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Jenn: Welcome to Virtual Summit Success. I'm Jenn, founder of Virtual Summit Search, and you're in the right place

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if you want to make the most of your virtual summit experience, whether

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you're a host or virtual summit speaker. Let's get going with your next step to virtual summit success.

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You're listening to a snippet from a Sell With a Summit: Speaker Edition session.

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I talked with Tiffany about how to use PR - public relations - to leverage

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your summit speaking experiences. If you're not familiar with PR or how it works, stay tuned; Tiffany will explain.

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You can get so much mileage from summit speaking and PR can take

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you to a new level with that! All right, let's get going.

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So it may not seem like you can extend your virtual summit speaking

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experience into the real world very easily, but you might be surprised!

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If you're looking to make a bigger impact through your summit speaking,

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then get ready, because during the session we're talking about leveraging

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PR to boost your post-summit success. I'm Jenn, host of Sell With a Summit: Speaker Edition, and I'm so excited

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to introduce you to the fantastic Tiffany Eurich, who is not only a PR

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strategist, but also an author, former TV personality, and university professor.

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Thank you so much for being here, Tiffany. Tiffany Eurich: Thank you.

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It's such an honor and a pleasure to be here. I love talking about marketing strategies that most people don't

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realize are even accessible to them, so this is a great pleasure.

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Jenn: That's something that I think a lot of summit speakers don't utilize,

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because like you said, they just don't even realize that it's an option.

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So I'm really excited to dive into this.

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And before we do that, could you give us an overview of your philosophy around

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boosting post-summit success through PR? Tiffany Eurich: Yeah, absolutely.

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So one of the things that people really often get confused with

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PR - first and foremost, just to explain what we're talking about - is

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they confuse PR and advertising. So when we're talking about public relations, it really is everything you

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say and do, but most people think of it in terms of media relations or publicity.

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So that's where you get mentioned in a newspaper or a magazine or your

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favorite podcast or a television program, or your contributor to

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a blog or something like that. That's publicity, in a more traditional sense.

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And so a lot of people think, oh, I'm already paying for

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advertising, this or that. And the great thing about publicity is that it's free!

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True PR, true publicity, media relations is free for a business.

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And so that's the first part of that philosophy is that this is an incredibly

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underused method 'cause people don't realize that it's accessible.

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PR has such a sort of glamorous smoke and mirrors impression around it and most

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people think that this is something that is reserved for billion dollar brands.

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They think that it's something that you can't do unless you're, you know,

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Coca-Cola or somebody like that and you hired this big agency to do your PR.

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But PR Is actually a really simple and very straightforward process if

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you know a few of the behind the scene keys, if you will, to making it work.

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And it's always seemed inaccessible to small businesses and yet small businesses

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are the ones that can benefit the most. Small brands can benefit the most from a really effective, targeted,

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laser-sharp publicity strategy.

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And so that's one of the big keys of my philosophy is

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that it's free and underused. Learn some of those basic techniques and really incorporate it into your brand

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and into your overall marketing strategy.

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I think that there are different tactics and different strategies within marketing,

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and most people end up using just one again and again and again, but it's kind

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of like saying, "I'm going on a trip to Europe, and so I'm going to get in my car

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and drive to the coast and then try and drive my car through the ocean to Europe."

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It'll get you part of the way, but there's going to come a point that what you've

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been doing isn't going to keep working. And so having a bigger, broader picture of marketing and the tactics that are

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available to you can really help you grow your brand and expand your influence much

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more quickly and much more effectively. So learn about some of these underutilized things that you

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do actually have access to. And then the second part of that is focused on how you can serve.

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A lot of times people say, "well, I don't really want to be a celebrity.

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Like, I'm not a Kardashian," or something like that, and that's

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not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is creating useful, helpful content

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that serves audiences, just like you want to serve your audiences.

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You're just serving somebody else's audience - a reporter, or a podcaster,

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or a blogger or a television station, whatever it might be.

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And so you are creating content that's going to really serve their audience

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well, and then you are giving it to that media professional in a way

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that makes it easy for them to use. And that's a fantastic strategy for getting your name and your

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brand mentioned in the media.

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And so that's what we do: we help transform brands from best kept secrets

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into the go-to experts in their space, and it's really a very simple process,

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but I think the big key there is just learn what is actually accessible to you,

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learn you can do, and then make it happen. Jenn: Love that, because as a small business, we don't want to be a

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best kept secret because if we're a secret, no one's going to find us.

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Tiffany Eurich: Exactly. I tell people all the time being a best kept secret is a great compliment,

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but it is a terrible business model. Jenn: Yes.

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A hundred percent agree. So what would you say the first step that a summit speakers should take in order

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to build their PR strategy would be? Tiffany Eurich: Yeah.

