, and that what we were talking to SEO is only to be getting, you know, advertise the people PPC to know who buys it Stephanie’s as an example, or it could be talking to everyone. I am not in a position where everyone is going to know who Carrie Rose is, all rise at seven, you know, who gives a fuck about SEO agencies.

Really? When you think about your mom, your dad, your brother, um, however, you’d need to open up that space and talk to other people outside your direct customer. And that’s when you start to your brain starts to think of why the topics. Um, that’s how you engage with a mass audience. Then you need to think about content that you talk about in the pub.

This is the most simple thing. And a lot of people get this wrong is I just asked myself, would you give a fuck about this? If you saw this in press, would you share it? If you, would you talk to your mom about it? Would you talk about the pub? And if it’s known and start again, I often ask my team and they’ll come up with this idea and I can see there’s no confidence in them.

Like they don’t, they’re like, Oh, I’ve come up with an idea. Just Friday is sake. And I’m like, Would you talk about in the pub and the light? No. Yeah, I know you wouldn’t scrap it and start again. And then the last one, it evokes emotion. So you’ll notice that the best campaigns we remember is because it made us feel something.

And I always used to think this was just a bullshit kind of PR. Message and thought, you know, whatever, and it doesn’t really, but actually the campaigns that we’ve done that have done well have created laughter they’ve created fear, even shock, just go store people that love it. And we have to make sure we’re touching on that emotion.

And I often think, does it make you feel something when you’re doing that campaign, does it make you feel something when you’re, you know, creating the story, pulling the content and if it’s now and start again again, Then have to get linked. So we’ve worked out how to get the story. Let me tell you how to get linked.

So having something on-site to link to which takes at least one of these boxes adds value positions. You as an expert, acts as a resource or something that is engaging, it has to take at least one of those boxes. A lot of people get it wrong, where they get viral, press coverage. And again, no search, no links because they haven’t got something on their website that adds value to that journalist.

Um, I’ve got some examples. Um, this was a campaign we did for Ricky sex toy provider. Um, basically they wanted, there was a, there were a small brand, the Roper games and summers, you know, LoveHoney et cetera. And they said like, rise at seven, come up with something modern. And I want to get links, but I want, I want to get bright boomer brand.

Um, we created the world’s first. Adult kinder egg. So it was basically an Easter egg and inside instead of a kid’s toy, it’s a sex toy. Um, it was a product that you could actually buy with. There was 200 of them. Um, and the way that we got the links is because you can’t buy it without linking to the website.

You have to go on to buy it. Hey, go like, go buy it off the website. Um, what we had is because we only had 200, we drove. I think around 25,000 people to the website at the time. So obviously they sold out fast. Yeah. So what we did is we changed it where instead of buying it, because it’s sold out, we had an email address capture where it said, enter your email address and we’ll get in touch with you.

As soon as this comes back, we was looking at basically trying to get more stock. Um, and what it meant is we, we captured 10,000 email addresses for Ricky that’s worth. Thousands. He’s like, Oh my God, I’ve got 10,000 email addresses that have people that want a sex toy. You know, that’s exactly their audience.

So, um, think of other ways to capture direct kind of ways to remark it. Um, and yeah, and this obviously drove 10, 12 K of revenue. And to be honest, Ricky was a startup sex toy brand. He’s never seen 12 K in his life. And so we, we turned that out for him through purely PR. There was no paid behind this. It was just a fun stern.

Um, and obviously every national media talked about this adult direct another one where it got links. So Staveley had really boring basically car insurance. Um, what they did is. We needed a asset onsite that Julie’s had to link to. And this is exactly something that you have to link to. So what it shows is live every second, how much Toyota Porsche Bentley Ferrari make every second as it goes up, but it also shows how many units or how much revenue they make.

I sent this to press. And the reason that this got links is because how can a journalist. Physically just describe how much money they make every second going up without having to link to it. It’s too, it’s too long to explain why journalists have to link to this as a, as an explanation for visualization.

So that got links from top gear, CNN, you who all the big publications, especially over in America, American love this. Um, and another good example is LoveHoney. They basically use that right from data, which a lot of people get wrong, um, is use their own data to my power. What sex toys everybody’s into. And I think Blackpool ended up being the book book, plug capital, which is hilarious.

But what you could do is choose your local area, you know, Doncaster, Sheffield, ethics, whatever, and find out, you know, what’s the most popular sex toy there. This got loads of links from national press. Everybody was talking about it. Here’s a bit of a tip. If a journalist can cover a story without Lincoln and start again.

I always say to my team, have we got some on the site? That’s linkable and if not start again, do you think agendas can write this? Um, without having to link to us, does it add any value to them and the law? If they say no, we start again. So we need to create content on site that people care about on one or half to click on.

And a lot of people argue that digital PR links don’t drive sales. It’s all for SEO. However, that’s bullshit. So, as I mentioned with the, um, Ricky Easter egg, 12 K of sales, this one drove, um, I’m not allowed to say the figure on this one, but it was like five figures. Oh, because we sold. Martin jumpers for you and your dog.

