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[Music]
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yes [Music]
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hello everybody and welcome to another episode of sour and sass i am
very
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excited today to be joined by lindsey groper president of blast
media welcome to the show hey garrett excited to be
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here thanks for having me well thank you and now before we just dive
into it i think
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maybe we should set the stage a little bit with your perspective on
pr and then we can get
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very specific but i think at a high level i’ve had the
blessing of working with many marketers who sometimes think that
0:55
press releases and letting decision or i don’t even know how
to say their name is
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that’s decision is that right or you got it okay yeah
they’re like you know we just did press releases on incision
and
1:07
you know we just kind of do press releases are press releases even a
viable part of
1:13
pr and like at a high level what is prdu for bdb sas yeah thank you
for asking the question
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it’s interesting because pr to me is perception relations and
pr has a perception problem in and
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of itself in that most still today most marketers and ceos still
think of
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pr as press releases and as strictly a news driven function
1:40
and that is a it’s an old-school and lazy way to think about
pr
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pr’s biggest value is right or wrong it can be a perception
equalizer so if your
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brand can’t compete with larger competitors on logos or
marketing budget
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alone pr can create a feeling it can enhance
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credibility and trust it can be an equalizer and so in that in that
vein it is not a press release
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driven strategy um there is part of a pr strategy that involves
press releases of
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course but it’s so much more than that and any agency that
tells you well we didn’t
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have we didn’t have much coverage this month because you guys
didn’t have a lot of talk about like that’s and
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that’s lazy and you should certainly be expecting more yeah
because i think the goal right of the pr
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organization is they need to help companies that don’t know
how to tell their story to
2:40
their specific audience to create one and i think the press release
is kind of the final check mark or let’s say the
2:46
checklist is did we do the press release but the truth is right
it’s like it’s not like journalists are like oh my
god
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i wonder what’s coming in hot on the press release today like
right like i mean at the end of the day it’s a relationship
driven
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industry where you need to partner with a pr shop that has good
relationships with the channels and mediums you want
3:03
coverage on it’s not like i can like i know this right i
can’t just go tell everyone directive lands in victi and
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then all of a sudden ad week’s gonna put me on the cover right
it’s not really how it works correct
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you’re right in relationships do matter i will say that they
matter
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not as much as they used to when we started blast media 16 years
ago
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there was a lot of in-person meetings newsrooms were fairly large
there wasn’t
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a lot of attrition and newsrooms look fundamentally different today
but even your best relationships
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only take you so far so despite our people having a great
relationship
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with the wall street journal with techcrunch if we don’t bring
them something interesting and know how to formulate a story that
tells the why
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behind the what of the news those best relationships aren’t
going to do you a solid and write a story that’s
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meaningless or has no value to their audience so it the relationship
helps
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but you also have to understand what i believe is they lost art of
storytelling in order to get those stories told
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yeah no i’m right there with you now let’s get a little
deeper though
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okay there’s two concepts i think are really really broken
right now in the startup ecosystem um and the first one
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though is this concept that pr is telling people about the money
you
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raised so um i know it’s like i just as a marketer i
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absolutely hate the concept that like your blog or your website is
like we just raised a series c from sequoia and
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that is somehow something your customer gives a crap about so like
like why where is this obsession with
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talking about money in sas when i guarantee your customer is
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not like oh goody like you know what i mean like what is up with
that weird angle that i just constantly see going
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on right now yeah for the life of a a scale-up or a startup funding
is a it’s a big deal for
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them they’ve worked very hard they it’s validation it it
matters it matters
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certainly more to them internally than it does externally um and
that’s oftentimes regardless of the
5:18
announcement the biggest mistake that companies often make is
assuming people care about you they don’t
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and you have to give them a reason to so it it my opinion is funding
announcements really help get in front
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of additional investors for the next funding announcement it’s
all about the money right so take another angle though is my
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question like my honest question is there another angle to take with
funding announcements that could maybe drive customer value because
i get why they do
5:44
it you get easy coverage tech crunch is going to pick you up every
time alex whatever his name is going to write about you like
you’re going to get your
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like the quick hits right but what about the fact that like is there
a
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way to parlay this into something that’s less me me me brag
brad because i think it’s
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such a like like how do you think they could do i know why we have
to do it what’s the better way to do it in your mind yeah
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so if we’re if we’re just looking at a funding
announcement you have to look at who they’re trying to
influence
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investors is certainly one to your point customers not so much i
mean it might
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feel good like oh look the vendor that i work with is gaining
momentum cool but the other thing where the other two
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audiences where funding announcements can’t add value is on
the employee side and that’s both creating goodwill
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amongst current team members as well as on the talent acquisition