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So the first thing I would tell anybody - if you were coming to work

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with us, if I was teaching you in a classroom or whatever - the first thing

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I would say is understand your goal. Because you can really get excited.

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I think when people learn about what can be accomplished through

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the use of media relations for their business, they get really excited

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and it's very easy to get distracted. Just like any other area of marketing, you can get distracted

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by all of those shiny things. So knowing what your goal is right from the beginning is one of the most useful

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things that you can do for your strategy.

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So there are a lot of different kinds of goals that you might have.

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It might be brand awareness: you just want people to know that you

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exist and know that you're there.

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That might be it. It may be that you have a specific timeframe for a campaign because you're

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publishing a book or you're going to be launching a new YouTube channel or

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something like that, and so, you want to drive traffic to that channel or

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drive sales for that book - you know, maybe it's pre-sales for that book.

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Or it could be that what you're trying to really do is you've got an established

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business, you've got a system that you've developed as an expert, you've

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got an opinion on things, and you really wanting to build your standing

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as a thought leader in your industry. When you think in terms of the goal, it's going to dramatically shape the

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way that you build your campaign. For instance, if you're trying to increase sales around a product or a

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service, the audience for that is going to be very different than the audience

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for thought leadership building. Because within the thought leadership campaign, you're going to people in

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your own industry, you're establishing your leadership in your industry, and

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those are not often people that are going to be buying from you, buying

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services from you, and so those are two very different audiences.

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And so that's probably the most important and most practical step

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that you can take right out of the gate is really understanding what is

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this campaign going to accomplish? What timeframe do I want to accomplish this in?

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And then who is the ideal audience?

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We hear a lot about the ideal client and this is very similar, but it's

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who our potential client is or who are the potential people that

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I want to hear about my message? Really understand who they are and take some time to research the media that

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they consume and then start building a strategy to target those media outlets.

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Jenn: Awesome. How would you say that summit speakers can use their summit speaking

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experiences as an interest hook when they're pitching folks for PR?

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Tiffany Eurich: Yeah, okay, great question. So when you're trying to create a hook, you're looking for what is

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newsworthy, and there are a few things that are going to be newsworthy.

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First is timeliness: does this tie into the season, into some kind of an

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awareness day or an awareness month, does it tie into something that's

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already happening in the media, right? Can you hook into something that's going on in a seasonal sense?

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So timeliness is one. Impact is another.

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If you can show that the work you're doing is creating some changes in

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people's lives - it can be a major impact for a small number of people

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or a small impact for a large number of people, you know, whatever.

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Or if you can show that you do something that is local, so it has

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some terms of geographical proximity.

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One of the things I love when someone is getting ready to host a summit is

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actually going to their local media outlets and letting them know about that

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a couple of weeks in advance, because for a lot of people, let's say that

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it's a summit that's around a business topic, that newspaper or that local media

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will alert all those business owners in that area that, "Hey, here's the summit

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that might be interesting to you." Or if it's something for parents or something for gardening or whatever

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it is, you will have a local audience that will be interested in that.

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And especially since so many summits have free access for people and

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that's part of the hook, you know, to get them in, a lot of media outlets

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will take that and will run with it. And I think sometimes we get so caught up in the digital business landscape

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that we forget that we have a very real, very local audience and most people

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can build an entire business just on the local support if they need it to.

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I always encourage people to think about that when they're hosting a summit.

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Let the media know locally so that people in your community can join in and that's

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more real, more tangible support than you can often find online; especially

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when you're just starting out, you'll have that built in support system.

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So timeliness, locale - what kind of locality you're

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in - an impact, prominence.

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If you do, of course, have somebody that is going to connect with you in

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some way because of that summit, that is a bigger name, you can use that to

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leverage some interest in the media.

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So there are lots of different ways that you can kind of build in that hook.

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And what I always try to do is find some aspect, some facet of your expertise

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that nobody is talking about or that you can add either a controversial

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approach or an advanced approach.

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And so for instance, a perfect example: one of the strategies that worked for me

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really early on in building my business was I would look for podcasts that

10:12

talked about marketing and talked about marketing for small businesses, and

10:16

then I would approach them and say, "you know, you've talked about advertising,

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you've talked about funnels, you've talked about Pinterest, you've talked

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about this and this and this and this, but you've never talked about publicity."

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And inevitably every single person would come back to me and say, "I didn't...

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I didn't know we could, like, I didn't know, there was an expert out

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there talking to small businesses." And so those often became some of their most listened-to episodes because

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nobody else was talking about it. But conversely, if someone is already talking about your business or your

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expertise or whatever, don't get stressed that they're not going

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to want to talk to you instead. See that as evidence that they're interested in the work that

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you do and they're probably going to want more experts with

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different perspectives on that. So if there's someone they've already interviewed that is talking

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about your area of expertise, what can you do to add to that?

