How Small Brands Win Big With Traditional Media with Mickie Kennedy

Looking for proof that traditional media still moves the needle? We go straight to the source with Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, to unpack how press releases win coverage in a world where TikTok clips sit beside front-page headlines. Mickie shares the inside mechanics of newswires, why bloggers and influencers now receive journalist-level access, and how small brands can punch above their weight without burning their budgets.

We break down the anatomy of a high-performing press release: a sharp headline, a tight 500-word body, a quote that actually says something, and links that carry specs and visuals without clogging the story. Mickie explains why the best product announcements include a simple use case with outcomes and data, how to elevate your narrative with credible industry stats, and when to route technical details to a clean landing page. If press releases feel mysterious or outdated, this conversation resets the frame: journalists still fish in two main ponds, and your job is to show up with bait they can use.

We also dig into process. Learn how to build a small, local media Rolodex and become the expert reporters call on deadline. Get a step-by-step approach to using AI as a drafting assistant—structure first, iterate paragraph by paragraph, and spend extra time on quotes and headlines. Then steal Mickie's most reliable tactic: an industry survey release that consistently produces multiple articles and valuable backlinks. The payoff is real: earned media drives credibility, lifts conversions, and reduces churn when you share placements with leads and customers.

Ready to turn attention into trust? Listen now, subscribe for more smart strategies, and leave a review to tell us which outlet you want to land next.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:33 Pandemic Pivot To Podcast Guesting
• 3:10 Is Traditional Media Still Relevant
• 4:20 Newswires, Bloggers, And Influencers
• 7:30 E‑Releases Partnership And Pricing Breakthrough
• 10:05 Media Feels Out Of Reach For Small Business
• 11:39 Building A Local Media Rolodex
• 15:10 Canada, U.S., And International Distribution
• 17:05 What A Press Release Actually Is
• 18:40 Writing Tips That Journalists Respect
• 21:00 Too Little Vs Too Much Detail
• 22:05 Using AI To Draft Press Releases
• 26:10 Survey Releases And Repeatable Wins
• 29:20 Campaign Mindset And Free Masterclass
• 32:10 Small Is A PR Superpower
• 33:52 Closing And Listener Invitations

Transcript

Carl: 0:04

Welcome to Communication Connection Community, the Podcasters Podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern-day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news, updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. Let's dive into today's episode. And my guest today is Mickie Kennedy, an expert at helping small businesses, authors, and startups increase their visibility and credibility through tier one press release distribution. Mickie founded e-Releases 25 plus years ago. After realizing that small businesses desperately need a press release service, they can actually afford giving them access to the media and to a national newswire, all with a personal touch. Mickie lives in Baltimore County with his family and two feuding cats. He enjoys British science fiction. Ooh, cool. And acknowledges an unhealthy addiction to diet soda. Okay, we won't go down that road. And he's also a sought-after podcast guest, and we're so glad we're talking to him today. We eat, sleep, and breathe, similar things. I'm glad he's here today. Mickie, welcome to the podcast.

Mickie: 1:30

Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Carl: 1:32

So podcasting. We're talking about conventional media today because sometimes we forget that conventional media is still relevant in 2024 at the recording of this interview. What brought you to podcasting? What brought you to this space to talk about conventional media?

Mickie: 1:48

Loneliness. It was during the pandemic. I was looking for something to do that would involve me taking advantage of Zoom and the fact that so many people were stuck at home. And someone had suggested, hey, you should consider doing podcasts. And I was like, oh, I've never really done many of those. I've I've been asked to do a couple before that. So I sort of jumped into that and loved the ability to just talk to another human being at a time where I felt so socially isolated. And uh, you know, we were sent home for two weeks to flatten the curve, and we know that that turned into a lot more. And I think a lot of people were stuck at home. And for me, it was uh mostly a social outlet.

Carl: 2:28

Well, and it's certainly, I think, as you said, was that for a lot of people, it was also an opportunity for people to not knee-jerk react, but uh pivot. It was an opportunity for people to pivot if for no other reason they had to. They had to pivot in their businesses and do something different. And a podcast certainly, whether it be as a guest or whether it be as a host, certainly made sense. Obviously, you dove into the guesting seat, which is phenomenal. It's a great place. I always say, as a guy who runs a podcasting agency, if you don't want to hold your own show, at least go get on some because it's an opportunity to get the word out there, elevate your credibility, build your brand, build your business in a platform that's still rapidly expanding. So I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're a sought-after guest. It's not only providing companionship, but your messaging within this space, I think is so very relevant because I don't know how you feel, but I feel, having worked in the media, that we're sometimes forgetting about it. Actually, let me rephrase that. We're not sometimes forgetting about it. I think more and more conventional media is being put out to pasture. Whether it's fair or not, it still has a lot of relevance.