It drove 82,000 people to the website that’s through PR and all of a sudden now brands are really seeing the value of digital PR, but understanding, you know, not just to, how to get on, you know, the daily mail or express or the sun, but how can we take the audience and drive the traffic to our website?

And this is something that we do. So a lot of people get links wrong. What they do is they target publications with a heist, da, da is basically domain off for a Google. Well, it’s basically a Moz metric, which says this website has more authority than other websites with a high da. However, what we’ve done is for the last year we worked with misguided and we tracked every single link and publication that we got for the brand.

And we noticed that Tyler, for an example, Although it only has a da of 16 in cosmos has a higher day of 92. Tyler drives the most transactions, um, to misguide his websites, most sessions and social shares. So we knew actually the links we want to get. It’s not just on the high da sites, but it’s on the ones that our audience are reading.

We knew that our audience, it misguided is reading Tyler because that’s where they’re going from Tyler and coming to our website. That’s our audience. So we really use this to understand all of the links we’ve got in the last year. What size should we be tired at 10, wherever our audience reading. Um, and this is more important than ever because you know, Tyler think off the top of my head, drove around free K of revenue from one link and that’s insane.

So firstly, I’m going to hopefully try one through working out where’s my audience, what publications are they reading? And example of how I can do it. So game Christmas tonight, this was a really interesting story. Um, game came to us in 2013 with this campaign, right. And it was already existed. So Christmas tenor was run.

Um, For a creative agency, um, years and years ago, and it went viral across 18 countries, viral press, social media. I think it won awards. However, the campaign at zero search impact, every single gear people was talking about the Christmas dinner at Christmas time. And they was basically come game, came to us and said, we have this campaign.

It gets talked about every year. We have no links off the back of it. It doesn’t drive any search value or anything to our website and obviously game that’s where most of the revenue is right now is online. So how can you make this campaign from line, um, and how an SEO targets is by da? So a lot of people was thinking, you know, they want to get on tech crunch because tech crunch has a high da.

However, we realized that we actually need to focus on engagement, traffic, and brand awareness. So where. A game is consuming their news. Um, I asked a gaming journalist who worked for the guardian at the time. Um, Where’d you get your latest game updates and news. Like when PS five is coming out and all the gossip of new gaming, where did you get all your news?

Just PlayStation, send you a tip off like a press release. And he said, no, it’s actually Reddit and forums. They use Reddit and forums and Twitter and social media to get their news. So then they’re on the pulse of what’s going on in the gaming community. So then step two, where our games, audience, that’s what I needed to know.

Um, so using H refs and GA, I pulled a list of every link point into games website that has ever been built on which one drives the most traffic. So obviously they expected to see tech goods, but it’s not, it’s not Bible it’s business, insider it’s mirror. So these are the PE publications that gaming gamers was using and reading.

They weren’t reading tech crunch. There was unlocked Bible. So step three, where it got the most social engagement on the last campaign. So as I mentioned, it’s already been launched before, so I basically put every single URL into a tool and to pull Sumail and I found out which press coverage got the most social engagement before.

And it was the drum. And what I’ve realized at the time is have you ever noticed that take burger King when they do their moldy burgers? It’s marketers that really see that campaign and get it to spread. What they do is they target the marketing community first to get it go viral. And then everybody else sees it.

Your mom, your brother, your sister, whatever. So people outside of marketing don’t really see our campaigns unless you can get it trended in marketing. So then I learned a lesson. So first of all, I see did the campaign on gaming and Reddit forums. That’s where I knew gaming journalists got their gossip and their trends.

So I went on to, instead of normally what a PR does is sends a press release to the daily mail or, you know, big national publications. But the first thing I did is went on forums and make the campaigns. Right. The second thing, I didn’t even go to national press. I went to the drum. I got everybody in marketing.

Speaking about our campaign. The Christmas Tinder is back. That’s my angle. Um, it’s the biggest marketing campaign that game has ever done. And we basically brought it back by creating a vegan and vegetarian option. That’s what we did. How did we do that? Because vegan was trending. We jumped again on a trend that was already relevant and precedent.

Now everyone’s turning vegan and then we amplified it for national press. So we flipped the process. We understood firstly, where our audience is, how do we get trended in marketing? And then guess what? A hundred, 200 publications spoke about it globally. And this is what happened. Was everywhere. Radio TV.

It was, we had, um, I think good morning Britain asked for Christmas tenor to taste it and they did videos, et cetera. I was on love Bible. You name it. Um, multiple countries was talking about the Christmas tenor. It drove 85,000 people to their website just to buy it. Um, social media people went crazy. So influences with millions and millions of subscribers on YouTube.

They was talking about the Christmas dinner. We didn’t ask them to, they did it all for free because we got it trended in Reddit. And it got on TV. So, um, I don’t watch this, but apparently it’s massive the late show with Stephen Colbert and he talks about the CRISPR center and that’s insane and search impact.

