Marketing and PR Strategy with Esther Kiss

A large part of digital and online marketing is having the right team to help you get your name out there. Building a powerful public relations strategy is imperative when you’re a small business and making sure that you stand out among the rest when attempting to start and ring in quality leads and traffic can be hard if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing. Working in the world of PR can be tricky, and knowing who to trust to help you rise to the top of the list can be hard with credibility being a little scattered. How do we ensure that we’ve got the best PR strategy, and how do we rightfully implement it?

That’s where Esther Kiss comes in. The founder of Born To Influence—a PR marketing company that specializes in working with experts and people who are building a personal brand (marketers, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers)—Esther gives us all of the best tips and tricks she’s learned over the years about perfecting your marketing strategy, and what makes the best PR marketing strategy work so well. Let’s get started!

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

All about what Esther does with her company. By working closely with entrepreneurs, speakers, authors, consultants, marketers, and so much more, Esther helps them get more traffic and leads through publicity. With her connections, she gets them in with the media (blogs, television, podcasts, radio, newspaper, magazines, etc.), and leads them towards whatever makes sense for their business to build credibility and to build leads and sales.
Esther explains why having a good PR strategy is important for more traffic and leads. Depending on where you’re at in your business, you might have different goals for your publicity campaign, and Esther gives us an amazing example of a client she worked with that booked 80 shows over the span of 11 months to promote his book! For every podcast interview he completed, he’d offer a free 50 book give away to audience listeners. Then, when people read the book, they wanted help with the implementation of the method, so they’d sign up for his paid membership! That’s where the revenue comes from.
Esther also explains that PR is important to carry on through months, and not just a one-time thing. If you’re planning a slew of interviews, much like the previously mentioned the client, you want to make sure that you have 3 – 4 months to let leads come in successfully, especially with bigger shows. You need to make sure that you leave enough time for the marketing to start gathering those pre-orders and interactions before the service is available, and the same can be said for a product launch or a live event with a deadline. You need to be building momentum continually.
Esther then explains what to do if you’re a small business owner that can’t afford a publicist. Can you do your own PR strategy? Yes, of course, you can! You can always benefit from publicity no matter where you are, even if you’re just getting started and you don’t have any clients yet. How are you going to get clients if you don’t have traction is the real question, and Esther encourages people to reach out—learn how to pitch, how to develop relationships with members of the media. Once you know these things, and once you feel like you have a story that would contribute to that audience, pitch yourself and recommend that you do an interview!
Esther tells us what to do when people doubt the usefulness of media logos on your website, claiming it’s just for vanity. She gives us an example of a client who had media logos on their website, and because of them, they gained a client. It psychologically works on people even if you don’t realize it.
Esther also explains that a lot of times, people tend to release a paid press release when they want a quick win and aren’t willing to put in the energy and effort required to get real results. These releases end up getting picked up on the back end of websites that are associated with big media outlets, and while people try to connect that to a real connection and employment with the media, it’s not! Most of the time, it’s not even something you can find on Google.
Overall, you want to make sure that your credibility is intact, and that what you’re doing is because you want to share your message in a bigger way. Additionally, you want to prove yourself to people who might be skeptical upon visiting your website for the first time, and if someone sees the logos on your website but cannot find any real connection, it backfires quickly. Make sure your sources are legitimate!
Esther explains what to do if your client wants to get on television, starting with the fact that every interview for every affiliate is legitimate. Take a look at your existing sales and marketing funnels, and once your interviews start getting published, take a look at your best ones and think about how you can integrate them into your existing marketing strategy to get better results!
Esther talks about common misconceptions when it comes to PR strategies! For speakers, you have to be wary of the format you’re using for your content when you’re doing interviews. It doesn’t always translate well into an interview format, and you want to make sure that you’re conversational, and that you’re in control of what will be the specific talking point that you’ll hit so people want to check you out, and take the next step with your business. It’s not an accidental process, she says, stating that it comes from reverse engineering the content and giving it some thought as to what you can share that will be effective, and that also fits the media format you’re going after.
Lastly, Esther gives us some of her best PR hacks—1) build your relationships before you need them, connect with people online or get introductions, 2) position yourself in a way that members of the media actually want to interview you (this includes having a compelling media bio, a professional headshot, and what kind of freebie you can offer so people want to join you), 3) create a media page on your website once your interviews start getting published so you can host them all in the same place, as that helps with getting more opportunities with the mainstream media.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Did Esther not get a chance to answer a burning question on your mind? No problem! You can shoot her an email, or at any of the social media listed above. Esther is definitely an expert in her field, and it’s easy to tell that she knows exactly what she’s doing, and what she’s talking about, with all the amazing information she’s giving away! Make sure you check her out for even more amazing stuff!