#19: Public Relations

with Michelle Harris

About This Episode

Everyone should be aware of their business’ and brand’s image with the public, whether you are an Amazon and E-Commerce seller or a small business owner! In this episode we discuss how word can spread quickly in today’s era of social media and how you should plan ahead for any future public relations crises.

About The Guest

A talented and dedicated public relations professional, Michelle Harris APR, has more than 20 years of marketing, public relations, crisis communications and corporate consulting experience creating and implementing award-winning programs that have consistently met and surpassed client objectives. She is nationally recognized for building innovative and strategic campaigns while collaborating with clients to define requirements and allocate resources that build brand solutions for maximum impact.

During her career, she has been responsible for developing and overseeing the strategic direction and tactical execution for a variety of companies and business units at various stages of growth including Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, Exactus Inc., GetzWell Pediatrics, Medieval Times Dinner Show, The Travel Corporation, JLL Investment Management Company, The Wing House, ECD Automotive Design, Citrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau, St. Augustine Convention & Visitors Bureau, Travelhost Magazine Orlando and numerous others.

Believing that profitability requires strong revenue generation and cost controls, Michelle developed an innovative approach to creating out-of-the-box marketing & communications plans that focus on balancing cost vs. return while garnering extensive media coverage, organic site traffic, awareness and customer loyalty that helped to exceed sales targets by an average of 17%.

Michelle holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

She is the recipient of the Up and Comers award by the Orlando Business Journal in 2000, was listed as the Best PR Person with an Agency by the Orlando Business Journal in 2010, an Adrian Award from HSMAI for excellence in travel marketing, as well as numerous PRSA Prism Awards.

Date: August 3, 2020

Episode: 19

Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Michelle Harris, Freelance Copywriter, Public Relations and Branding Expert who has More than 20 Years of Marketing, Public Relations, Crisis Communications and Corporate Consulting Experience.

Subtitle: Planning ahead for any future public relations crises

Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-19-public-relations-michelle-harris/

In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Michelle Harris, freelance copywriter, public relations and branding expert who has more than 20 years of marketing, public relations, crisis communications and corporate consulting experience.

Michelle Harris has been responsible for developing and overseeing the strategic direction and tactical execution for a variety of companies and business units at various stages of growth. She discussed business’ and brand’s image with the public.

If you are a new listener to Lunch With Norm… we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Facebook Page and join in on episode discussion or simply let us know what you think of the episode!

In this episode, we discuss:

    • 4:08 : Michelle’s background
    • 4:45 : Difference between public relations and press releases
    • 7:18 : ROI of good public relations
    • 9:13 : Finding a good public relations person
    • 16:01 : Mistake that companies make when doing public relations
    • 18:40 : Gift guides
    • 21:15 : MicroBrands
    • 26:46 : Budget for campaigns
    • 29:04 : Demand for public relations
    • 36:00 : How public relations help with company crisis
    • 37:02 : Michelle’s tips for people looking to work with a PR agency

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Explore these Resources

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

  • m@prreach.com
  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/mharris332/
  • http://floridacopywriters.com/
  • michelle@michelleharrisonline.com
  • https://twitter.com/mharris332

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Need a Presenter?

Norman 0:03 

Hey everyone, I’m Norman Farrar, aka The Beard Guy and welcome to another Lunch With Norm.

 

Norman  0:20 

Hey, just wanted to remind everybody that we’re broadcasting on Facebook live today as well as YouTube. Kelsey, are you there?

 

Kelsey

I am

 

Norman

What are we supposed to do?

 

Kelsey

We are supposed to, follow us on social media if you are enjoying the show. So if you’re enjoying it, please like and share this. We need as many eyes as possible. Get the word out. And yeah, so we’re on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok. Yeah, so it goes.

 

Norman

We got it covered.

 

Kelsey

Yeah, everything covered. Pretty good.

 

Norman 0:56 

So stay on for a second because we have a big announcement.

 

Kelsey  0:59 

Don’t sneak away, yet.