That’s obviously what we do when you type in Christmas, 10 an hour game comes up. That didn’t happen originally. It’s the biggest London page that Crip game has behind the black Friday deals. Um, so it’s one of the most visited pages on their whole website and as a result of it, um, what they was initially trying to do is get.

Gaming chairs to rank on Google. And what happened was originally gaming chat is ranked for one keyword, which is not very good. I’m in the space of two weeks because of our press coverage. They ranked for over 400 keywords gaming chairs. If you don’t know, they’re expensive, some of them can cost like 15 grand.

So yeah, game, we made a lot of profit that year. Um, and yeah, 21,000 hits from organic brand was up. So, um, the only kind of comes in game had at the time was because the Christmas tender I’m not gonna lie was mingling. It tasted off the, we had a video of Mark Rose tasting his, and he said, it tasted like feet.

Um, and people said, Oh, you know, is it going to get negative press? Is that a bad thing? I was like, no, no presence. Um, yeah, what’s the saying negative. No bad press is good press or whatever the saying is. Um, and yeah, we basically tracked every, from positive to negative. And as you can see the positive outweighed the negative, um, viral campaign, but it just showed you how we flip the process, how we understood first, where our audiences, how to get it into a trending topic, how to get it trending within marketing.

Cause then that’s when everybody else sees it. Thank you.

Oh my God.

Yeah. Yeah. You do talk fast. Oh God. Someone’s told you that before, but Oh my God. Sometimes I have to go. I just get too excited. I love this stuff. This is my job. I love it. Well, I, um, if you, if you stop sharing your screen and you’ll be able to see, um, all the comments coming through from folks, cause like they are, um, I think there’s a simultaneous like astounding, but also the content like bloody hell.

I mean, like. I mean, it’s, it’s a very obvious thing to say, but you’re really, really good at what you do. Well, I, I didn’t learn it at uni or anything like that. I think I’ve just I’m. Do you know what my best skill is? I’m curious. I ask questions. I dig. I research. And one thing that I noticed about, um, I know Harry for marketing examples was on a couple of weeks.

If you notice about him, he’s curious, he digs it researches. And I think that is an amazing skill set to have. So I think if you can give yourself time or your staff time to be curious to do the research, it pays off massively. Be part of community is really get to know. Yeah, well actually, just to speak to that, If I’m really honest, I think around 50% of the time, I feel so busy that I end up half asking things.

Yeah. And that’s the, you’re actually speaking to the opposite. Here you go. A hundred percent in on something. Give it the time it deserves. And these are the results, um, which is amazing. Amazing, amazing. Yeah. There’s so many open questions. It’s already 45. I can’t believe how many people are on this. This is insane.

So good. But this is, this is most weeks. Um, but this was so good. The second, highest ever signups remark to me. So, uh, you know, clearly something incredible about list and the comments. So let me get into the questions rather than just throw compliments your way. Um, so the top one is from Jennifer and Jennifer asks, how would you approach this for B2B subject?

Stuff people go to the pub to escape from. Sure. I think you have to find a topic that consumers were talking about. Not just businesses, but consumers. You got to think B2B people often forget that the businesses you’re talking to. They’re people. So you’ve got to still create consumer facing content. And, um, do you know what someone gave an example of this?

I spoke a couple of years ago about this and someone put their hand up at the end of was like, yeah, well, it’s good for you. You, you work with big brands and I worked for a fraud detection company. How the hell do I get stuff like that? Um, I said you worked for four section clubs. She said, yeah. I said, do you want to date or around which sort of businesses do the most fraud?

Like, is it hairdressers? Is it, you know, corner shops or her, you know, I actually went, yeah, we have that day. And I said, what’d you do it? Of course your report. Is it like, yeah, it’s a worldwide thing. I’m like, that is pressing. Gold. I was like, daily mail will pop up, like pay you thousands for that data.

And the fact that you could give them it for free is going to make you go viral, but they didn’t realize what they have. And that’s the thing about PR you have to use what you’ve got and people sometimes just need a bit of a window opening and realizing, you know, um, how do I talk about. Campaigns or content that over people would really talk about outside of my sphere and, you know, talking about fraud or hairdressers or, you know, I know the other day where there was a tweet going out around shoes around and like, if she was only survived this, uh, they must be doing something dodgy.

Um, and it made me laugh. So it is a topic that people are talking about, you know, which companies can survive this, that they do in fraud. Um, so yeah, it’s, it’s making sure you can tie your content and stories in with something that’s consumer facing. Awesome. I love that. Um, okay. So the next one from Catherine, uh, how would you start to build up your press conference?

Uh, press contacts, press contacts and Twitter. So everybody, if you, if you talk to any traditional PR, they say, you know, you have to pick up the phone to them. You have to meet them for drinks and all that sort of stuff. It’s bullshit that listened to them. I’ve never met, I’ve met one in my life and it was not really worth it.