Mickie: 3:35

Absolutely. I feel that traditional media is also evolving. A lot of your newspapers have gone online, they are on the social media platforms that we're using. I see, you know, official 60 minutes and lots of other places on TikTok, and they're out there posting their clips. I watch more Saturday at Night Live on TikTok, and I'm surprised that many of them are official, you know, NBC and SNL clips. And so I think that as long as the media is adapting and pivoting into these new places, I think they're gonna be okay. I worry about the ones that the owner doesn't really understand online and says, oh, well, we're still gonna just stick to print only. And I think that those are the people that are gonna find uh a very difficult situation in the coming years because uh if you don't adapt and move along, you're really going to be at a disadvantage. I actually recall talking with PR Newswire, that's our Newswire partner, many years ago, because I had a blogger come to me and say, Is there any way you could talk to PR Newswire? They will not give me journalist access to their press releases. And uh, you know, press releases are publicly available on PR Newswire, but the journalist access gives you the ability to customize your feed and you can really tailor it to exactly what you want, keywords to exclude, keywords to include. So it's very specific to you. And that's the value of it. And they were like, so Mickie, why should we do this? I said, well, for one, this person interacts with an audience that's bigger than the leading trade publication in that industry. And they're like, where do you get those numbers? I'm like, they're right here. I'm looking at, you know, a couple of these data points. And when I exposed that to them, they were really shocked and they went back and said, You're right, we're going to finally start being more inclusive of bloggers. And so I was pleasantly surprised that uh they had told me recently, I was like, Oh, yeah, we have probably more Instagram influencers who cover fashion than regular fashion magazines and trade publications. And for them, it gives them access to images, photos, as well as uh videos of breaking fashion news. You know, as soon as a fashion brand sends it out, it's available on the wire and it's a very specific place that people aren't browsing. And so these influencers get that the moment it breaks and they report it. And, you know, probably before many of the trade publications, you know, they're a little uh slow at the switch. And so it really gives them a huge advantage. I follow someone on uh TikTok called SnackLator, who does a weekly roundup new snacks hitting grocery store shelves, and he solely gets his information from press releases, and the images and photos are from those that are included with the press releases. So social media is a new media platform for press releases in PR. And I think it's really amazing that they recognize the value of the newswire. In the United States, we have a duopoly of press release newswires. It's uh Businesswire and PR Newswire. And so journalists are fishing basically in two ponds. Third player, Globe Newswire was doing well, but I think the last 10 years hasn't been kind to journalists, and so many of them are less likely to go to a third place to look for stories. And so that they've pivoted to say, hey, uh, if you're a publicly traded company looking to meet disclosure, and you really don't want a journalist looking too deeply into your financials, just stick with us, you'll save a lot of money. And that's been a nice pivot for them. But I think that for anybody else, you know, you really want to be in one of those two places. And with eReleases, you get on PR Newswire and it's substantially cheaper. Uh they approached me probably 15 years ago and said, We like what you're doing. I was emailing press releases directly to journalists and they said, We'd like to support you. How about we offer you a discounted local or you know, city or state distribution? And I said, No, no, thanks. My customers want national media attention. And uh, you know, they charge $1,600 for a 600-word press release, and uh, I was charging like $300 at the time. And so we were so far apart that even if they gave me a big discount, it didn't seem like it would work. But uh one thing that I noticed in my talks with them is they had mentioned they have an overnight editorial team that has to be there in case there's breaking news or they need to get something out to Asian markets. But they said that 80, 90% of the time they're doing nothing. And so I said, why don't I start scheduling my releases for the next business day? And your overnight team can set them up and format them and put them on the wire overnight and get them prepared for release in the morning. And that way there's no additional labor involved with handling my releases. And at that point, they were like, they finally took it seriously and gave me a price that I was able to do. And so today you can do a release through eReleases, all of our releases go out nationally through PR Newswire, appropriate industry and targets and things like that. But you're gonna pay probably about a third of the actual retail price that you would directly through the wire. So it's a huge savings for you know entrepreneurs, small business owners, mom and pops, people even doing side businesses as well as authors and things like that. So it's really been a great opportunity to work with them. And we've been a good partner because we're doing 10,000 plus releases a year, a lot of business, even though the actual price point is really low as to what we pay them.