 

Norman 1:01 

He doesn’t even know what the announcement is. But anyways, look, we’ve had some really great positive comments coming back over the last few weeks since we’ve been doing this. Talk to a few people and we’ve decided to make a big decision here. And that is, we’re going to make this an official podcast, and we’re changing the dates around. Yep, and we’re calling it Lunch With Norm, The Rise of the Micro Brands. Kind of sounds a little science fictiony. But anyway, we came up with that because we just didn’t want it to be all Amazon. We wanted to bring on current Amazon experts, ecommerce experts, digital media, social media, business people, brand owners, but a bit of everything to help build your Amazon business or your online business and make it a bigger success. So the other part of this is we’re making this Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays starting August the 10th. So, big news you heard today.

 

Kelsey 2:09 

So that’s next weekend or next week. It’s starting Monday, Wednesday, Friday, so we apologize for shifting the dates. We have some scheduling that we have to play around with. But yeah, starting next week, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, there might be the occasional Thursday that will pop in. But the majority of the time, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, we’ll try not to change the dates.

 

Norman  2:38 

And so, Kels, all I have to say is, yeah, get that out on social media.

 

Kelsey

Well, of course.

 

Kelsey  2:43  

Yeah, it’s up today actually.

 

Norman

Oh, very good. You’re efficient.

 

Kelsey

Yeah. Then we have Alan saying Hi.

 

Norman 2:50 

Oh, yeah. Hey, Alan, how are you? Okay, so, got a very special guest on this Monday and this is actually someone from our own back door or our own backyard. She works with us over at prREACH and she’s our social or public relations manager. So anyways, her name is Michelle Harris and we’ll be discussing all about the importance of maintaining a public image with your business and brands. So this is really important, especially for Amazon sellers, because Amazon sellers usually get this mixed up with press releases and Michelle is going to explain the difference to you today. So as always, if you have any questions or comments, please put it in the comment box and we will make sure we get back to you. So sit back, relax, enjoy that cup of coffee and enjoy the show.

 

Kelsey 3:46 

All right, thank you everyone. I’ll be off now.

 

Norman 3:50 

So Michelle, haven’t talked to you in a little while.

 

Michelle  3:55 

It has been a little while Norm. Thanks for having me.

 

 

Norman

It’s got to be at least a half hour.

 

Norman 4:02 

So, Michelle, I know your background, but why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about you.

 

Michelle 4:08 

Well, I have spent 20 plus years in the marketing and public relations industry. At one time, I owned a pretty successful agency in Central Florida for over 18 years and we handled the social media campaigns, the public relations campaigns and a lot of marketing for large brands specializing in the hospitality industry as well as professional services. And with that, it gave me the opportunity to really grow a great network of media outlets and contacts that I now put to use for smaller brands.

 

Norman  4:45 

So this is a great starting point. What is public relations? Like how is that different from a press release?

 

Michelle  4:56 

Well, press release is a tool that Public Relations professionals uses to communicate your message. And so with public relations, it’s basically your outreach to communicate with the public, to share your values and your views, as well as to tell them about the many products that you produce. And for each of those different categories, we produce a different variation of a press release that then gets sent to very specific and targeted media outlets geared that are interested or geared towards exactly the industry segment that your product is can be found in.

 

Norman 5:46 

So just to give people an example of what we’re talking about, Michelle in the morning, she’ll say, hey, do you have somebody that wants to get on USA, literally, this happened just last week I think. It was, Oh, do you have anybody who wants to be on the Today Show? Oh, I’ve got two spots here for USA Today that I think could be filled. Oh, here’s 11 different other things. Oh, do you want to be on? What was it? Entrepreneur or authority.com? Oh, here’s another one. Do you want to be an ink magazine? And we’re sitting there going, Wow. This is the difference between sending out like a press release, and actually going on and getting into placement or getting placement or getting earned media. And it is as powerful or more powerful than press releases. You need the press release to distribute it through the network to announce it, but to be able to have your brand on Good Morning America and what do you think that would do for it? And we were talking, Michelle, I said, I’ve got a new client that’s coming on board for public relations. What is the ROI and you absolutely shocked me when you came back with we can say this. What was that?

 

Michelle 7:06 

Well, we always push for a 10 to 1 return. I believe that’s what I said to Norm, correct, right?

 

Norman 7:12 

That’s exactly, 10 to 1, which is not too bad.