Um, so connect with me on Twitter, all of these. Journalists now are just young. They’re all 21, 25 year old people that use social media and they can’t be asked to beat your fridge ring. They want to connect with you on, on social media. Um, so give them some fun the other day, for an example, um, I was doing analysis for misguided and one of the top articles was, um, OK.

Magazine. They wrote about misguided and it was the top article that drove traffic to this guy’s website. So I basically DMD the editor at OK. Magazine said, by the way, is some inside gossip. You, your uncle is the top driver for misguided for them. They tweeted it. There was, Oh my God. Like my article was dah, dah, dah.

And then they followed me and then I said, Oh, if you have anything like that, sending me. So I just basically give them credit. I give them a story to give them data, to use social media, to give, give back. I think, I think we’re too much about, you know, given journalists and bombarding them or why don’t we give something back for once and actually kind of show them insight into their stories.

Yeah, I love that. And so how do you go about sort of finding those folks? I mean, is it just research over the course of time? Do you use any hashtags or anything like that? Yes. So I should have included that actually, because it’s a really interesting thing. So on Twitter, um, there’s a list of. Kind of function.

Most people know about it, but if you create a list of SEOs, Alyssa piles, whatever. Well, what you notice, if, if you, if you type in tech journalist to save techies, your thing, if you’re typing tech journalists, Twitter recommends all the tech gins to follow. So they already have a bank of thousands of journalists that write about tech.

So all of a sudden you’ve got a list of thousands. So that’s another kind of like quick. Tip, we use tools as well. So we use like go con or rocks Hill. They’re expensive, not going to lie, but they are basically media databases where every single journalist journalists date wrong. Um, but that’s, I guess our black box that’s really what we use, but I don’t use it to kind of.

I don’t use it as a Bible, a search. I use social media mostly. Um, so yeah, Twitter list is the most, the most easiest ways to find people and then just follow them, like their stuff. I even follow them on Instagram and I like in pictures of their dog, but they like that. You’ve got to build relationships nowadays, especially in a virtual world.

Well, they’re just people aren’t they people, that’s what people forget. They are just people. Yeah. I love it. So, uh, next one from Sean, I’m going to fire them at you, but you can just take it. So, uh, from Sean, uh, what tools do you guys use internally for monitoring battlings and coverage? Yeah. She also asks what metrics matter most.

Ooh, love that question. Um, off the top of my head, a hate traps is my absolute go-to. We love it. Um, both Subaru as well, pulls back links. So they basically, those two tools are my main ones. There is SEMrush and SIS drinks that also pulled out, but I think are the best, um, in terms of metrics, um, a lot of people get this wrong, so I don’t even track day.

That’s what I’ve proved that DA’s pointless. I track em, whether it’s follow on or fellow. So that’s important for some SEOs. I don’t care about that much. If I get a no followed link on the daily mail, then I’m still very happy. And I track traffic form links. I attract. Social shares. So there’s a tool called shared care.com and it’s free by the way.

So if you work in every single PR coverage that you get, it tells you how many social shares. So that’s important for some brands like PLT misguided. They have only two metrics. That’s what they want to know how much social shares. So it’s important to sometimes science. And what else do we track? And we track keyword movement.

So we, for an example, I’m, I’m trying to build a little thing to rank for laundry. Ray will directly track how much. More traffic. We drove into lingerie, but also their ranking. So are they position one position two? I’m kind of trying to think basically everything we, we track of things like sign ups to newsletters.

And so one of our travel clients has a newsletter and we did a campaign to direct the tribe drive basically conversions into that. And so we track everything from social media following as well. Awesome. I love it. Okay. Question from chess, uh, chess asks, uh, can you apply this to small B2B company whose goal is to get local slash regional press and impact instead of global?

And I guess I got into that, like, you know, is there a time when you seek regional and local coverage rather than go for the local, uh, for the global stuff? Yeah, 100%. I even do it for rice. So I even do it for rise at seven. So obviously I’m not someone that okay. Magazine would talk about. So I would obviously target my niche is, and when it comes to regional, like take part in resorts, they’re basically a UK holiday thing that I Haven, um, and they are trying to.

Boost their call more pages. So my, my mission is to get every call, more publication talking about part of Dean. Um, so yeah, um, a lot of ways to do that is using local Cornwell data. Um, we did something around, um, the best, uh, I think it was the best Cornish, pasty restaurants, and it, we just ranked them based on TripAdvisor data.

Um, we’ve done a lot from comments, you know, what are the best beaches to go to travel tips, et cetera. So if, especially on the B2B side, because I know you mentioned that, um, Using you. So whether that’s, um, the owner, the CEO to provide comments, to press about your topic is the best and easiest, fastest way to get media coverage, especially when it comes to B2B PR press now, because there’s a lot of fake news going on.

They need experts to put behind their stories. So they have to put a name to it. Say this expert also comment, or they’re saying this, even if it’s unexpected, you can’t pretend to be. And that’s the whole thing about PR you fake it til you make it, basically you, you’re putting a comment together to position you as the authority and leader, and everybody is an authority and leader.