side um you’ll often times that funding it will say it
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is going towards uh hiring and so that is something good for
potential talents to
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see as well as potential partners who may not who may we’re on
the fence of is
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this going to be a good partner for us or not or maybe we’re
like well they say they’re going to pour more money into
development so that we can have this
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integration not sure and then the funding is the way way forward
with that so there are other
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audiences that sas marketers take into consideration or should be
taking into consideration uh
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when it comes to that a pr strategy specifically around funding but
one thing i will caution is the
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funding is the what and journalists are getting literally dozens
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of what’s a day the what is the number you raise money who
cares
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it truly unless you have a well-known investor or individual
that’s behind it that carries weight in and of
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itself sometimes that’s the story um or if you know we have a
client that andreessen invested in their seed and
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series a which they never do and it was a three-time investor
that’s a story too um the
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it’s figuring out the who cares behind the funding
that’s going to get us an actual story that matters
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so has there been a lot of money poured into the category recently
has there
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been a category leader that filed for ipo what does it mean for the
future is there is it challenging the current
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definition of a category um if the company’s looking to move
into a different category so a lot of different
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things to consider but the the number and the fact that you raised
is the what and no one really cares about the what
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you have to dive in to figure out the why to get a meaningful story
along with that yeah it needs an angle right so now
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okay it is sour and sass are you ready i’m ready all right
although i just before we
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hopped on i watched the episode you did with drew beachler the head
of marketing at high alpha
8:34
adventure studio his wife works with us and he i kept fast
forwarding through waiting
8:39
for some reaction it was very personal i liked it i’m being
serious
8:45
like that guy loves his sources do i start with the warheads
i’m going toxic waste oh because i think
8:51
all my warheads melted i left them out like too close to my window
would i be starting with a toxic waste yeah go for
8:56
it okay they’re all equally bad and here’s the thing
lindsey the first one is okay it’s
9:03
shocking but it’s okay the second one just builds on it and
that’s when it gets nasty is it it’s that second one
9:08
well and i asked jared if i was like cursing it tends to be my
natural reaction to stuff and he was like i mean
9:14
if if it comes out but like let’s be mindful of it so
i’m getting mindful of it as we’re talking and i’m
eating this
9:19
i realized i already said uh bs once so oh it’s terrible
9:24
oh gosh you do this all the time how’s it so bad for you i
hate sour candy i don’t eat
9:30
probably i just did this because it sounded good i didn’t
really think through that i was
9:36
gonna be doing this every day i’m like on my 60th episode i
like sour candy
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okay i’m back i’m good um oh god what’s your take
on books
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say that again books like what’s your take on books i think
books might be the best form of pr
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because when i’m going through all the companies that are
constantly in the media and have this narrative whether it’s
on
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twitter or linkedin like they’re they have a story that is
consistent story i try to unpack like what i call like
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let’s say foundational pieces and if you look at all the
people that have narratives
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they also all have books yeah i mean like ray dalio if you’re
an
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investment he’s always got someone covering him he wrote
principles if you’re in bootstrap sas they’re always
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covering base camp they wrote books if you’re in high growth
sas
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people talk about drift they wrote books i mean in general it seems
to me that books
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and pr story narrative coverage are like one and the same
what’s your take on that yeah books is just another form
of
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thought leadership and it always has been but we have i mean i feel
like everyone is writing a
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book now no no matter your title there’s people working on
books and so we have many
10:55
clients who release books while we’re working together and are
we book publicists we’re not um will we schedule
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book tours not our sweet spot however typically that book
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is a long version of what we’ve been pitching and how
we’ve been positioning this individual as a thought leader
and
11:15
so we’re able to use the book as another way to point back
towards those thought leadership pillars and pull out specific
11:23
sections of the book or paragraphs or quotes within the book and
leverage those and use those in other ways it’s
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just another form of thought leadership um and we have so many
clients writing books
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that is insane um have you seen the book concept slightly comical
lindsay i can tell so let’s let’s pull
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apart what’s the difference in a book that works on book that
doesn’t in your mind oh gosh you know what i’m saying
because
11:47
i i can sense a little bit of you being like yeah it’s great
thanks honey great great job on that book
11:54
like what does it have to be to matter let’s assume
let’s assume it is uh if we’re comparing
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authors that no one’s ever heard of okay yes right so
there’s many of them yeah uh
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certainly who you were before the book came out if
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you are an evangelist in something and tend to have people who view
you as an influencer and
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this isn’t like you know jay leno on the street you ask 100
people they’re all going to say never heard that person
i’m not talking that level of influence but
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within a category or it could be ai ops for example
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something highly specific and exhilarating super sexy love aiops
12:40
but if you build the community already that was influencer
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your book will likely do well because those people want more of you
if you are
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a cmo at a random sas company that hasn’t really been an
evangelist of a
12:58
specific problem or you know position as a thought leader it’s
it’s not going to do as well
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because people don’t have already connection with you and
don’t want more of what you have to say
13:09
let’s unpack that because i i i completely agree with you and
i think it’s like chicken of the egg concept that i struggle
with in pr which is