 

Michelle 7:18 

And really, it’s  not necessarily the component of your advertising campaign that  has to dominate. You want your marketing campaign for any product you sell, to have a really solid 360 degree distribution schedule. So you have paid ads and you have the press release that goes out to media contacts  through the PR distribution services. But you also need to build those relationships so other people are talking about how wonderful your product is. In the advertising world, they say it takes 10 to 12 impressions in order to make an individual take the first step in the purchasing process. In order to do that, that’s either a very large budget on your Google ad spend, or it’s a budget that helps you to build impressions and placements to the markets that you may not necessarily have the biggest reach in. And with PR, what we’re doing is saying, say like to  shave magazine, we have a product that is perfect for women under the age of 55. This is what the benefits of that product are. Let me send you one so you can test it and then you tell us what you think. And oh, by the way, we would love for you to share what you find with your fans. And so they have what they have a couple million fans. Did you have the budget to reach those individual people through Google ads? No, maybe not. But with PR you work.

 

Norman 9:01 

So I’m interested in getting a public relations person, how do I go out and find a good one? Or how do I know the person’s any good?

 

Michelle 9:13 

Well, you just ask you, Norm, you know me and that’s how we do this, right? No, so for PR, you really want to have an individual that one can write a compelling story for you. That  also has great context. You don’t want an individual that’s just going out on the internet and searching around until they find the right media contact. Because once they find that contact, then they have to do the research to find out if your product matches something they’ve written about before. So you want an individual that one has great media contacts, and who can actually pick up the phone and call the Today Show. Myself, I’ve had multiple clients on the Today Show and I have the pictures to prove it of us there with all of the staff. But it took a long time to get to that point. And yes, it’s a little bit more expensive to work with me than it is. Say an individual that’s just starting in the industry, but it depends on where you are in your buying and selling cycle you want what is going to work for you the quickest. If you’re hiring somebody that is just starting in the PR industry expect it’s going to take twice as long as it would take a person like me who actually has those contacts to reach out with.

 

Norman  10:39 

So your contacts, it’s just not in the media side of things. So I know I’ve asked you this before, but then you’ve come back and you said oh, you know something in Forbes. Oh, something in Fast Company. Like we’re just working on something with Fast Company and Inc, I mean, and that’s just for the company, our brand. But for each e-Commerce seller,  public relations is not just about the contacts in Forbes. It’s also about influencers. It’s also about bloggers and that type of network as well, correct?

 

Michelle  11:15 

It is. But for a lot of agencies, that is a separate subcategory of public relations. Being that I’ve spent a few years doing this. On my contact basis, it crosses different lines in different industry segments. So in any given day for any client, I may be working on an influencer campaign with micro influencers, huge influencers with over 5 million followers, it depends on their category. In addition to that, though, we’ll be working to place them on blogs that are specific to that segment of the industry, as well as the product type, and then we’re going after the large format broadcast media, internet outlets. Even print media, really, it is nice to be able to have spent a few years learning who does what and how they do what so that I can actually find the best ways and avenues to promote your product. I will say though, again, most importantly for PR, it does not happen overnight, you have to have a good story. You can’t just say, Michelle, I have this. I have this book and I want you to get me in Forbes magazine. I’m going to ask you, why does Forbes want to include you in their publication? What is in it for them? And you need to be able to help the PR person define that story and make it relevant to what’s going on in the world today. And if there is a solid story to pitch, I promise you I’m the one that’s going to carry that flag the farthest for you. I love to be able to tell a good story. I don’t like it if I have to create a story, it’s harder that way. I love truth and advertising and I think it has to be the basis of where we start with each product that we promote.

 

Norman 13:13 

And that’s what I like just even as a personal brand. So I’ve been trying to brand myself out there. And you know, when we started talking about this, you just looked at my bio and said, this is horrible. We got to rewrite this. And so we have, but yeah,

 

Michelle

Sorry

 

Norman 13:33 

Secret’s out. But anyways, everything that we’ve been doing, like on my personal side, you can do for a brand and just the little subtleties that you’ve been able to bring to the table have made huge changes in the way I think the perception can be made. Just on my brand if you go to Norman Farrar.com, see the colors and see I mean, everything is consistent. And then when we pitch so that was that and that’s how this question or this comment started. We were pitching different magazines and you’re going, you’ve got to come up with a better bio or a better story, you’re boring. Anyways, you’ve done that. And that’s what a public relations company would do for a brand is really help build that brand story.