What do, so Joe, you’re an authority in marketing and I’m an author vintage digital PR. And these are the things that we have actually got some good to say about, use it, send it to press, um, and it’ll work. I love it. And, uh, folks that there’s lots of people asking about, uh, whether the recordings available afterwards, then yes, it is, is both on the YouTube page, our blog and the Marcus Miller podcast as well.

So, uh, these sessions always go up, uh, every time. Uh, so actually on that, you mentioned very quickly there that you use some of these tactics for rice and, um, I’m interested like. What of this? Do you take all of this and just apply it to how you’ve grown your agency? Or what are the sorts of snippets where you’ve been like, that’s been the most effective thing to grow my agency over the course of time.

Yeah, sure. Snippets of it, for sure. And the first of a thing that I did is I ran my own PR campaign. And, but this was to PR. So basically I had misguided, um, as a pitch and I had no fashion pieces. I had nothing to say and I’ll shoot myself. I like, I really want to win misguided, but I have nothing to say in fashion.

So I thought right. All I have to do is prove that I can do it. So I ran a campaign for rise at seven and, uh, Brandon, that was just two months old to prove that I could do it for anyone. So, you know, a brand that’s no, no one’s even heard of. So I ran a campaign around violins and influences and I landed on, I was on BBC world TV.

I was on sky news, you know, like on the screen, like, hi, I just wanted to prove that I could create content that. You know, misguidance audience was interested in Lavalin and influences and that I could do it for any brand. And I did. And that’s how I won. So there’s that sort of angle, but the biggest success for rise seven is 100% personal brand.

And that’s mine, that’s camera and my co-founder and that’s our staff. We big, we share our work, we share our stuffs, you know, skills at what they’re up to. We go for a real transparent approach. And I think the brands that take a transparent approach with our people is the brands that win. I honestly think in the future, we’ll see live vlogs and Dave logs from Tesco.

I honestly do think, I think people will really show you behind the doors of brands and the CEO is having a voice like Elon Musk. Um, so yeah. Um, I think if you can really be transparent and share what you’ve got to say, build your personal brand and your status, no brand. Um, it it’s honestly the most successful thing we’ve done at Raza seven.

I love it. And you know, I think there’s also, there’s the transparency behind the people, but I think something you’re demonstrating today is, is transparency behind the process around and you’ve, uh, you know, you’ve come, you shared your process and stuff like that, but you also know that you can do it really, really well.

So someone said, someone said that to me, there was on LinkedIn. There’s like, you’re not afraid that you’re giving away all your tips and advice. People will just get one copier. And I am, as I, eh, and then I went now, they haven’t got me. Yeah, no one can copy me. You. I am. So, yeah, that’s, that’s what makes you special?

That that’s what makes every business on brand special issue. So you’ve got to use it. Bloody hell I love you. I absolutely

love it. Absolutely love it. I’ve already had one text while you’ve been speaking from someone saying, when can I work with, I absolutely love that. So, um, that’s something that’s shared by so many people. Uh, so we’ve got a question here from Catherine. Uh, she says, what would you give to get your press releases noticed this.

Yeah, sure. Um, a lot of people get, Oh God, I wish I included this as well. Honestly, I’ve got so much to say on PR. I’d love to maybe I’ll share some of my links to some of presentations on Twitter or something, so you can all see them. But, um, Using emojis and headlines and your, you know, your subject line on email, um, you wouldn’t believe it.

So, um, I had, I was speaking to someone at the times and they basically screenshotted that inbox and you won’t believe the shit that they get and I think, Oh, how the hell do I stand out in that? You know, They get 200 emails from piles a day. And imagine that we get so much clapping in a sentence. So I’m using emojis to standout using the words revealed and capitals and making sure you’re mentioning, um, like I dunno.

So we did a study and it was all around. Um, like Netflix, it went by Netflix. It was by a small brand that no one’s ever heard of, but we went mentioned the key word, Netflix and I had line and straight away. We got the press coverage and people are hooked because it’s, you know, everyone’s talking about Netflix.

Um, so yeah, I think really focus on creating your story as one subject line and just think of how did DML do it? How does the sun do it? If you know, on the sun, they always use two words. So it’ll be like, Botched boobs, or I don’t know, do Emoni or something like that. They always have like two words that they basically send out.

So whenever I email the sum for an example, I just used two words, botch, boobs, and then I’ll put, you know, I don’t know, Blackpool is the botched boob couple that I’ve just made off of the top of my head Blackwell. You’re not botched boobs. Um, but yeah, um, it just shows you like how to really see what, how the press arrived in, how do they, what headlines do they use and then adapt your outreach emails to, to fit that.

I’d love that. Absolutely love it. And it just goes back to one of the basic marketing principles of knowing your audience, right? Yeah. Literally, sometimes I think about it, so intriguingly detailed, but I don’t really take a step back and realize that that’s what it is. It’s just knowing your audience.