Carl: 8:52

So they're quite happy you're providing that for them. And they're more than happy to meet you halfway or or meet you somewhere in the middle. So that I think that's one thing that you one thing that you mentioned is to some business owners, to the small, as you said, the mom and pops or the the folks running a side hustle or the folks who are just small independent businesses, solopreneurs, they don't have deep pockets, number one. And number two is they probably perceive the large, especially the larger media, right? The national uh media to be out of reach. It's just it's not within reach. Why would I even consider sending something unless they absolutely have to? And then that's where it's almost like a again, it's a stumbling block because the perception is it's out of reach. So I'm just going to I'm just going to leverage my Facebook or LinkedIn communities. And maybe if I'm publishing a book, for example, I'll get on some podcasts. There's nothing wrong with that. I totally approve of that. But then there are other ways to, again, like you said, get the word out. It's not as far away as we perceive it to be.

Mickie: 9:58

Yeah, absolutely. I think that if you break it down, you know, media starts locally. And so you're you're lucky enough to have a functioning local paper, maybe a business magazine or business newspaper. You know, there's opportunities even in your local market. And when it comes to local, I do tell people that this is some of the easiest media for you to get. And if you think about it, you really are tasked with building a local Rolodex. It's probably less than 10 people. Find out who at your local paper writes and covers your industry. Ask for their email address if it's not available online or you can't find it. A lot of people think these are celebrities and you can't just ask for their email address. No, they're members of the community. And if you approach them and say, hey, I want to occasionally send pictures to them, I'm a local business, they should gladly give you that email address. Same thing with the business magazine or business newspaper. And uh, you know, if you're a consumer product, maybe a consumer magazine, we have Baltimore magazine here, DC has I think Washingtonian. So just find out uh what places locally to you would cover you. Even TV and radio. If you have a product or service that would uh you know hear well or see well, maybe doing a chiropractor thing for a fitness week or something like that would be interesting to crack and pop on film. You know, reach out to the TV, ask for the producer or booker of uh those types of segments. And the same thing with radio. And like I said, it's less than 10 people and then just reach out to them on a regular basis. You may find that nothing much happens the first six to nine months. You doing this maybe every two or three months, reaching out. But after a while, you'll find they reach out to you because they'll work on a story and they'll say, it would be nice to plug in a local business here. And I remember this chiropractor kept emailing me. Let me go find their email and reach out to them. And so it really is once you get hooked, you they find they can get an amazing quote from you. And that's one thing. Always spend a little extra time on the quote. And if they put you on the spot for a quote, say, hey, give me a little time, I can put uh something in writing and send it over to you that's just gonna pop and you know, make it as concise and as powerful as you can. So that quote sort of sings. You don't have to be a wordsmith, but just really concise and powerful. Say something in a sentence that just nails it. And uh they will appreciate that every time because they know if they have an amazing quote, they can build a good article around it. If there's a terrible quote, they can build a good article around it, but still gonna be at the heart of it a quote that's just flat. And so, you know, when I pitch people locally, you don't have to send them a press release, just a few sentences of what it is that you feel is important and newsworthy at the moment, and just maybe add a quote there and make that quote sing because like they if they see that quote in a mediocre pitch, they'll they'll gravitate to doing that if they get another mediocre pitch with no quote or a weak quote. So quotes are your secret. I tell people it's like the the pill in the cheese that you give the dog that it's one of the ways to really break through. And I think so few people realize how powerful the quote really is.

Carl: 13:00

Phenomenal advice and and tips on how to do that. And I like how you're emphasizing, yes, okay, it's good to think on a national level, think big for sure. You know, there's a saying when it comes to goal setting, shoot for the moon. Because if you miss, at least you're among the stars, or there's some variation of that. But still don't underestimate the power of what's in your own backyard, your local media, those local publications, be they the newspaper, if your community still has a local paper, some have closed up and they're not as local as they used to be. But find out what those local publications are. Or, like you said, if you have a local television station or a local radio station, I know here in Canada, they're under mandate that they have to have as a promise of performance to have so much local content. It can't just be, you know, music that's from all over the place. They have to provide so much local content, be that news, be that interviews, whatever it is. So don't hesitate to do it. And the worst that'll happen is you'll get a no. So you move on to somebody else. And then the other thing I like that you said was yes, we're celebrities if we're in the media, but we are just normal people, especially in smaller communities. I, you know, when I was working in radio, I shopped at the grocery store that my listeners shopped at, you know what I mean? So we are just people, we really are just people. So don't hesitate to do that. There was something else that you hit on, and I'm trying to remember what it was. So I'll come back to it. But one of the questions I wanted to ask you was you're working a lot, you're down in the United States, I'm in Canada. Do you can you serve people on both sides of the border, or is what you do mostly relevant to people who are south of the border?