 

Michelle  14:24 

Yes, and you need to always remember that it takes time. That placement doesn’t happen overnight and you have to also think that the publication or the media outlet is working three months ahead of you. So I keep saying to you, what products we have that need to be in the holiday gift guides, because we only have the month of August and September to finalize those. And if we don’t put out our product distribution list until November then guess what we’ll be looking at Easter because that’s how far in advance these companies need the content in order to be able to stay within the cycles that have been predetermined. And the other thing I want to say about that is that you always have to be willing to give somebody the product for free  to be able to have them touch it, feel it, photograph it, get to love the product so that they can give the best review possible.

 

Norman  15:28 

Just one thing Hey, Justin, Is this better? I don’t know why my mic was down. But can you hear me okay now?  I just turned it up. Can you give me a thumbs up or something? Kelsey, does the mic sound? Okay, Justin, just put in. Turn up your mic.

 

Norman 15:43 

Yeah, I think you fixed it.

 

Michelle  15:46 

Am I too low?

 

Norman

Oh, no, no, I’m too low. Perfect. Well, okay. What are some of the mistakes that companies make when they’re looking for PR when they start doing public relations?

 

Michelle  16:01 

Well, the biggest mistake typically comes down to waiting to the last minute to share a message. If you have an event coming up or you have a product going on sale on the first of September, you don’t want to wait till the third week of September to announce it, it’s too late. So you need to be thinking, if I’m in August, I need to be pitching for the fall, and then for Christmas. And you also need to make sure that you have great imagery and invest in taking the highest quality photos of your product that you can. Make sure that you give clear descriptions on your product pages and you work with a specialist like somebody from prREACH who’s going to go in and optimize the SEO on your pages and on your website so that individuals that do hear about you, don’t have to search for you then get lost in the shuffle. So make sure that you really think through each stage of the marketing component so that the PR opportunity has,  it can be successful.

 

Norman  17:15 

Are there any, we’re dealing with for the most part Amazon sellers. Are there any niches that are better than others for public relations?

 

 

Michelle  17:27 

That’s a trick question, Norm.

 

Norman  17:28 

I thought I would just throw it in there.

 

Michelle 17:32 

Really no, if with the internet, it’s our best friend. If there’s a product out there, there’s a way to promote it. We just need to be able to find the right market segment to engage. I literally have worked with clients from alligators and custom automobiles to vitamins and everything in between. And some of the campaigns that have been the most successful  are for products that have been the most unique.

 

Norman 18:04 

Very good. Now I’m just noticing Kelsey, can you pull up that question from Alan? And what does it say there?

 

Kelsey 18:11 

All right says what if you are a one man show with your brands that only has one or two products per brand, Is this too early to consider using PR?

 

Michelle   18:19 

No, it’s the best time. You want to build the engagement with your brand and your customers now and then find out what they want next. That way you are truly developing products that almost have a waiting list before you get started.

 

Norman 18:40 

And we have seen that, that you’re promoting and getting the word out there. And you’ve seen it all the time. You know, just building a little bit of hype around your product brand. And like Michelle said earlier on, at least I mean, this goes back many years when I took marketing. It was seven touchpoints of marketing. And you’ve got to get it out there, you’ve got to get people especially coming into the holiday season. This is a perfect time. And also, Michelle, you touched on gift guides. So let’s talk about gift guides and what it can do for an Amazon brand.

 

Michelle  19:17 

Oh my goodness, last year alone, I was able to get my clients at a feature on MSN. And within that feature they had over five, oh, I think over 5 million impressions per day that ran during that three day campaign that cost them no additional cost out of their pocket, but it was truly the feature on the front page of MSN. We also were able to do the deals and steals with Toria and Good Morning America. And when you have an opportunity to put your brand in front of a major media outlet such as Good Morning America, you can watch yourself skyrocket in 24 hours.  Most of the time, they will sell out and they will generate return business and lifelong customers just because of that first deal that they took advantage of with that. It was on each of those two occasions, it was a lost leader. They broke the price down as low as they could. But the result was, it was incredible. And they don’t have to build an opportunity to try to get in front of that ginormous market that we call the US shopping industry. What can PR during the shopping guides do for a company? It can take your brand from the fourth page of search results on Google to number one  where you can reduce your ad spend on Google ads, as well as then be able to showcase in your ads, great feedback from the customers that have purchased your product and tried it. And you can be the leader, make it so everybody’s trying to do what you do not you do what they’re doing.