Yeah. That’s the only place I left. So let’s go. So, uh, question from Sean, uh, they ask, are there any free Reese resources to build, press release, journos list five, the sector. So I think we’ve already sort of covered. That would be with the Twitter. Oh God. I don’t know if it’s called email haunt or something like that.

I’ll have to find out when I’ll tweet it on Twitter. And I’m sure it’s called an email hone or something like that. And that’s a free user free tool that people use. And it basically just finds out what the email address is of the sauna data. Mel is Hunter. Someone’s put their hunted. I, I, Oh, that’s the one I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Yeah. Have a look into that one. Great, uh, question Tabby. Uh, how do you tackle working with clients who can’t move fast enough to react to breaking news slash of the minute updates, uh, companies with so many less stakeholders sign off. I take six months to get them from idea to sign off, to live content on site as an example.

Yeah, I have that too. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows here. There’s a lot of that too. Um, Beam proactives are planning well ahead. And I guess with that one, you have to know what’s going on in the last six months. So for an example, we all know in the last six months, the biggest thing right now is Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not just come around in the last week. It’s been around for a while. So really you can find that out through, you know, Google trends. And so knowing what’s going on in the last six months and planning ahead. So every single year, like in November, people talk about burglaries, that’s something, you know, security companies could talk about burglaries.

We know every single year press talk about burglaries or car, car accidents in December. Cause there’s more than, or, you know, Valentine’s day. There’s a lot of things that happen. Then recurrently every year and just knowing what they are boosting has go to for that as well. So it shows you on my timeline, um, what the most big topics that happen every single year.

So you can plan ahead. So what, what percentage of stuff, if you add up since Jonah is like reactive in the moment versus like, you know, sort of more planned out activity that yeah. You know what, that’s an interesting question because when I used to do this, it used to be, I would say off the top of my head around 70% planned and then 30% reactive.

But I would say now, 50% plan but I think, do you know what changed that is? COVID I think we have to be on the ball. We had to change the way that we worked because every single day summit is happening. Whether it’s locked down, not locked down or travels, you know, summit changes and you have to be well on the ball.

And what I have seen though, is brands being a lot more brave right now? I thought it would go the opposite. I thought brands would be a lot more like strict and kind of not saying things off, but they’re being a lot more brave to be reactive because if not, they fail, they fuck up. They struggle. Um, so yeah.

I love it. Okay. Uh, next question from the mysterious anonymous, uh, how would you approach, uh, conservative. Conservative sectors where national trends are not necessarily applicable applicable. I don’t know what’s happening to my tongue today, but, uh, how would you approach a conservative sectors where that’s been trends?

Not applicable? Sure. Um, food, that one? Um, it’s not my expertise. It’s not to be honest. Um, and. We have a couple of kinds in the financial space, for example, who are not going to jump on Netflix, they’re not going to jump on, you know, those sorts of topics. Um, what we do with them is a lot of financial news jacking.

So when it sounds really negative, actually, but whenever something happened in press, um, such as at an objective jet two was grounded for like two months. Like they couldn’t fly because of the whole thing or, um, Deb Adams going into administration. Right. We basically pushed out what that means to the economy.

So we have a lot of like experts that we use for comments, um, who know their stuff and they push out, we push out comments to position our brands as experts. Um, so that’s something that we do to make sure that, um, they are adding value to what’s going on in the industry, but also something that is, um, I guess not.

The trending topics, but I guess it’s still relevant to economy, but that’s the only real thing that I guess is more conservative than I guess, dog dumpers or sex toy, Easter eggs or something like that. Um, that’s cool. Um, and it’s interesting cause you referenced like a pool of people that you go out to experts and stuff like that.

And then also with the example of the car manufacturers and the money, uh, example was clearly some deaf time involved in that as well. You know, so yeah. Like what pools of resources are you pulling on? Uh, sort of every day from, you know, sort of experts and devs. I mean, what, what does your sort of makeup of the team look like?

And, yeah, sure. So we use design mostly. So we have to visualize a lot of our stories. Um, if you can’t see it in a picture, I don’t think you should say also we visualize a lot of our content or products or day or et cetera. So, um, design is a big part. We have. I think designers and our team right now, we used to outsource them.

But when you realize we’re spending too much money on them, so we just hired and we have a dev internally as well. Um, however, the, the biggest thing that I guess we use externally is people who can. Ghost ride, ghost comment, et cetera, people that can give you something. They don’t want to be impressed in terms of their name, but they have the expertise and data behind it.

We have a pool of around 10 people that give us that sort of stuff from everything in motoring, from finance to even travel. These are people that can give us something and not put their name to it. They want to put someone else’s too, um, finding those people is really interested in, um, I’m really good.

We use that quite a lot for a lot of reactive stuff. Awesome. I love this question. So, um, the moment that you mentioned the Bernie, the Bernie example, like the chat exploded, um, and people are like, Oh no, it’s you. And like, everyone’s so like, I mean, Actually, you know, first of all, how does that feel? Like from your perspective, I’m just, I’m just curious.