Mickie: 14:40

Right. So we do offer the ability to add on international distributions. So if you were Canadian and you wanted to reach the US market, but also reach the Canadian market, you could do our distribution through us and add Canada as an international distribution, which I know is a little backwards if you're from Canada. But that's one of the ways in which we can serve both markets. I will say, however, that you may want to personally see if there's a Canadian wire that's better served your Canada's main goal. Because that for us, it is an add-on, and it's I would say it's lesser than like the PR Newswire distribution that we do for that's so US centric. But I think there was one Canada wire or something like that that I've heard good stuff about. I would probably start there if you're predominantly just looking in the Canadian market.

Carl: 15:27

I asked that question because there are a number of people in the entrepreneurial world who their business knows no boundaries. That's the nice thing about what we discovered during COVID is business is say universal, but business is global, right? Depending on your business, of course. Some businesses you it's in your own backyard. Like if you build houses, okay, you're building them, likely in your community and surrounding area. But I have a business that's international, I have clients all over the world. So it would only make sense that if I have something that I'm promoting, that I have that opportunity to do that. So that's why I asked that question. Is it easy for say an individual like me to get a hold of you, Mickie, and say, hey, I've got this great thing I'm doing, or it's uh this past week, for example, at the recording of this interview was uh International Podcast Day. And there's probably multiple press releases about that, anyways. But I just want to put something out there. There is that possibility, I guess is what I'm saying.

Mickie: 16:20

Yeah, absolutely. And we work with a lot of different clients. I'd say about 5% of the releases that we do are basically international companies that do work in the US market and they use us uh, you know, disseminate their news and predominantly in the US market because it's just uh, you know, so much affordable than going directly to the wire.

Carl: 16:41

I want to get down to some of the nitty-gritty because I having worked in the media, I know what a press release is. I think the average person has an idea, but maybe there are folks out there who aren't sure the world of press releases. So just give me the skinny on uh what is a press release and how do they work?

Mickie: 16:58

So a press release is just an announcement to the media. It's written in the third person. It's usually just the building blocks for a journalist to write an article. So you're not writing the article and hoping the journalist copies and pastes it. You're giving them the newsworthy elements and they will turn it into the actual article. And you know, there is usually a quote. That's the one place where you can write in the first person. Usually it's going to be written in the third person, the entirety of the press release. It's usually signified with a headline and a date line that usually includes the city and state or province of where you're uh located, as well as uh the actual date of distribution. And that's one of the biggest things that people mess up on is they'll put the wrong date. And it's no problem because when it goes over the wire, they always, you know, we always change it to the date of distribution. So if you're a publicly tried giant company and you're trying to backdate a press release, the wire's not going to let you do that. It always shows the date of distribution. The towards the end of the release, there's usually a boilerplate uh section we you'll recognize as it'll usually say about the person or about company. And it'll be like sort of like the elevator pitch, the two to six sentences that sort of summarize your business. And uh it's a good place for a journalist. Let their eye linger and say, What exactly does this company do? Oh, okay, I get it. This is what they do, and yeah, this is their product that they're going in a different market. So that makes sense. And so it really just has all the building blocks. Definitely want to incorporate links, especially if you have pages with more information on it, like a product description page or something along those lines, as well as your website and uh a media contact. So a way for a journalist on under deadline to reach you in case they have a clarifying question or they just want to get more information about something.

Carl: 18:41

I've seen hundreds of them in in my career as a broadcaster. Different styles, different lengths. What are some tips that you would recommend for writing a press release that's going to be read? I guess is because that's the thing. We we want the media to pick up the press release and read it, not just put it in a recycling bin, be that virtual or physical, but actually be reading it and get the information they need from it. So, what are some of those quick tips that you would advise to folks who are looking at doing this?

