Sarah Evans

A real pleasure for me to welcome Sarah Evans to Intrepid Radio! Sarah, a PR and social marketing strategist, runs Sevans Strategies and blogs here.

Sarah joined me today to promote a social marketing and PR boot camp she is conducting in Atlanta next week. You can learn more about the boot camp here, and a quick shout out to Stefany Sanders of Jackson Spalding, who helped arrange this interview, and is sponsoring the event.

In addition to talking about her boot camp, Sarah and I had an enlightening conversation about how social media has impacted the practice of PR, the common mistakes organizations make when conducting social media and PR campaigns, how organizations should ramp up a social media program, and some things for small business people to think about with regards to their own PR efforts.

It was an educational 20 minutes. Enjoy!

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I host the Intrepid Radio podcast. Just the other day, I submitted a query to HARO to identify some fun and clever business authors to feature on the show.

As of this writing, I have received 126 responses. And as you can imagine, the responses have run the gamit from wow to are you frickin’ kidding me?

[Editor's Note: Help A Reporter, or HARO, is an amazing resource by which a journalist, or a podcaster in my case, can submit a query to HARO and in return, hear from people willing to serve as source material for a story, book, podcast, etc. I'd also recommend scanning the thrice daily free emails from HARO, and forward source opportunities to your clients, friends, etc.]

I figure there are some lessons to be learned from these responses. So here goes. Here are the five ways I classify them (I trust a professional public relations expert can add some valuable insights into these responses):

1. The “But Wait, There’s More!” Pitch I am not making this up. Someone spent more time pitching me about becoming an affiliate to make money on selling their self-published book. Seriously. They spent more time pitching the affiliate program than the message, theme, and value of the book itself. Honestly, I still don’t know what the book is about. I was trying to close my open mouth. It is fair to say this pitch left me cold…

2. The “Cut and Paste” Pitch OK, so they didn’t try to make me an affiliate, but when you cut and paste my name, radio show, and query content into preexisting response message, it doesn’t leave me motivated to invest time and energy. And what a shame, because there are some interesting book topics worth exploring here. A little extra effort, and you could interest a lot of people in your message. But “Insert Name Here” doesn’t do a lot for me either…

3. The “Standard, Professional (But Kinda Boring)” Pitch You can tell there are many PR professionals that spend a lot of time scanning, monitoring, and responding to HARO queries. Many professionally-crafted, well-constructed, and error-free responses sent to me. And I will reach out to many of them. But, I will be honest, this feels a little boring. But, hey, you are just doing your job. But it feels like you are just churning through a “to do” list…

4. The “Moved To The Front Of The Line” Pitch These people went around the standard HARO response protocols (there is a link provided by HARO where you can respond to the request). In this case, they observed that I was the host of Intrepid Radio, and went to Google to find me and learn more about me and the show. And sent me an personalized email instead. As for me? These responses went into the immediate action folder on Gmail for the radio show, instead of the HARO action folder, which I will get to later. It took a little extra time for those people to send me a personalized email, separate from HARO, a little extra time to learn about me and what I am doing with my podcast. Those emails were treated differently than the standard HARO responses…

5. The “Holy Crap, You Are Being Called First” Pitch Then, you’ve got the responder who not only responded to the query, but they also “liked” us on Facebook, and tweeted out the link to the Intrepid Radio show page. Talk about going beyond others. This person took real time, really cared, demonstrated (at least to me) how important this interaction between their client and being on this podcast means. That, I will be honest, motivated me. I will be contacting them first…

Let these response styles be a lesson for ALL of us (me included). A little extra effort in reaching out to your target can make dramatic difference, especially in this day and age. Let’s be honest, in this case study, it didn’t take much to stand out to this little podcaster…

And hey, let me be the first to say. I admire the folks — all of them — who took the time to monitor HARO and look for opportunities to promote their work, or that of their clients. Many people aren’t taking that step.

But “phoning it in” or coming up with a process to automate by cutting and pasting…just seems like wasted effort. Don’t do that. Maybe you can respond to more queries by automating a process. But I think we would all agree you are better off responding to fewer queries, but making a more careful and thoughtful effort to pitch your intended subject.

And yes, this concept can be applied to more than HARO pitches…

What do you think? Anything to add?

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[cartoon by hugh macleod]

We want you to be Intrepid marketers.

There are lots of ways to accomplish that: bold messaging, aggressive PR, and great integration of multiple marketing tactics just to name a few.

But where you can really stand out is in giving back.  And what I mean by that is in giving back to your local community, either by volunteering, fund-raising, sponsoring, etc.  Sadly, what I can promise is that a majority of businesses out there aren’t doing this, so what an amazing opportunity to differentiate yourself!

PR, or public relations, can be a big part of your overall marketing strategy.  This, of course, can come in many different forms.  You can get great exposure in local media for your charitable efforts, and have it become a large part of your branding.  A good example of this would be the NFL’s affiliation with the United Way.

And on a smaller scale, exposing yourself to a whole different network of people can connect you to a whole new group of potential customers – prospects who DON’T have to be sold on you as a good person/company by virtue of your volunteer activities.  And even if your charitable efforts won’t yield prospects, just think of the positive impact this will have on your branding!

At Intrepid, our vehicle to serve the community is the Furniture Bank of Metro Atlanta.  This organization collects donated household furniture and gives to families and individuals who just came out of homelessness, are suffering from HIV, or are fleeing domestic violence.  And as with any nonprofit organization, they need help with fundraising, public relations, community outreach, etc.  These are the areas where I hope I can make a contribution.  It is a a real honor for me to serve this organization on the Board of Directors.  (if interested in helping us out, please visit http://www.furniturebankatlanta.org/)

As an entrepreneur in this tricky economic environment, you need to be bold in your marketing just to survive.  And you need an edge to stand out against your competition.  Giving back provides an opportunity to do just that – and to do some good and help a lot of people!

With the severe economic distress we are facing, there are a lot of people in need.  At the end of the day, what really matters is making the world a better place.  To all you business leaders already doing this, bless you!  To all of you considering such an honorable undertaking, congrats to you.  The dividends are countless!

Todd Schnick.  Be Intrepid.  www.intrepid-llc.com