 

Norman 21:15 

I always say that you have to gain authority, especially, we’re talking brands, but Amazon brands, most brands out there are micro brands. They’re not the big brands, they’re micro brands, and people don’t know your name. I mean, this is the phenomenon that’s going on right now. Before it was we thought that you had to have a big brand to go and make any sales and then all of a sudden you could go on to an Amazon platform, have your brand, develop that micro brand and get it out there. But here’s the catch, you might be able to get  a bunch of people coming over to your product listing and you look good. You’ve got phenomenal images, whatever you’ve got in your title might be engaging, people buy it. However, there’s a lot of people that click off the go to Google, they’ll try to find you. If they can’t find you, or if your website’s terrible or your social media is terrible, they probably click off. And the reason why is because you have to show yourself, typically, as a quality brand. You have to have authority and being on the like Today’s Show or something like that, you’re going to get authority, you’re going to get ranking, because it’s linked to the Today Show. And finally, to actually make the purchase is one thing and one thing alone, it’s trust. So you have trust, and they click off to look on Google. And you can build their trust immediately, you’ve got to sell. So that’s how you optimize yourself with by using not only public relations but gaining authority and using press releases or good quality content so Google can rank you properly.

 

Michelle  23:02 

You hit the nail on the head. It does take time to build that authority level. People all day long, they go to Amazon like you were stating and then go back off to check to see if there’s been positive reviews of the product and as well, where and how they found you. I will also say ,Norm, that for smaller companies, our job is to level the playing ground for them. If I’m with a company that is Fortune 500, they generate enough press on a day to day basis that they can get free press just about any time they want to. Whether the media outlets want to say it or not. If I spend a million dollars on ABC, ABC is going to take my press release over somebody else’s. And if you don’t have a way of communicating your message that levels up the playing ground, then you have a very difficult shot at growing your brand and your authority level. So with public relations, that’s my job is to get people accustomed to hearing your name so that they want you on their product or on their media outlet in order to engage their customers.

 

Norman 24:24 

You said level the playing field and there’s a lot of courses. There’s a lot of YouTube videos, they talk about putting a brand on to Amazon. And yes, you can level the playing for Amazon allows you to level the playing field. But if you can’t get on to the field, then you have a problem. So people have to find you and if they don’t find you, then again it comes back to you’re not going to get the sale. You’re not going to get more optimized sales anyways and it’s going to be tough to really get the most out of the brand and build the brand. So one of the things that you can do with content in general, press releases and public relations, is get the word out so people actually start seeing your brand. Just like it is as an Amazon seller, we use PPC and one of the things that I like doing with PPC is really kind of surrounding the listing. So even though I don’t get the sale off of sponsored ads, I get the psychological impact where people see me in the sponsored brands, they see me on the side, they see me on the bottom, or wherever Amazon’s placing it, and then when people see the organic listing, they click on it. So Amazon’s doing a really great job of making sure as long as you pay to play that they get the word out there and it’s the exact same thing. The seven touch points, look at your product listing, take a look frequently bought together, take a look on amazon posts, all the Amazon sponsored ads and sponsored brands. It does exactly that. It’s trying to get your micro brand out there and all we’re doing is trying to, and I shouldn’t say that, this isn’t about us but this is about public relations. All public relations companies doing is going out and doing that for external traffic basically.

 

Michelle  26:25 

Exactly. It has to be. They have to work together.

 

Norman  26:30 

They have to work together. So we got a couple questions, Kels?

 

Kelsey 26:34 

Yeah, I was just gonna bring it up. All right, so Alan is saying what sort of budget should one consider to start the process and maintain campaigns for several months?

 

Michelle  26:46 

Well, I’m really for most PR agencies, they bill by the hour  and so you want to look at a package that kind of works for you. Packages for a really solid  person in order to cross a variety of platforms. Like I was saying, Is it an influencer we need to talk to? Is it a blogger we need to start to or the direct media? They can start anywhere at $3,000 and go up from there depending on the amount of time and the number of projects you want the individual to be able to focus on. But I will say that working with Norm, and knowing that some of these companies really need a smaller starting point. So I never want you to think that the budget is the most important. Make sure if you have questions or you want to learn more about public relations that you reach out to us and we are going to do our best to put together a package that’s going to one help you stay within your budget. As far as timeline, I always try to recommend that you don’t look at public relations as a quick fix, because again, it takes time. So you want to at least budget for a six month period, ultimately, you want to year because if I start talking to bloggers today, it still might be six months before they get into that publication, because I’ve caught them mid cycle and it depends on the seasonality of the products that they are working on. Yes, you can get instant exposure with some outlets. You always have that, but they won’t be the highest engagement opportunities for you. The longer you can build out the relationship with a potential media outlet, the stronger the coverage will be.