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you need people to already care about you for pr to work yet without
people caring about you you kind of need pr
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sure and so it’s like this like in other words like i’m
sure when you worked with moz like i know you work with moz
13:27
working with moz is like probably the world’s easiest thing in
the world because you just have rand be rant compared to trying to
do the same thing
13:34
for sem rush right like that isn’t gonna work the same like
you can do a story for moz get it picked up because you
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have a narrative you have distribution you’ve got rand fishkin
to tweet it and it gets a hundred retweets
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it works all of a sudden everything rand does for pr works doing pr
for drift works because if dave gerhart tweets
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something it does well in petsu but he has a community so if
you’re trying to be a sas company and
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you want to get a buzz you want to be the next fast or the next
whatever right
14:05
like there’s some companies that are just good at the game of
buzz do you start to do the content first or
14:12
do you build the audience first like how do you go about getting
from no one caring about you
14:18
to someone caring about you as a sas company in your mind yeah and
and i’ll i’ll answer this in the
14:23
context of my world so i’ll answer in the context of pr
because there’s a lot of other
14:29
ways to address that that are outside of of our discipline the
interesting thing with
14:35
pr and when i look at across our client base and again our client
base just for the sake of any
14:40
example i give all b2b sas company of various sizes we have
well-funded series a companies all the way up to publicly
14:47
traded everything in between and moz is a perfect example uh moz
when we
14:54
when we started working with moz a few years ago rand had just
exited sarah byrd new ceo in
15:00
uh sarah wasn’t known as a thought leader but moz was already
the the category leader so
15:07
we had the brand weight behind it and so that works but what
we’ve typically found is for
15:12
our clients that don’t have high brand recognition and where
their primary spokes people
15:17
haven’t been very vocal we’ve never had an issue
15:23
building thought leadership for their spokespeople in the press and
i will go back to that being able to tell
15:30
a story and find something interesting if you’re able to work
with a a
15:35
spokesperson that’s willing to go against the grain and say
something bold and different you will have much higher
15:42
success rate where we don’t have a high success rate is when
there’s they’re very risk-averse
15:49
and they are not willing to and i’m not even saying be highly
controversial or attach ourselves to new highly charged
15:56
topics but you know in a world where everyone is praising you know
maybe it’s
16:03
bi tools and everybody loves tableau is how can we go in and say why
companies should
16:09
abandon traditional bi as we know it and you tend to refute that in
the piece itself or in the conversation
16:16
but you have to be willing to get out there and say something bold
and we’ve successfully successfully had you know client quotes
as part of trend stories
16:23
alongside these huge brands and compared to them they have very low
brand awareness but we’re able to offer
16:29
interesting and different perspective um so there’s not a
there’s not a right or wrong time to start you just have
to
16:35
start and understand with whether that’s an internal comms
person or using an agency
16:42
what are what’s your perspective what are you willing to talk
about what are the national narratives that are happening with or
without you that
16:48
you’re comfortable attaching yourself to and how you’re
going to add value to that conversation and you can start to
16:53
build from there you can start in the trade press well trade press
wants to hear from everyone trust me um
17:00
garrett i’m sure you’ve been reading ad age or ad week
or wherever you get your news the drum and you will see a
17:06
quote from someone or a contributed piece and you’re like who
the hell is that
17:12
or you’re like you look up their agency on linkedin
you’re like it’s a 10 person agency
17:17
with no clients i’ve ever heard of like how are they being
featured in this because somebody took the time to pitch
17:24
them and offer something interesting to say yep no i love that
experience
17:30
no of all the time i mean it’s you know it’s like
it’s like you i mean i did this like so i used to pitch 15
horrors
17:36
a day when i started directive there you go i wouldn’t work
everything it was like
17:42
it was like what are the ways to fix a bad table i was like have
pennies i mean i was i was quoted everywhere and
17:48
anywhere just because i was trying to build our authority i wanted
to rank and it worked right number one for seo
17:53
agency and at the time it was a big driver of our growth so
17:59
i’m a big fan of it for a lot of different reasons i think the
part i struggle with and i know this has got to
18:04
be the bane of your existence is how do we tie it back to revenue in
your mind like how are you telling that
18:11
narrative to your clients because i think a lot of marketers are
like yeah lindsay i got to tell my story you’re right i should
create buzz you’re right
18:17
i should be more active you’re right i shouldn’t just go
with the grain if i want people to care about me i have to have bold
opinions i’m a little scared
18:23
but i agree all that’s great though but at the end of the day
how do i tie back me getting quoted in
18:29
adweek or me getting quoted in techcrunch to pipeline to
18:34
the things i’m being held accountable to as a cmo right
what’s that narrative that you help you know i think your
18:40
clients tell the board themselves and others to get funding and to
keep funding good pr
18:46
so i’ll start by reiterating a quote that i love which is
scaling revenue wins
18:52
quarters and strong brands win categories one one can’t exist
without the other
18:58
there is no bottom of the funnel without the top there is no top
without the bottom the funnel wouldn’t exist
19:03
what we do and this is just what we do i mean it is cracks me up
because it’s
19:09
very obvious and please other people can steal us if they want um
here’s what traditionally happens
19:15
so cmo goes into their quarterly business report they say here
19:20
for all our marketing objectives for the quarter here’s all
the levers that we pulled to meet them this is good job and they say
oh yeah
19:27
and look we also got press coverage that’s literally what
happens there’s like this little cliff note there and
19:33
also uh also we’re featured in this great i was on three
podcasts and they were like okay right and then you’re
19:39
like cool super um what we do is at the beginning of our
19:44
relationships and then subsequently each quarter if they change is
we say what are
19:50
cmo your quarterly marketing objectives on which you’re
you’re being measured they say here they are
19:56
awesome we work off of okr framework so objectives and key results
where the objective is the
20:03
client marketing objective and then we build pr krs underneath
that
20:10
so for and what why we do this is to help our cmo tie our work
to
20:17
business results so if for example they say well one of my goals is
to
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increase organic traffic by 20 maybe that’s one
20:30
the krs under that for pr would sound like at least 50 of all
coverage contains a
20:38
backlink the average domain authority on sites that we’re
securing coverage is 60 or
20:43
higher x percent of coverage that we secure contains the targeted
keyword phrase
20:50
insert targeted keyword phrase for seo it becomes less about did we
get
20:55
coverage and more about are we securing coverage that’s
helping you reach your objectives
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so then right same quarterly business report you march in
here’s my objectives pr is one of the levers that help you
21:06
reach that one yeah it’s always a disjointed thing that
you’ve accidentally devalued i don’t
21:12
know why i don’t have a budget for pr it’s like well
you’re acting as if your budget for pr doesn’t matter
right
21:18
and that’s the narrative and and if i like make magic happen i
would tell
21:24
i would tell ceos to stop measuring the roi friend stop trying to do
it
21:31
it is one of those areas of your spend that you can very rarely