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How can you extend the conversation, give them something else to think about, or

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perhaps provide a controversial viewpoint?

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You look at it differently, you have a different philosophy, so get very creative

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and see where you can, again, meet a need where you can serve the audience

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by providing content that they aren't already covering or some other approach.

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So for instance, let's say if it's a photography summit, and this is something

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that you're wanting to leverage this opportunity and talk about it, don't

11:30

pitch a story, that's like, "how to take better pictures," because that's so bland

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and generic, and doesn't give us a reason to really emotionally connect with it.

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Instead, it would be something like "eight ways to take better pictures

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of your kids on your iPhone." And so now we're connecting with a real audience with real needs and

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they can see themselves in that story. They can be like, "oh, you know what?

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I didn't know that I needed eight ways to take better pictures of my kids

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on the iPhone, but I have an iPhone. I have kids.

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Yeah, let's read it." And so you're getting that exposure.

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So be thinking in terms of how can I make this very specific and how

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can I offer increased value for that media outlet and their audience?

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Jenn: Perfect. I know we've covered a lot of things and folks are going to be able to go

12:14

and take that, especially figuring out how to use their expertise and their

12:19

experience to pitch their PR strategy.

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So, I know you have a resource for folks that they can grab and they can

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start taking steps right away to start crafting that PR strategy before their

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next summit speaking engagement, so can you tell us a little bit more about that?

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Tiffany Eurich: Sure! So no matter who comes to me, no matter what context we're working in one of

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the first things we do for our clients that we represent, our clients that we

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consult, our clients that we teach and coach, one of the very first things

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we have them do is create a press kit. And a press kit is just - in this particular instance - a digital

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repository of some specific assets about your business that will make it

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easier for a reporter to say yes to you, or a podcaster to say yes to you.

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And one of the reasons I love this is that it creates a level of polish,

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it elevates your brand and says, "Hey, we're ready for media coverage.

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We understand how the system works. We understand how to get ourselves covered."

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and just having a press kit and being able to offer that when you are reaching

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out to a media professional can do wonders for, again, elevating the

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professional polish of your business. And so again, one of the very first things we do, it's something

13:27

that you can do in an hour or two. And so we've put together a checklist that's the Press Kit in a Day checklist.

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And I say in a day, but that would be an extremely leisurely day.

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You really can do it in an hour or two. And it's just going to be a collection of a few things like your bio and

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your images, and a couple of other things that you can pull together

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in a digital platform that just hangs out there and it's ready to

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serve you whenever you need it. And I think that that adds an extra boost of confidence, knowing that if

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an opportunity arises and you can grab it just like that because you have

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that fundamental piece of your puzzle in place so that when someone reaches

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out, or you see an opportunity to be covered in the news, to connect with

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something newsworthy that's happening, you can reach right out and say,

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"Hey, here's the link to my press kit. It's all set, it's all done."

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So we want to give that to everybody who's here at the summit, so that

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they can use that and start building that PR strategy because I'm really

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passionate about getting PR strategy into the hands of small businesses.

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Jenn: I'm so excited for folks to grab that and start getting going on

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that, because I have my husband has worked in PR, so I know how much of

14:29

an impact that can make on a business. So thank you so much for being here and sharing all of your

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amazing expertise, Tiffany. It was so great getting to talk through all of this.

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Tiffany Eurich: Oh, thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

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Jenn: So don't forget to go and grab the checklist - the button is down

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below the video - and if you have any questions for Tiffany, I'm sure she

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would be happy to answer them and help you get started on your PR journey!

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Tiffany Eurich: Absolutely. Thanks, Jenn. Jenn: There are so many fantastic ways to leverage your speaking experiences through

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PR and in the full session, Tiffany also shared the best types of media for summit

15:00

speakers, how to reverse engineer where you want to be, and PR timeframes and

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interest hooks for summit speakers so that you can make the most of your PR pitches.

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Go to sellwithasummit.com/speakeredition to watch the full

15:12

session and so much more. Don't forget to leave a review and let us know what your biggest takeaways are.

15:18

You can do that on whatever podcast platform you're using,

15:22

or some me and Tiffany a message! We would love to hear from you and find out what your biggest takeaway was.

15:29

Thanks for listening to Virtual Summit Success.

15:31

Don't forget to leave a review and let others know your biggest

15:34

takeaways from this episode. Every review helps others find us, and the more successful virtual

15:39

summits there are, the more tips we'll have to share with you.

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For show notes, links, and other resources, go to virtualsummitsuccess.live