Mickie: 19:13

Stay under 500 words. I think that's appropriate for everybody. There are always exceptions. I did one release that had four founders, and each of them had the zaniest, most weird origin story of how they got involved in this. And I was like, well, here's an exception where we're going over 500 words because I could just see the media being really delighted with these little uh sections about each of them, how they all ended up in this one little business that you would think is not relevant to any of them. But that it was one of the places that I felt earned more words in that instance. Really going to focus on the top-down, most important information from the top. If you remember, you know, journalism or maybe even English class, you know, try to satisfy the who, what, when, where, how, and why of the announcement. So make sure you're covering all the basis. And, you know, try to be strategic. Journalists work in their writing a story art, they naturally want to cover a story. And what does that mean? It just means that it rises and then it falls. There's a conclusion. And uh, you know, it's it's something we've learned from being read stories in bed when we were little toddlers. You instinctively know what a story is, and you also know if someone builds up a story, maybe uh a dinner or something like that, and then they get distracted and don't get to finish, you feel a let down. And so a journalist's job is to sort of satisfy their readers or viewers and uh you know, sort of talk about a product or service and then talk about in conclusion. Uh, if you want to learn more, you can go to this website or uh you can find it, and you know, things like that. That's the sort of like the tail end of their thing. So make sure that when you are giving them this information, there's the building blocks for a story. Uh, the most common press release that we get at eReleases is a product launch press release. And it's usually here's a product and here's a list of features, here's a page to learn more. Not a lot for them to build a story. One of the easiest ways to punch that up is to put a use case story in there. You know, if someone who's beta tested it or someone that you had try the product or service before it launched, you know, what did it look like before they went into it? What was the outcome? Ideally, if you have some data points, you know, like, hey, this company that was struggling after 90 days was able to forecast a 9% net profit. And for them, that's you know, really big. And here's a quote by them talking about how easy it was to implement or something along the lines of how good your product is. And that can really punch it up and create more the meat for them to have a story to build into their article. And uh also, you know, take publicly available data points that are out there. Like not only does this company struggle, the truth is 73% of all new businesses in this sector fail within the first five years because they can't get these costs under control. So that just shows the stakes of why your product or solution is so important. So think about, yeah, you're trying to satisfy your need to promote and get more customers and leads, but you kind of have to also recognize the journalist's goal of just finding information that's going to either educate or entertain, or ideally both for their audience. And you have to sometimes go back to your release and redraft parts of it or incorporate stuff that is going to give them more for them to be able to say, yeah, this would be really compelling. I would want to share this with my audience.

Carl: 22:39

I've found too, and thank you so much for sharing that detailed information as to how to make a winning, how to craft an a winning press release, one that will get read. I also found sometimes two things not enough information or not enough relevant information to create a story about or even even talk about as a broadcaster, you know, on the air, not just in news, but just talk about it on the air. Great new product out. That's all I have. But the other thing I found was too much information, too much detail, almost like it's a technical journal type press release that's 76 pages long. And truncate the information for me. Does that happen sometimes too, that you find there's too much information?

Mickie: 23:20

Especially with electronics. A lot of people want to put all the specs and everything into the press release. That is quite appropriate to send them to a product page where all that information is available. And you can clearly make you know make that uh known in the press release for complete specs and you know, breakdown, including components of this product. Please visit and send them the journalist there. A journalist is not going to be offended that they have to click on a link for the few people for whom that information would be useful. But for the overwhelming majority of people, that's going to be a big distraction if you were to include all of that in that actual press release.

Carl: 23:55

Phenomenal. I'm glad you shared that. I'm glad it just wasn't just me that on the other side of the desk reading them sometimes, and it would be can't believe there's this much information here. Okay. We're in an AI-generated world. It's very easy now for folks to just go to Chat GPT and say, hey, ChatGPT, write me a press release for X, Y, Z. So, what are some helpful tips to leverage AI appropriately without having it damage the integrity of not only my business and my brand, but even the press release I'm putting out there?