How does that feel to sort of see that throughout the web for you? I mean, is it a really weird experience? Do you feel like you need the credit? I mean, how not the credit? Well, I don’t know why, I don’t know why I’m saying this, Joe, but I always feel like I’m having to prove myself. And I don’t know why, because I guess over the years, and in my previous roles, I got pushed down a lot.

It didn’t really, you know, you know what I like you can tell from this. From this podcast, I’m very expressive. There’s a lot of things I want to learn. I want to go to et cetera. And I always, I got told no a lot. Um, and I think for me, when somebody can’t tell me now I 5:00 AM. So for seeing that go everywhere weren’t credit, it was just more just.

I dunno, I, I proved myself, right? So obviously I’m trying to teach everybody on this, on this podcast that, you know, if you jump on a relevant topic, that’s how you go viral. And that’s all I had to do. I had to just prove it. And I did. I’ve done it before where I did. Um, you know, when I was working my lab Brooks, this is interesting story about four years ago, and I did a campaign idea for them.

It was reactive. Basically what happened was if everyone saw the billables around them, I think it was. Oh, you beach, body ready. And it was basically this beautiful woman, real slim. And it’s like, Oh, so you have to look like her to be beach, body ready. Um, so the press was going mad about it. Everyone was kicking off lab Brooks at the time, um, was doing odds on the general election.

So there’s two things that was happening in the press. They are your beach, body ready out. And the general election. So, what I did is I put those two topics together, again, reacting to the relevancy of what’s going on. And I created this, um, kind of billboard ads. And it was, um, are you, Jen, are you lecture money?

That was like, Oh, you electric my day. And what it was is David Cameron and ed Miliband basically naked on the bill, but there was, I actually had some. Like swim trunk farm. Um, but it was like, Oh, you election midday. And it went viral, but what happened was, this was for Ladbrokes. And I said to Ladbrokes I really want to do this.

And they said, no, like I got told no, a lot more. My manager said that, like, you can’t do it. It’s too, too out there basically. So what I did is some it really bad. I got balled for this, but I tell the story a lot. I took lab books, logo off it, and I put mine on. I put Carrie Rose on little stamp at the bottom, and I tweeted it when everywhere, just to prove a point.

And, um, I am rebellious, but I think, um, that’s a good thing. It’s a good trait to have. Obviously I know when, when not to do something I’m very aware of when not to do stuff as well. Um, but yeah, I think you have to be brave. You have to be bold sometimes. And I think over my career, I’ve really kind of pushed those boundaries to prove myself and it’s working.

I love that then, you know, I think you’ve got an awful lot of validation in the, in the chat coming through from folks working with a lot of admiration. So, you know, good on you. You know what I mean? You don’t need my validation at all, but you know, that’s, that’s, that’s really quite something. So, you know, uh, community here everyone’s really supportive and it’s nice.

I think on Twitter, I’ve got quite a lot of shit not going to lie, but I think it’s because I’m a girl in SEL. People have not liked somebody coming in and changing things up and, but you’ve got a good community edge. It it’s nice to see. That you know, truly amazing. And you know, I’m sorry that that happens.

Cause it’s, it’s not, it’s not fair that like you’ve got models like you that are doing something special in the industry with people that even we, we can’t help, but sort of make changes. Cause like, if you’re at the forefront, then you know, that’s really quite something amazing. So, you know, we’ve got your back.

I think that’s nice. So, um, The reason why I asked about how it feels is because there was a question here from anonymous who asked the difference between a PR campaign and things like the Bernie chair, which is in the, in the moment. So like piece, but it didn’t necessarily have like a, a direction to it necessarily.

Yeah. It was just something that you did in moment. So do you think about these things in a different way? Do you just have an idea and you’re like, I want to do it, so I’m going to do it. Yeah. It’s I would call it random acts of creativity. I will. That’s what I like to call it. I think some people plan too much.

They think about process too much, too much data behind it. And sometimes all you need is just random acts of creativity and just go with it. Um, so yeah, with that one, it just came to my head and I said, I want to prove that all you need to do is be reactive. Um, so I knew what was going on. Bernie was myself.

I knew I would probably pick something up and I looked into it and they hadn’t. And you know what, the interesting thing is I care and it was Ikea Greece. They actually ended up doing something on it afterwards, but just prove that I was perfect to their brand. And I knew that they would, but they hadn’t at the time, so I quickly jumped on it and, but yeah, it proved I was on the right Mark, basically.

That’s awesome. And did anyone from Ikea get in touch afterwards? I mean like did they say no, but I, if the one to why that’s the sort of thing I can do, that’s what we’re out to do. Right. We call it pause. I was in front of Brian’s in them. That’s my dream. So, yeah. And I’d love to where if I care, they’re actually on my dream list of that’s really, really cool.

Yeah. Okay, next question, Jenny, uh, asks, who made the sex toy ag and how do you convince the clients actually make a new product? Cause like there’s a lot of investments, both in that sort of thing. So, you know, product development, ideas and stuff like that. It’s really interesting to who made it and like how do you convince the clients making the product?