attribute any direct
21:37
roi but if you get rid of it everything else suffers yeah
21:43
why are we why are we why are we trying to figure out the direct roi
of it
21:48
we know we have to do it and we know that a strong brand all things
considered equal is what wins
21:55
so stop trying to measure it so what’s this how do you get the
stop start though cause i think the real killer for you is the stop
start and what i mean by
22:02
that is like in pr i see it as a building blocks narrative that you
need to be really
22:08
consistent with over an extended period of time and if you plant
enough seeds eventually you’ll reap what you sell
22:13
right like kind of that mentality and what i find and this is very
like
22:20
true about indirect channels and marketing i found is any types of
change
22:25
internally with your client any type of market change any type of
financial instability any type of
22:32
anything they pause their indirect channels and then the second they
realize that
22:39
they’ve suffered from it they turn them back on and it’s
like this stop start kind of like thing that i know happens
22:46
to me like on content marketing so i’m sure it happens to you
on pr these are more indirect channels that people see
22:52
as a nice to have not a need to have yet every time they stop doing
them they’re like oh my god we need it so
22:58
how do you fight that narrative because i think that’s a
really big part of this and like how can we help marketers better
understand how to be consistent
23:05
through change and maybe not markets executives boards because you
know every time there’s a new cmo
23:10
it’s like stop start change sure and then the brand goes down
yeah
23:15
um i i will ask that question or answer that question with a
question
23:20
would you ever advise a client to just go dark on
23:26
social media because they’re they were cutting budget no
23:31
no never companies would never go silent
23:36
on social media so why would you ever if you again if you have a
well-oiled machine
23:42
why would you ever go silent on the pr front
23:47
those that are paying attention to you your competitors specifically
and potentially investors
23:53
they’ll notice and it’s not if you never had if you
didn’t have a pr
23:58
strategy to begin with and you’re silent anyway it’s
fine whatever uh but it it
24:04
matters and again it goes back to that like well it’s
we’re not attributing direct roi to
24:10
it well guess what you’re giving your competitors a chance to
do right is when they’re on the phone and
24:15
all things considered equal they’re gonna say yeah you know i
used to see them everywhere too they’ve gone quiet makes me
wonder
24:21
what’s up with them yeah no i think it’s such a
it’s such a good point and i
24:27
so let’s take this from the other way of like the negative
side to the positive who’s the best in sas at pr
24:33
let’s say you know non-client of yours who do you look at
you’re like dang i’m jealous like that’s
24:39
inspirational like those are the people i want to work with and what
makes them great in your mind yeah i would say
24:45
drift comes to mind immediately and i have a good contacts over
there trisha
24:51
gellman is a newer cmo and drift has done a phenomenal job
24:58
at alignment throughout the entire organization on
25:03
who drift is and what drift stands for that the experience no matter
what your
25:08
experience is if it’s a customer if it’s a partner if
you’re even speaking at a one on one of their webinars
25:14
the experience that you have from start to finish with a sdr
25:20
all the way through to a conversation with a ceo your experience is
the same
25:25
and they have also reflected that certainly externally but that is
a
25:30
cohesive message you talk about a strong narrative and pushing the
same like everyone there whether it’s true or like
25:39
genuine or not seems to drink the drift kool-aid they have internal
evangelists that when they are featured or when they
25:46
have a you know their ceo’s featured everyone shares it and
talks about it
25:51
and evangelizes it and that is part of what makes their brand one of
the best
25:56
brands and the strongest one out there and when you ask people who
do you want to emulate oh i’d love to be more like drift
26:02
love it right how do you measure though i guarantee that they are
not sitting in a board
26:08
meeting talking about how we’re measuring the strength of our
brand and all of our brand spend
26:13
because what are we going to do change it if we can’t
attribute a direct roi we just screw up the brand and try something
new
26:20
no because it’s working um so they they are definitely an
example that comes to mind um
26:26
that is not a client of ours no i love that i think now we have one
more piece of sour candy are you ready
26:32
yeah do i i’m gonna switch to a warhead now i will uh the
toxic waste was terrible and then
26:39
it got sweet and it was good i kept waiting for another wave of the
terribleness and it was okay
26:46
i’m not gonna do apple i do not like fake apple flavored
things i’m gonna go
26:51
with the warhead watermelon extreme sour side note for everyone who
tunes into
26:56
this show i’m allergic to melons so i know melon stuff wild
i’ve never known
27:02
someone who has been allergic to melon what do you mean what’s
in it what is it that what you’re allergic to oh no
27:09
i’m like not very good about that kind of stuff in my life i
already don’t like it i can’t hear it it’s
horrible i’m like
27:17
it’s not going so much worse oh no i know no
27:25
what’s a better thing and this is mostly clients you probably
don’t even work
27:30
with like pre-series a seed rounded companies building in public i
like to call bragging in public
27:36
um is there a better way to share our organizations than just doing
this
27:41
building and public thing that everybody seems to retweet yet as
you
27:47
grow as an executive you find yourself further and further from
those types of humans and you realize those types of
27:53
humans that you’re collecting and you’re building a
public are rarely the same ones you monetize or
27:58
the ones that fit your either internal hiring goals or your external
client goals
28:03
so i find this building a public thing to not actually be that wise
because i haven’t found
28:08
like the right clients or the right hires are motivated by that so
like what
28:13
can companies do instead am i missing something here am i crazy like
what’s your take on this building in public and uh how can we
maybe do it better or
28:19
different um i’m actually not familiar with the phrase
building in public okay um can
28:25
you unpack that a little bit more for me yeah so what people love to
do on social media especially founders is they’ll do
28:32
this like share their company so buffer for example kind of
pioneered
28:38
this so buffer will share like how much revenue they made this month
with the entire world they’ll be
28:46
sharing like this is our growth you know here’s some of the
struggles we’re encountering and they kind of like build
28:51
this very fake narrative that they’re 100 in control of of
their brand on social media and then
28:59
the goal is is that you see it and you’re inspired by it and
you want to join them or be a part of it it’s kind
29:06
of like an open it’s like opening up the book into your
organization like if barstool did it
29:13
around money instead of like creative talent in other words
barcelona’s doing
29:20
it because they’re a talent company that tries to make their
talent their content these people are doing it because they’re
trying to make their company
29:26
into like this inside view of it to like get well it’s a pr
strategy yeah
29:31
yeah it’s an interesting one and i get it the culture of
transparency and i’m
29:37
you know i’m i’m all for a love of transparency we
29:43
we share our financial health with our agents every quarter um
but
29:49
not we share enough so they understand um how we’re doing
29:55
uh but so i understand that the interesting thing is though when it
comes time for a funding announcement
30:01
uh they won’t share revenue so we’ll see you know
they’ll say okay
30:06
got series b whatever do you say we’re like okay cool um and
we know what
30:12
they don’t but oh well you know certainly editor will always
ask by the way they will always ask for uh revenue
30:18
they will always ask for evaluation uh you are not required to give
any of those uh you have a better chance of uh
30:25
story but then you get to that point like oh we’re not sharing
revenue like well [Music]
30:31
literally like a year ago though this is where you were so they
could probably do some backwards