Mickie: 24:28

So, number one, anything that AI writes for you, read it and fact-check it. Don't assume that it's all going to be correct. But the big thing is because we're writing a press release for the media and it's not the end product, the end product is a journalist writing an article. I feel AI is completely appropriate. Now, if I don't feel appropriate putting AI written blog posts on my website, because you know, Google's pretty smart and they can tell it's written by AI. And Google hasn't really decided yet what they feel about AI content. You know, I think that they're looking for is this content engaging for visitors to a website before they make that decision. But for me personally, I just don't want to take the chance. Everything that I post is written by people. But for the press release, it's not the end product. So I feel like, yeah, AI is completely appropriate. And if you're not really good at writing, feel free to use it as a tool. That being said, one of the biggest criticisms of PR and press releases specifically is they don't work. And I would be one of the first to tell you that 97% of the press releases that get issued out there do not generate earned media. And so, you know, my my take on that is focus on the 3% of press releases that do get picked up because there are a lot of patterns in there, and those are the types or believe you should do. For that reason, I would never ask AI to write a press release and give it full reign of what it's going to write about. Always approach AI knowing specifically what you want the press release to be about and pick a strategic type of press release. You know, we talked about the product launch, but making sure that there's a use case study, maybe some public data numbers that you get incorporated in there. And there are many other strategic types of releases. One of the ones that has never failed anybody that I've worked with is to do an industry survey. Your industry, your community, other businesses like you, and then report that in a press release. The press release we usually focus on one of the questions, the biggest surprise from the survey, what would really just, you know, like really rattle some cages or really interest people in your industry, and link to all of the questions and answers on a page on your website, build that out as a resource, and you'll find that a lot of places will link to you and a lot of journalists will go to these other questions and find stories there and write about it. Generally, when you do that, you know, we usually see between eight and 14 articles from that one press release almost every single time. Uh, the least a customer that I've coached has ever gotten is four, and they were in a biometrics industry. So they were very happy with four. And they said there's not a lot of people at the time that was covering biometrics, at least as specific as of a product that they had. And so, you know, focus on a really strategic release and then approach the AI saying, hey, I want you to write a release about this specific topic. That is the most important thing. Because AI has been trained on all the bad releases out there, and so it's going to write a bad and mediocre press release among the 97% that don't get picked up. Just like poetry. Backstory. I was trained as a poet in college and graduate school. I went to a creative writing program uh specializing in poetry. And I've looked at AI and poetry, and it writes the worst poetry. Even when you tell it not to rhyme and use free verse, AI is horrible at it because it's been trained on the 97% of poems out there on the internet. Actually, I'd probably say 99% of the poems that are on the internet are mostly just user-submitted stuff and they're not good. And even when I tell it to invoke a style of really well-known poets with a legacy of a lot of content that's on the internet, it's still not very good. But that being said, tell the AI what the subject of the press release is and then say, how would you structure a press release like this? Have it then organize the structure and what should be covered with each. Then have it build that piece by piece. Say, okay, now give me 10 headline options for this press release. And if you're happy with one of those, you can then move on. If not, say, hey, the closest that you got was this one. Rewrite 10 headlines or five headlines similar to this, but give me different options. And then break it to now write the first paragraph, the opening paragraph of this press release. And if there's something you feel like should have been in that first paragraph, because we're going to work top down, most important thing first that they didn't cover. Hey, you didn't really include this, give me that. And then when it gives you that, say, okay, now give me three versions of that same paragraph. But you know, pause between each paragraph and say, what could I do or leverage here that would make this next paragraph even stronger or more inviting or intriguing for a journalist? When you ask AI to slow down and pause and think with an actual activity between versions, you really get good stuff. If you just say, give me three versions of that paragraph, it'll spit out three versions. They're all going to be very similar. But when you tell it to pause and actually try to improve upon what they just did, I find the results are so much better. And then just approach that paragraph by paragraph and spend a little time on the quote. You may find that you may have to get in there and really juice up the quote a little bit because again, I've mentioned the quote is one of the strongest things that can really make your press release or even a pitch stand out. So spend a little time with that. Spend a little time with your headline. And uh at the end of it, I think you can end up with a really good thing. I've talked about how I do it, and it seems like oh, that's a lot of work. I do these on average between 12 and 20 minutes. I'll take example press releases where I had a customer, you know, tell us what they want announced and been able to build it out. And it the most I've ever taken is 22 minutes, and it was The one company had four founders and they each had like really, really interesting stories. Like it was a tech business, but one was a journalist. I think one was a clown, a professional clown. But they were all just really weird how they all ended up bringing a little bit of their experience and uh creativity and polish. And it just worked seamlessly to build out an amazing little product. And uh so I felt like we had to spend a little time there on each of their stories because it I felt like that would be really a great entry for media outlet to cover. And uh so I say AI is good, lean on it, ask it to pause and give it an activity, like you know, how can you improve on the next version that you give me is is a good enough activity for it to pause and consider. And uh, I think you can really find that if you beat it up a little bit, AI can really come up with a great press release for you.