 

Norman 28:46 

It’s interesting, I had somebody talk to me about this the other day. They were wondering what the life expectancy is of public relations. Because of all the new technology, do you see it fading out at all?

 

Michelle   29:04 

Actually, it’s become much more required in today’s world. The internet has billions of pages on it, and they all need content. And for what I do, it’s not like they’re running a printing press and they have 72 pages to fill it. The website gets 100 pages and they draw in additional viewers and get in additional members to their publications in their outlet streams. They are happy and we’re happy to provide as much content as we can push to them in order to fill the space that they’ll give us. The other great thing about PR is unlike an ad that disappears when the budget is over, a story that runs on a product lives on that page forever. And so the reuse opportunities for our public relations coverage is incredible. And again, they there’s no boundaries to what you can do to promote it.

 

Norman 30:04 

I know that I have a client that we put on to their wire cutter. Just a sec here. There, we’re live. Anyways, they went on to Wirecutter, which is owned by the New York Times and they don’t even have to look. When they run either an ad or an article about their product and they are wire cutters like a review network like consumers, what’s it called consumers reports. And when they run an ad, their sales just skyrocket. It’s not even one or two. I mean, we’re talking hundreds if not thousands of units, and you don’t even know all of a sudden, they’ll call over the wire cutter and yet we’re running this ad and or not an ad but an article about your product and it’s just rated the best in category and I mean, they were able to get best in category, because they were a good quality product. But that’s just one example.  Do you have a case study or anything that comes to mind where you can give sort of an example of what happened running a good PR campaign?

 

Michelle  31:16 

Well, um, but they’re all good, Norm. What are you talking about? I will say that it’s been back a few years, but I worked with an international company that made a custom acupressure style yoga mat. They were new to the US market. They were quite dominant in their home base, which was Switzerland. We were able to, within six months, we generated coverage in all the big brands so they were on the Tyra Banks show. We had them in their product featured in Shape magazine. They were in men’s health, they were all over. Well, they were selling over 150 units a day within six months. That is an amazing example of how effective a public relations campaign can be if you really know your target audience, and you focus in on exactly where they spend their time. To have that opportunity to push the quantity that they are now pushing in the US market all started from a single campaign for six months.

 

Norman  32:35 

That’s pretty nice.

 

Michelle   32:36 

Oh, it was incredible.

 

Norman 32:40 

I tried to talk to a bunch of sellers either at events or wherever. First of all, there’s always skepticism when it comes to public relations, or just I’ll do that later. Why is it at Amazon or online sellers  just don’t take advantage of it because we take a look at. Well, the only reason why we started our public relations division was because it works and because we were getting mixed up with press releases, everybody was asking, oh, can you get us onto Forbes? Oh, can you get us on this? That’s a different type of PR. But there are and I’m talking about eight figure sellers, seven figure sellers, six figure sellers. No one is doing or speaking about public relations, and I don’t get it. Any thoughts?

 

Michelle 33:39 

I don’t get it either. I really don’t. I mean, if you look at a dub, so they spend a million and a half a year just in managing their public relations campaigns, but it generates 10 plus million in sales for them and gives them new opportunities to get in front of different markets that they currently or reasonably wouldn’t expect to be in front of. How can you pass that up? Even if it is only $2000, $3000, $4000 that you invest per month, If my return is $30,000 coming back in based off of the placements that we work to create, then why would I not do it? The other thing I’m gonna say is that, for the most part, bigger companies think that they need to go to an agency in the world of the internet, and with so many people working from home, you don’t necessarily need to pay the high cost of having a big New York agency represent you. They can’t do anything different than I don’t do for you. It’s about finding the right fit from an individual that believes in your story, shares your passion for the story, and can promote it for you, and working together as a team to make sure that you are everywhere your people look for any engagement opportunities that you can place for them

 

Norman 35:15 

The other difference between an agency and a company like prREACH is that you’re going to pay three or four times as much easily.