30:37
math um but from a true startup standpoint we can
30:42
approach with a lot of startups yeah and we say no to most of them
and here’s
30:48
why i would say pr you are best served as a true startup investing
in
30:54
pr on a project basis to amplify your big moments so
31:00
if you have a new ceo that is well known or that even if
they’re not
31:06
well known your local press your trade press will will pick that up
um do project work around certainly a
31:14
funding announcement maybe a new product announcement to get some
firepower behind that it does not make sense for
31:22
you as a startup to invest long term in pr yet
31:28
if pr is going to be your largest marketing line item spend per
month you are not ready for pr
31:35
here’s why as the marketing lead as much as you might believe
in pr and
31:41
say brand brand brand trust me your ceo every 90 days will say
31:48
well how many leads has it brought us and you’re going to
say
31:54
well it looks like based on analytics it was three marketing
qualified leads you
32:00
will have this conversation every month if not every quarter and it
just doesn’t work it doesn’t and
32:05
it’s a six month engagement or whatever it is and and
we’re done um that money is much better spent long term
32:12
into demand i i always say if if what you need is leads which i will
question because do you need leads or do you need
32:19
customers you can go out and buy just really shitty leads but if
you’re looking for if you need more
32:24
leads don’t invest in pr if what you need is more qualified
leads
32:30
once they get to you through your other channels pr can certainly
assist with that i love
32:36
that no it’s such great nuance lindsay and this has been an
amazing time together for anyone who wants to learn more about what
you’re doing follow
32:42
along with your story um blast media what’s the best way for
them to do that uh you can hit me up on linkedin
32:49
or go to our website which is just blastmedia.com i also host a
podcast called sas half
32:56
full that is designed for b2b sas marketers so um give a list in
there if you’re interested in being a guest you
33:02
can hit me up there as well but this has been awesome it was not too
painful um they were both pretty terrible i
33:09
would say the toxic waste was the worst it is and i’ve just
had my second one it
33:14
is just getting worse yeah it was bad lizzie you made it through the
show sour
33:20
that’s an episode thank you so much everybody and see you next
week
33:25
[Music]
View
Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:10
yes [Music]
0:23
hello everybody and welcome to another
episode of sour and sass i am very
0:28
excited today to be joined by lindsey
groper president of blast media welcome
to the show hey garrett excited to
be
0:35
here thanks for having me well thank you
and now before we just dive into it i
think
0:42
maybe we should set the stage a little
bit with your perspective on pr and then
we can get
0:49
very specific but i think at a high
level i’ve had the blessing of
working with many marketers who
sometimes think that
0:55
press releases and letting decision or i
don’t even know how to say their
name is
1:01
that’s decision is that right or
you got it okay yeah they’re like
you know we just did press releases on
incision and
1:07
you know we just kind of do press
releases are press releases even a
viable part of
1:13
pr and like at a high level what is prdu
for bdb sas yeah thank you for asking
the question
1:20
it’s interesting because pr to me
is perception relations and pr has a
perception problem in and
1:27
of itself in that most still today most
marketers and ceos still think of
1:34
pr as press releases and as strictly a
news driven function
1:40
and that is a it’s an old-school
and lazy way to think about pr
1:46
pr’s biggest value is right or
wrong it can be a perception equalizer
so if your
1:52
brand can’t compete with larger
competitors on logos or marketing
budget
1:58
alone pr can create a feeling it can
enhance
2:03
credibility and trust it can be an
equalizer and so in that in that vein it
is not a press release
2:10
driven strategy um there is part of a pr
strategy that involves press releases
of
2:15
course but it’s so much more than
that and any agency that tells you well
we didn’t
2:22
have we didn’t have much coverage
this month because you guys didn’t
have a lot of talk about like
that’s and
2:28
that’s lazy and you should
certainly be expecting more yeah because
i think the goal right of the pr
2:34
organization is they need to help
companies that don’t know how to
tell their story to
2:40
their specific audience to create one
and i think the press release is kind of
the final check mark or let’s say
the
2:46
checklist is did we do the press release
but the truth is right it’s like
it’s not like journalists are like
oh my god
2:51
i wonder what’s coming in hot on
the press release today like right like
i mean at the end of the day it’s
a relationship driven
2:57
industry where you need to partner with
a pr shop that has good relationships
with the channels and mediums you
want
3:03
coverage on it’s not like i can
like i know this right i can’t
just go tell everyone directive lands in
victi and
3:10
then all of a sudden ad week’s
gonna put me on the cover right
it’s not really how it works
correct
3:16
you’re right in relationships do
matter i will say that they matter
3:21
not as much as they used to when we
started blast media 16 years ago
3:27
there was a lot of in-person meetings
newsrooms were fairly large there
wasn’t
3:33
a lot of attrition and newsrooms look
fundamentally different today but even
your best relationships
3:40
only take you so far so despite our
people having a great relationship
3:45
with the wall street journal with
techcrunch if we don’t bring them
something interesting and know how to
formulate a story that tells the why
3:52
behind the what of the news those best
relationships aren’t going to do
you a solid and write a story
that’s
3:58
meaningless or has no value to their
audience so it the relationship
helps
4:03
but you also have to understand what i
believe is they lost art of storytelling
in order to get those stories told
4:10
yeah no i’m right there with you
now let’s get a little deeper
though
4:16
okay there’s two concepts i think
are really really broken right now in
the startup ecosystem um and the first
one
4:22
though is this concept that pr is
telling people about the money you
4:27
raised so um i know it’s like i
just as a marketer i
4:33
absolutely hate the concept that like
your blog or your website is like we
just raised a series c from sequoia
and
4:40
that is somehow something your customer
gives a crap about so like like why
where is this obsession with
4:47
talking about money in sas when i
guarantee your customer is
4:52
not like oh goody like you know what i
mean like what is up with that weird
angle that i just constantly see
going
4:59
on right now yeah for the life of a a
scale-up or a startup funding is a
it’s a big deal for
5:06
them they’ve worked very hard they
it’s validation it it matters it
matters
5:13
certainly more to them internally than
it does externally um and that’s
oftentimes regardless of the
5:18
announcement the biggest mistake that
companies often make is assuming people
care about you they don’t
5:25
and you have to give them a reason to so
it it my opinion is funding
announcements really help get in
front
5:31
of additional investors for the next
funding announcement it’s all
about the money right so take another
angle though is my
5:38
question like my honest question is
there another angle to take with funding
announcements that could maybe drive
customer value because i get why they
do
5:44
it you get easy coverage tech crunch is
going to pick you up every time alex
whatever his name is going to write
about you like you’re going to get
your
5:50
like the quick hits right but what about
the fact that like is there a
5:55
way to parlay this into something
that’s less me me me brag brad
because i think it’s
6:00
such a like like how do you think they
could do i know why we have to do it
what’s the better way to do it in
your mind yeah
6:07
so if we’re if we’re just
looking at a funding announcement you
have to look at who they’re trying
to influence
6:13
investors is certainly one to your point
customers not so much i mean it
might
6:18
feel good like oh look the vendor that i
work with is gaining momentum cool but
the other thing where the other two
6:24
audiences where funding announcements
can’t add value is on the employee
side and that’s both creating
goodwill
6:31
amongst current team members as well as
on the talent acquisition side um