Carl: 30:51

Wow. Oh my goodness, some amazing insights, Mickie, on the world of press releases and their value, certainly ways to go about it, not just doing it, but some tips for doing it right, leveraging AI. I've got a very good description there. And and I like how you reinforce this doesn't need to take hours upon hours. It it can take, as you said, 22 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever. It shouldn't consume your whole life, but definitely do take the time to do that. So, oh my goodness, we could probably chat all day about this because as I said, having worked in the media, I've seen several of them. I could show you battle scars from some of the ones I haven't recovered from, and you probably have stories too, but we'll save that for another day. How can people reach out to you? How can they get a hold of you? What's the how can you support them on their journey? What's the sure?

Mickie: 31:38

So our website is ereleases.com. All of my social media is on the lower right. We're accessible by email, chat, and by phone. And it's only editors, you're never gonna deal with salespeople at eReleases. Uh, and they're all, you know, empowered to tell you if we don't feel like we would be a good fit working for you. But we help people with their first press release, their first PR campaign every day. And to that end, uh speaking of first uh PR campaigns, I always tell people if you're gonna judge PR, don't judge it by one press release. You want to do a PR campaign of six to eight releases, and that way you're trying different approaches and trying to figure out what the media will engage with, because the media is not going to engage with every press release. But if you try different strategic approaches, and to that aim, I have a masterclass that's completely free on the strategic types of releases that do get picked up. So I'm talking about the 3% of releases that do get picked up time and time again. There are many patterns within them. I mentioned briefly the survey, but there's several others that uh you can look at, and that's at ereleases.com/plan. P.L.A.N. And again, completely free. And it's uh a video that's less than an hour because I think I had signed up for a class two years ago, and when I got it, it was 60 hours of video. And I just like I don't have the time or bandwidth for this. And so I knew that if I did this masterclass, I have to realize I'm competing against people who are used to you know watching stuff on TikTok and Instagram reels and things like that. So I made it very accessible. It's less than an hour-long video, and you should be able to walk away with at least half a dozen strategic ideas of press releases you could be doing for you and your business. And uh I look forward to people giving PR a try because when you do get picked up with earned media, it's like credibility through the roof. People really see you as elevated and they want to work with you and support you. You know, it's not unusual for my customers to get traffic that converts from these articles at 50%. And you know, I know most people who have landing pages that don't even do 5% conversion rates. So there is something magical that happens when a journalist writes about you. It does create this sort of like radius of trust. And uh that's very valuable and something that uh works with the leads and customers that come from the article. But then if you take that link and share it with your own leads, you're gonna convert more people than you normally do. You take that link and you share it with your customers, you're gonna reduce your churn rate because people who are always like, I've liked working with this company, but maybe we should consider someone else just to shop around this year, they're gonna say, nah, we're with the right company if they read that article and uh get that sort of emotional response to it.

Carl: 34:18

And of course, if you do have questions or challenges or you need to tap into Mickie's services, don't hesitate to reach out to him. But thank you. That masterclass uh is a phenomenal opportunity there. And I like how you said that there are others that are going for like it's almost like a war in peace version of a masterclass. So thank you for keeping it nice and simple for our listeners. So I really, really appreciate that. And I'm glad we've spent this time together. It's been an amazing conversation. Mickie Kennedy, before I turn you lease, dive into press releases. I'll give you the final thought.

Mickie: 34:51

I would just say when it comes to PR, there's a lot of people that just feel I'm not ready yet. I'm not big enough, a large enough company to matter. And the truth is the journalists don't like covering very well-funded large companies. They have to, especially if you're Google and Microsoft, but they don't get a lot of shares of their articles when they cover those companies, and they don't get a lot of accolades. But when they cover or highlight, spotlight small business that no one knows about that has a really valuable tool that's relevant for the industry that they report on, they do get lots of shares and they get lots of people saying, I'd never heard of this company. And many of these companies are just, you know, one person running it, or it's a very small business. Sometimes it's just a side hustle for someone hoping they can turn it into a real company. And so don't feel that being too small is a disadvantage when it comes to PR, it is actually a superpower and actually is one of the reasons that journalists often gravitate towards these small, new, unknown businesses and solopreneurs.

Carl: 35:50

And we'll leave it right there. Mickie Kennedy, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Mickie: 35:55

Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you.

Carl: 35:58

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