Sure. So on the sex toy, Easter egg, it was basically their sex toys. So Rick, you already owned the sex toys and they use a local, or do you call them like a chocolate tier. That’s what we’ll call it. And so he’s like a local chocolate and all they did is create the act. It wasn’t even expensive. Um, so, um, I think it was a couple of quid, like prereq.

Like it’s not even expensive to, to wrap it, even in chocolate, you could wrap it on your furniture if you want it to imagine that. And so, yeah, it’s not expensive today. I will say that’s all we did. And in terms of persuading clients to do it, I think the best advice is just do it for someone and. Use it as a case study.

So, um, for an example, we worked with PLT now, and last week we tried to do the same with them there. They was like, Oh, like you create these products. Like, how the hell do you do that? And I basically said, right, let me have a look on your website. So I had to look on my website of what products already existed and how the hell like a PRA.

So PLT, they sell a lot of now, which is a bit mad. They sell em. Hoodies and dresses with face masks kind of sodium. So that’s just so nimble. They’re built into the outfit. And I said, Oh, or UPR in them. Those are no, but they’re selling out like they’re doing well in terms of sales. So I could pay all that.

So I basically created this headline, create the story around PLT, selling like belly because obviously everyone goes to K-12 don’t they? And they forget them at face masks. It happens all the time. So now you’ve got it. So dingy hoodie, so you don’t need to, um, so yeah, we pushed out to press, it’s gone everywhere.

It’s drove like. 3000 people to the website and it just proves it. And now they’re like, how, how could we do more of that? So now I’m like, right, let’s make some products. That’s actually create something that doesn’t exist on PLT site, but we could create something. So I’m actually, I pitched them fan a couple of things on Friday and they’re doing it, which I’m excited about.

Um, but yeah, I think you’ve just got to have a good case study to prove, and you might go, Oh yeah, well, you know, how do I get that case today? Honestly, I just did a campaign for myself. That’s what I did with misconduct. I just did, I didn’t advocate today. So I made one, I made one for rise at seven, and I proved that I could do it for any brand.

And so if that helps, um, yeah, be inspired by just, I don’t know, even go into your local cafe or not cafe is closed right now, but somebody, a hairdresser and just create some room for them. Get some press and then you’ll learn. You learn the process. I love it. I just absolutely love it. And I’m sitting there and, yeah.

Um, so we’ve got two minutes left. I want to ask one more question and then, uh, I want to give everyone time to sort of digest the comments and see what an amazing session this has been. Uh, so the last question comes from, uh, NEMA, who asks, how do you go about seeding on forums? It’s always hard to jump in with your angle without keeping.

People don’t like hating on your marketing crap. So stick that on Reddit. That’s like, that’s like a, yeah. Can be hostile. So hire people dedicated to niches. So for an example, we have a girl that has worked in travel all of her life, and she does our travel PR. We have a guy that works in gay men. Well, he was the gaming journalist that I mentioned.

We hired him in the end from the guardian. He said, come work for us. We need, we need a gamer. And they are all active in their communities. And we use them to see content. So Matt, who is a gaming journalist is on Reddit himself. He’s on, you know, all of these forums and what they do is they talk about gaming all day.

So when they slip in one of our campaigns, it looks natural and they’ll go well, by the way, seeing this. They don’t promote it. They don’t say, you know, big kind of press release. And for that, they just say, by the way, has everyone seen this? This looks cool kind of thing. That’s all it takes on Reddit sometimes.

And so basically being yourself is exactly what we do. We hire people relevant to every niche and we use them for, for seeding content, basically, Carrie. You’re amazing. You’re amazing in so many ways, like the knowledge, I feel amazing now because he gave me I can do anything. If you didn’t feel amazing before then the world better watch out.

Cause like that’s, uh, that’s quite something. There’s a couple of questions coming in very quickly as a Slack channel for the marketing meetup there isn’t, there’s a Facebook group. So you’d need to find that on Facebook. And, uh, it’s to call the marketing, meet up. You can continue the conversation on that.

Uh, so, uh, yeah, find our Facebook group there. Uh, Carrie we’ve run out of time. So I just thank you very much for the amazing session. The chat is unreal. Uh, folks, if you have enjoyed today’s session, which of course you have, uh, because like blow me. How come you’re not, uh, then please do take the time to thank the sponsors is the biggest thing you can do for the market to meet up.

Um, just to enable us to continue doing this sort of stuff. Uh, these comments are absolutely ridiculous. I hope you enjoy it. I’m going to send you the chapter. Yeah, that’s amazing. If so, because I’m reading it now and I’m like, Whoa, amazing. Thank you all so, so much for being here today. Thank you for your amazing questions.

Thank you for the amazing chat. Thank you for being so supportive. What an absolute joy it is to be able to do this sort of stuff. Um, I hope you will have a lovely, lovely day take care of yourself. We’re back next Tuesday with another webinar and, uh, yeah, have a good one. Take care, everyone. Thanks. Thanks again, Carrie.

Thank you.