you’ll often times that funding it
will say it
6:38
is going towards uh hiring and so that
is something good for potential talents
to
6:43
see as well as potential partners who
may not who may we’re on the fence
of is
6:48
this going to be a good partner for us
or not or maybe we’re like well
they say they’re going to pour
more money into development so that we
can have this
6:55
integration not sure and then the
funding is the way way forward with that
so there are other
7:00
audiences that sas marketers take into
consideration or should be taking into
consideration uh
7:07
when it comes to that a pr strategy
specifically around funding but one
thing i will caution is the
7:13
funding is the what and journalists are
getting literally dozens
7:19
of what’s a day the what is the
number you raise money who cares
7:25
it truly unless you have a well-known
investor or individual that’s
behind it that carries weight in and
of
7:31
itself sometimes that’s the story
um or if you know we have a client that
andreessen invested in their seed
and
7:39
series a which they never do and it was
a three-time investor that’s a
story too um the
7:45
it’s figuring out the who cares
behind the funding that’s going to
get us an actual story that matters
7:51
so has there been a lot of money poured
into the category recently has there
7:56
been a category leader that filed for
ipo what does it mean for the future is
there is it challenging the current
8:03
definition of a category um if the
company’s looking to move into a
different category so a lot of
different
8:08
things to consider but the the number
and the fact that you raised is the what
and no one really cares about the
what
8:15
you have to dive in to figure out the
why to get a meaningful story along with
that yeah it needs an angle right so
now
8:23
okay it is sour and sass are you ready
i’m ready all right although i
just before we
8:28
hopped on i watched the episode you did
with drew beachler the head of marketing
at high alpha
8:34
adventure studio his wife works with us
and he i kept fast forwarding through
waiting
8:39
for some reaction it was very personal i
liked it i’m being serious
8:45
like that guy loves his sources do i
start with the warheads i’m going
toxic waste oh because i think
8:51
all my warheads melted i left them out
like too close to my window would i be
starting with a toxic waste yeah go
for
8:56
it okay they’re all equally bad
and here’s the thing lindsey the
first one is okay it’s
9:03
shocking but it’s okay the second
one just builds on it and that’s
when it gets nasty is it it’s that
second one
9:08
well and i asked jared if i was like
cursing it tends to be my natural
reaction to stuff and he was like i
mean
9:14
if if it comes out but like let’s
be mindful of it so i’m getting
mindful of it as we’re talking and
i’m eating this
9:19
i realized i already said uh bs once so
oh it’s terrible
9:24
oh gosh you do this all the time
how’s it so bad for you i hate
sour candy i don’t eat
9:30
probably i just did this because it
sounded good i didn’t really think
through that i was
9:36
gonna be doing this every day i’m
like on my 60th episode i like sour
candy
9:42
okay i’m back i’m good um oh
god what’s your take on books
9:49
say that again books like what’s
your take on books i think books might
be the best form of pr
9:55
because when i’m going through all
the companies that are constantly in the
media and have this narrative whether
it’s on
10:01
twitter or linkedin like they’re
they have a story that is consistent
story i try to unpack like what i call
like
10:08
let’s say foundational pieces and
if you look at all the people that have
narratives
10:14
they also all have books yeah i mean
like ray dalio if you’re an
10:19
investment he’s always got someone
covering him he wrote principles if
you’re in bootstrap sas
they’re always
10:25
covering base camp they wrote books if
you’re in high growth sas
10:31
people talk about drift they wrote books
i mean in general it seems to me that
books
10:36
and pr story narrative coverage are like
one and the same what’s your take
on that yeah books is just another form
of
10:43
thought leadership and it always has
been but we have i mean i feel like
everyone is writing a
10:49
book now no no matter your title
there’s people working on books
and so we have many
10:55
clients who release books while
we’re working together and are we
book publicists we’re not um will
we schedule
11:03
book tours not our sweet spot however
typically that book
11:08
is a long version of what we’ve
been pitching and how we’ve been
positioning this individual as a thought
leader and
11:15
so we’re able to use the book as
another way to point back towards those
thought leadership pillars and pull out
specific
11:23
sections of the book or paragraphs or
quotes within the book and leverage
those and use those in other ways
it’s
11:29
just another form of thought leadership
um and we have so many clients writing
books
11:35
that is insane um have you seen the book
concept slightly comical lindsay i can
tell so let’s let’s pull
11:41
apart what’s the difference in a
book that works on book that
doesn’t in your mind oh gosh you
know what i’m saying because
11:47
i i can sense a little bit of you being
like yeah it’s great thanks honey
great great job on that book
11:54
like what does it have to be to matter
let’s assume let’s assume it
is uh if we’re comparing
12:02
authors that no one’s ever heard
of okay yes right so there’s many
of them yeah uh
12:08
certainly who you were before the book
came out if
12:14
you are an evangelist in something and
tend to have people who view you as an
influencer and
12:21
this isn’t like you know jay leno
on the street you ask 100 people
they’re all going to say never
heard that person i’m not talking
that level of influence but
12:27
within a category or it could be ai ops
for example
12:34
something highly specific and
exhilarating super sexy love aiops
12:40
but if you build the community already
that was influencer
12:46
your book will likely do well because
those people want more of you if you
are
12:52
a cmo at a random sas company that
hasn’t really been an evangelist
of a
12:58
specific problem or you know position as
a thought leader it’s it’s
not going to do as well
13:04
because people don’t have already
connection with you and don’t want
more of what you have to say
13:09
let’s unpack that because i i i
completely agree with you and i think
it’s like chicken of the egg
concept that i struggle with in pr which
is
13:16
you need people to already care about
you for pr to work yet without people
caring about you you kind of need pr
13:22
sure and so it’s like this like in
other words like i’m sure when you
worked with moz like i know you work
with moz
13:27
working with moz is like probably the
world’s easiest thing in the world
because you just have rand be rant
compared to trying to do the same
thing
13:34
for sem rush right like that isn’t
gonna work the same like you can do a
story for moz get it picked up because
you
13:40
have a narrative you have distribution
you’ve got rand fishkin to tweet
it and it gets a hundred retweets
13:46
it works all of a sudden everything rand
does for pr works doing pr for drift
works because if dave gerhart tweets
13:52
something it does well in petsu but he
has a community so if you’re
trying to be a sas company and
13:58
you want to get a buzz you want to be
the next fast or the next whatever
right
14:05
like there’s some companies that
are just good at the game of buzz do you
start to do the content first or
14:12
do you build the audience first like how
do you go about getting from no one
caring about you
14:18
to someone caring about you as a sas
company in your mind yeah and and
i’ll i’ll answer this in
the
14:23
context of my world so i’ll answer
in the context of pr because
there’s a lot of other
14:29
ways to address that that are outside of
of our discipline the interesting thing
with
14:35
pr and when i look at across our client
base and again our client base just for
the sake of any
14:40
example i give all b2b sas company of
various sizes we have well-funded series
a companies all the way up to
publicly
14:47
traded everything in between and moz is
a perfect example uh moz when we
14:54
when we started working with moz a few
years ago rand had just exited sarah
byrd new ceo in
15:00
uh sarah wasn’t known as a thought
leader but moz was already the the
category leader so
15:07
we had the brand weight behind it and so
that works but what we’ve
typically found is for
15:12
our clients that don’t have high
brand recognition and where their
primary spokes people
15:17
haven’t been very vocal
we’ve never had an issue