 

Michelle  35:25 

Most big time agencies, even my own agency, my fees started at 12 grand a month.

 

Norman 35:31 

Yeah. Yeah. So they are, it is a lot more expensive. Alright, so you wake up, you’ve got your brand, everything’s going well and all of a sudden, you get some really negative feedback, not feedback, but all of a sudden you start to see, oh, it might be some negative news about your company. How can public relations help with the crisis, when a crisis happens?

 

Michelle   36:00 

Well, you want to, first off, we help you set the message so that you’re giving the viewers an honest truth response to the situation. But hopefully what’s happened is if this situation arises that you’ve been working with PR for enough time that you have built some really strong media outlets that are partners of yours, that you can go to and say, look, I really need to get a heartfelt piece out. Are you going to be able to help me? They’re going to be much more apt to help you sell your side of the story and really help you to frame the way the response will be another medi.Again, it goes back to those relationships. I can help you put the message together, but we need to build those relationships before we have that crisis.

 

Norman 36:54 

Last question of the day, any tips or any advice that you can give people?

 

 

Michelle  37:02 

Give people that are looking to work with a PR agency?

 

Norman

Sure.

 

Michelle

First off, definitely upgrade imaging. Make sure your descriptions of your products are clear. Right at the level that is of the mindset of the consumer, not technically so advanced It is hard to understand. And thirdly, make sure that when you are talking to media outlets, if you’re working on your own or you’re trying to promote your product, make sure they remember those words that you say stay out forever, they don’t disappear. They’re always on the internet so always put your best foot forward and make sure that you work with somebody that gets you.

 

Norman 37:51 

Very good. We’ve got one last question Kels.

 

Kelsey 37:55 

It just says love this interview. Norm, prREACH and Michelle, can you please offer PR package deal for new sellers on Amazon?

 

Norman

Hey, that was not a plant. Anyways, thank you Bronwyn. Yeah, we’ll come up with something. We have packages right now but like Michelle said, we want to help Amazon sellers whether you’re just starting out, or you’re the big time eight figure seller. We’ll get something out there for you. Anything you want to add Michelle?

 

Michelle  38:32 

No, I just appreciate the time this morning. If anyone has any questions at all about something that’s more specific to their product, reach out, let me know I’ll be more than happy to help any way I can. You can reach me at m@prreach.com so thank you again and I hope to see and talk to all of you soon.

 

Norman 38:57 

All right, fantastic. So I hope you enjoy today’s live Facebook Live broadcast and on YouTube. We’ll be posting it fairly shortly. It depends on Kelsey’s time. Kelsey, I hope you’re going to be doing this shortly into smaller clips. But, Michelle, thanks again for being on and like I said at the beginning, we are excited about our new podcast, Lunch With Norm, The Rise of the Micro Brands which is going to start August the 10th. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So, Kelsey, tell everybody what they’re supposed to do.

 

Kelsey 39:34 

Yes, follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. For everyone looking for the full clips of these. I do put them up on the YouTube channel. So if you go to Norman Farrar, you’ll find full episodes, clips and highlights. I think we have over a hundred videos up so all the information is up there if you ever looking for a replay. And if you need information from Michelle, I’ll put in the email information in the contact information.

 

Norman  40:11 

Yeah, and also, everything has been set up. We’ve been building up a new website for this as well as creating, we’ve been approved on Apple and all the others. So once we, once we finally, on Monday, we’ll have everything in place. So you can just go in subscribe if you like over on Apple or whatever podcast platform you’d like. So until then, on Thursday, you gotta listen on Thursday, after Michelle talks about public relations. We’ve got a real brand guru that’s coming on. His name’s Jeff Sass and he’s going to be talking about how to build a brand story. He literally creates a story about your brand. So it takes 30 minutes and once you see this, you won’t believe the way that he’s built up huge brands. So it’s on Thursday and I think that’s it this week.

 

Kelsey  41:13 

Yep. Oh, and thank you, Brownwyn, very much. I appreciate it.

 

Norman 41:18 

Yes, and thanks, everybody for joining us. So, until then, we’ll see you later and enjoy the podcast and the rest of your day.

 

Kelsey  41:25 

All right. Enjoy everyone.