15:23
building thought leadership for their
spokespeople in the press and i will go
back to that being able to tell
15:30
a story and find something interesting
if you’re able to work with a
a
15:35
spokesperson that’s willing to go
against the grain and say something bold
and different you will have much
higher
15:42
success rate where we don’t have a
high success rate is when there’s
they’re very risk-averse
15:49
and they are not willing to and
i’m not even saying be highly
controversial or attach ourselves to new
highly charged
15:56
topics but you know in a world where
everyone is praising you know maybe
it’s
16:03
bi tools and everybody loves tableau is
how can we go in and say why companies
should
16:09
abandon traditional bi as we know it and
you tend to refute that in the piece
itself or in the conversation
16:16
but you have to be willing to get out
there and say something bold and
we’ve successfully successfully
had you know client quotes as part of
trend stories
16:23
alongside these huge brands and compared
to them they have very low brand
awareness but we’re able to
offer
16:29
interesting and different perspective um
so there’s not a there’s not
a right or wrong time to start you just
have to
16:35
start and understand with whether
that’s an internal comms person or
using an agency
16:42
what are what’s your perspective
what are you willing to talk about what
are the national narratives that are
happening with or without you that
16:48
you’re comfortable attaching
yourself to and how you’re going
to add value to that conversation and
you can start to
16:53
build from there you can start in the
trade press well trade press wants to
hear from everyone trust me um
17:00
garrett i’m sure you’ve been
reading ad age or ad week or wherever
you get your news the drum and you will
see a
17:06
quote from someone or a contributed
piece and you’re like who the hell
is that
17:12
or you’re like you look up their
agency on linkedin you’re like
it’s a 10 person agency
17:17
with no clients i’ve ever heard of
like how are they being featured in this
because somebody took the time to
pitch
17:24
them and offer something interesting to
say yep no i love that experience
17:30
no of all the time i mean it’s you
know it’s like it’s like you
i mean i did this like so i used to
pitch 15 horrors
17:36
a day when i started directive there you
go i wouldn’t work everything it
was like
17:42
it was like what are the ways to fix a
bad table i was like have pennies i mean
i was i was quoted everywhere and
17:48
anywhere just because i was trying to
build our authority i wanted to rank and
it worked right number one for seo
17:53
agency and at the time it was a big
driver of our growth so
17:59
i’m a big fan of it for a lot of
different reasons i think the part i
struggle with and i know this has got
to
18:04
be the bane of your existence is how do
we tie it back to revenue in your mind
like how are you telling that
18:11
narrative to your clients because i
think a lot of marketers are like yeah
lindsay i got to tell my story
you’re right i should create buzz
you’re right
18:17
i should be more active you’re
right i shouldn’t just go with the
grain if i want people to care about me
i have to have bold opinions i’m a
little scared
18:23
but i agree all that’s great
though but at the end of the day how do
i tie back me getting quoted in
18:29
adweek or me getting quoted in
techcrunch to pipeline to
18:34
the things i’m being held
accountable to as a cmo right
what’s that narrative that you
help you know i think your
18:40
clients tell the board themselves and
others to get funding and to keep
funding good pr
18:46
so i’ll start by reiterating a
quote that i love which is scaling
revenue wins
18:52
quarters and strong brands win
categories one one can’t exist
without the other
18:58
there is no bottom of the funnel without
the top there is no top without the
bottom the funnel wouldn’t
exist
19:03
what we do and this is just what we do i
mean it is cracks me up because
it’s
19:09
very obvious and please other people can
steal us if they want um here’s
what traditionally happens
19:15
so cmo goes into their quarterly
business report they say here
19:20
for all our marketing objectives for the
quarter here’s all the levers that
we pulled to meet them this is good job
and they say oh yeah
19:27
and look we also got press coverage
that’s literally what happens
there’s like this little cliff
note there and
19:33
also uh also we’re featured in
this great i was on three podcasts and
they were like okay right and then
you’re
19:39
like cool super um what we do is at the
beginning of our
19:44
relationships and then subsequently each
quarter if they change is we say what
are
19:50
cmo your quarterly marketing objectives
on which you’re you’re being
measured they say here they are
19:56
awesome we work off of okr framework so
objectives and key results where the
objective is the
20:03
client marketing objective and then we
build pr krs underneath that
20:10
so for and what why we do this is to
help our cmo tie our work to
20:17
business results so if for example they
say well one of my goals is to
20:24
increase organic traffic by 20 maybe
that’s one
20:30
the krs under that for pr would sound
like at least 50 of all coverage
contains a
20:38
backlink the average domain authority on
sites that we’re securing coverage
is 60 or
20:43
higher x percent of coverage that we
secure contains the targeted keyword
phrase
20:50
insert targeted keyword phrase for seo
it becomes less about did we get
20:55
coverage and more about are we securing
coverage that’s helping you reach
your objectives
21:00
so then right same quarterly business
report you march in here’s my
objectives pr is one of the levers that
help you
21:06
reach that one yeah it’s always a
disjointed thing that you’ve
accidentally devalued i don’t
21:12
know why i don’t have a budget for
pr it’s like well you’re
acting as if your budget for pr
doesn’t matter right
21:18
and that’s the narrative and and
if i like make magic happen i would
tell
21:24
i would tell ceos to stop measuring the
roi friend stop trying to do it
21:31
it is one of those areas of your spend
that you can very rarely attribute any
direct
21:37
roi but if you get rid of it everything
else suffers yeah
21:43
why are we why are we why are we trying
to figure out the direct roi of it
21:48
we know we have to do it and we know
that a strong brand all things
considered equal is what wins
21:55
so stop trying to measure it so
what’s this how do you get the
stop start though cause i think the real
killer for you is the stop start and
what i mean by
22:02
that is like in pr i see it as a
building blocks narrative that you need
to be really
22:08
consistent with over an extended period
of time and if you plant enough seeds
eventually you’ll reap what you
sell
22:13
right like kind of that mentality and
what i find and this is very like
22:20
true about indirect channels and
marketing i found is any types of
change
22:25
internally with your client any type of
market change any type of financial
instability any type of
22:32
anything they pause their indirect
channels and then the second they
realize that
22:39
they’ve suffered from it they turn
them back on and it’s like this
stop start kind of like thing that i
know happens
22:46
to me like on content marketing so
i’m sure it happens to you on pr
these are more indirect channels that
people see
22:52
as a nice to have not a need to have yet
every time they stop doing them
they’re like oh my god we need it
so
22:58
how do you fight that narrative because
i think that’s a really big part
of this and like how can we help
marketers better understand how to be
consistent
23:05
through change and maybe not markets
executives boards because you know every
time there’s a new cmo
23:10
it’s like stop start change sure
and then the brand goes down yeah
23:15
um i i will ask that question or answer
that question with a question
23:20
would you ever advise a client to just
go dark on
23:26
social media because they’re they
were cutting budget no
23:31
no never companies would never go
silent
23:36
on social media so why would you ever if
you again if you have a well-oiled
machine
23:42
why would you ever go silent on the pr
front
23:47
those that are paying attention to you
your competitors specifically and
potentially investors
23:53
they’ll notice and it’s not
if you never had if you didn’t
have a pr
23:58
strategy to begin with and you’re
silent anyway it’s fine whatever
uh but it it
24:04
matters and again it goes back to that
like well it’s we’re not
attributing direct roi to
24:10
it well guess what you’re giving
your competitors a chance to do right is
when they’re on the phone and
24:15
all things considered equal
they’re gonna say yeah you know i
used to see them everywhere too
they’ve gone quiet makes me
wonder
24:21
what’s up with them yeah no i
think it’s such a it’s such
a good point and i
24:27
so let’s take this from the other
way of like the negative side to the
positive who’s the best in sas at
pr
24:33
let’s say you know non-client of
yours who do you look at you’re
like dang i’m jealous like
that’s
24:39
inspirational like those are the people
i want to work with and what makes them
great in your mind yeah i would say
24:45
drift comes to mind immediately and i
have a good contacts over there
trisha
24:51
gellman is a newer cmo and drift has
done a phenomenal job
24:58
at alignment throughout the entire
organization on
25:03
who drift is and what drift stands for
that the experience no matter what
your
25:08
experience is if it’s a customer
if it’s a partner if you’re
even speaking at a one on one of their
webinars
25:14
the experience that you have from start
to finish with a sdr
25:20
all the way through to a conversation
with a ceo your experience is the
same
25:25
and they have also reflected that
certainly externally but that is a
25:30
cohesive message you talk about a strong
narrative and pushing the same like
everyone there whether it’s true
or like
25:39
genuine or not seems to drink the drift
kool-aid they have internal evangelists
that when they are featured or when
they
25:46
have a you know their ceo’s
featured everyone shares it and talks
about it
25:51
and evangelizes it and that is part of
what makes their brand one of the
best
25:56
brands and the strongest one out there
and when you ask people who do you want
to emulate oh i’d love to be more
like drift
26:02
love it right how do you measure though
i guarantee that they are not sitting in
a board
26:08
meeting talking about how we’re
measuring the strength of our brand and
all of our brand spend
26:13
because what are we going to do change
it if we can’t attribute a direct
roi we just screw up the brand and try
something new
26:20
no because it’s working um so they
they are definitely an example that
comes to mind um
26:26
that is not a client of ours no i love
that i think now we have one more piece
of sour candy are you ready
26:32
yeah do i i’m gonna switch to a
warhead now i will uh the toxic waste
was terrible and then
26:39
it got sweet and it was good i kept
waiting for another wave of the
terribleness and it was okay
26:46
i’m not gonna do apple i do not
like fake apple flavored things
i’m gonna go
26:51
with the warhead watermelon extreme sour
side note for everyone who tunes
into
26:56
this show i’m allergic to melons
so i know melon stuff wild i’ve
never known
27:02
someone who has been allergic to melon
what do you mean what’s in it what
is it that what you’re allergic to
oh no
27:09
i’m like not very good about that
kind of stuff in my life i already
don’t like it i can’t hear
it it’s horrible i’m
like
27:17
it’s not going so much worse oh no
i know no
27:25
what’s a better thing and this is
mostly clients you probably don’t
even work
27:30
with like pre-series a seed rounded
companies building in public i like to
call bragging in public
27:36
um is there a better way to share our
organizations than just doing this
27:41
building and public thing that everybody
seems to retweet yet as you
27:47
grow as an executive you find yourself
further and further from those types of
humans and you realize those types
of
27:53
humans that you’re collecting and
you’re building a public are
rarely the same ones you monetize or
27:58
the ones that fit your either internal
hiring goals or your external client
goals
28:03
so i find this building a public thing
to not actually be that wise because i
haven’t found
28:08
like the right clients or the right
hires are motivated by that so like
what
28:13
can companies do instead am i missing
something here am i crazy like
what’s your take on this building
in public and uh how can we maybe do it
better or
28:19
different um i’m actually not
familiar with the phrase building in
public okay um can
28:25
you unpack that a little bit more for me
yeah so what people love to do on social
media especially founders is
they’ll do
28:32
this like share their company so buffer
for example kind of pioneered
28:38
this so buffer will share like how much
revenue they made this month with the
entire world they’ll be
28:46
sharing like this is our growth you know
here’s some of the struggles
we’re encountering and they kind
of like build
28:51
this very fake narrative that
they’re 100 in control of of their
brand on social media and then
28:59
the goal is is that you see it and
you’re inspired by it and you want
to join them or be a part of it
it’s kind
29:06
of like an open it’s like opening
up the book into your organization like
if barstool did it
29:13
around money instead of like creative
talent in other words barcelona’s
doing
29:20
it because they’re a talent
company that tries to make their talent
their content these people are doing it
because they’re trying to make
their company
29:26
into like this inside view of it to like
get well it’s a pr strategy
yeah
29:31
yeah it’s an interesting one and i
get it the culture of transparency and
i’m
29:37
you know i’m i’m all for a
love of transparency we
29:43
we share our financial health with our
agents every quarter um but
29:49
not we share enough so they understand
um how we’re doing
29:55
uh but so i understand that the
interesting thing is though when it
comes time for a funding
announcement
30:01
uh they won’t share revenue so
we’ll see you know they’ll
say okay
30:06
got series b whatever do you say
we’re like okay cool um and we
know what
30:12
they don’t but oh well you know
certainly editor will always ask by the
way they will always ask for uh
revenue
30:18
they will always ask for evaluation uh
you are not required to give any of
those uh you have a better chance of
uh
30:25
story but then you get to that point
like oh we’re not sharing revenue
like well [Music]
30:31
literally like a year ago though this is
where you were so they could probably do
some backwards
30:37
math um but from a true startup
standpoint we can
30:42
approach with a lot of startups yeah and
we say no to most of them and
here’s
30:48
why i would say pr you are best served
as a true startup investing in
30:54
pr on a project basis to amplify your
big moments so
31:00
if you have a new ceo that is well known
or that even if they’re not
31:06
well known your local press your trade
press will will pick that up um do
project work around certainly a
31:14
funding announcement maybe a new product
announcement to get some firepower
behind that it does not make sense
for
31:22
you as a startup to invest long term in
pr yet
31:28
if pr is going to be your largest
marketing line item spend per month you
are not ready for pr
31:35
here’s why as the marketing lead
as much as you might believe in pr
and
31:41
say brand brand brand trust me your ceo
every 90 days will say
31:48
well how many leads has it brought us
and you’re going to say
31:54
well it looks like based on analytics it
was three marketing qualified leads
you
32:00
will have this conversation every month
if not every quarter and it just
doesn’t work it doesn’t
and
32:05
it’s a six month engagement or
whatever it is and and we’re done
um that money is much better spent long
term
32:12
into demand i i always say if if what
you need is leads which i will question
because do you need leads or do you
need
32:19
customers you can go out and buy just
really shitty leads but if you’re
looking for if you need more
32:24
leads don’t invest in pr if what
you need is more qualified leads
32:30
once they get to you through your other
channels pr can certainly assist with
that i love
32:36
that no it’s such great nuance
lindsay and this has been an amazing
time together for anyone who wants to
learn more about what you’re doing
follow
32:42
along with your story um blast media
what’s the best way for them to do
that uh you can hit me up on
linkedin
32:49
or go to our website which is just
blastmedia.com i also host a podcast
called sas half
32:56
full that is designed for b2b sas
marketers so um give a list in there if
you’re interested in being a guest
you
33:02
can hit me up there as well but this has
been awesome it was not too painful um
they were both pretty terrible i
33:09
would say the toxic waste was the worst
it is and i’ve just had my second
one it
33:14
is just getting worse yeah it was bad
lizzie you made it through the show
sour
33:20
that’s an episode thank you so
much everybody and see you next week
33:25
[Music]