When you're considering launching a new marketing channel, public relations (PR) might be one of the last things that comes to mind. However, in today's episode of The Growth Pod, Jill Lublin shares why you might want to think of PR first and how you can leverage it successfully to grow your business.

Specifically, Jill shares:

• Why publicity is integral to your day-to-day life.
• How to create a PR strategy designed for growth.
• The easiest way to get publicity for your brand.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• National Day Calendar
• Get Jill's Free Gift
• Jill's Media Mastery Intensive
• Learn More about Jill

About Jill:

Jill Lublin is a 25+ year Media Magnet. She is a world-renowned publicity expert, international speaker and 4x Best Selling author. Jill has made thousands of stage appearances alongside celebrities such as Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield and Barbara Corcoran, to name a few. She has worked with over 100,000 clients implementing her signature formula for getting media attention, creating next-level visibility in the marketplace that results in boosted sales. These lead and profit generating formulas are included in her signature program, the Publicity Breakthrough Bootcamp and her monthly Kindness Circles.

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About Angela

Angela Frank is a fractional CMO with a decade-long track record of generating multimillion-dollar marketing revenue for clients. She is the founder of The Growth Directive, a marketing consultancy helping brands create sustainable marketing programs.

Her new book Your Marketing Ecosystem: How Brands Can Market Less and Sell More helps business owners, founders, and corporate leaders create straightforward and profitable marketing strategies.

Angela is the host of The Growth Pod podcast, where she shares actionable tips to help you build a profitable brand you love.

Welcome to The Growth Pod. Today on the podcast we have Jill Lublin, who is a world renowned publicity expert, international speaker and four time bestselling author.

Jill has made thousands of stage appearances alongside celebrities such as Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, who is my personal hero, and Barbara Corcoran, to name a few.

She has worked with over 100,000 clients implementing her signature formula for getting media attention, creating next level visibility in the marketplace, and boosting sales sales. Jill, welcome to the podcast.

I'm so glad to be here with you, Angela.

I am very excited. We were chatting before we hit record and we haven't talked about PR yet on the podcast.

And I think it's such a great way for you to grow your business. And today you're going to share how we can use PR to support our business growth goals. Before we get started.

You've been in the PR space for 25 years, but I think there's a lot of mysticism around what PR actually is. So can you tell us what is public relations?

Well, the reality is you are doing public relations from the minute you walk out your door. From the minute you walk into a zoom room, when you're having coffee, when you're on an airplane.

The reality is it's all public relations, my friends. So let's elevate this conversation and create your visibility factor so that you can be seen, be heard and get paid.

Publicity is happening all the time. You are speaking it, you are creating messages.

And then there's the traditional media, of course, which is showing up in your newspapers, your, your radio, your tv, your blogs, your podcasts, places like this. It's all publicity.

I think that's so important.

I love what you're saying about it's not just media appearances, it's how you portray yourself the moment you step out your door, the minute you turn on your camera. Before we get into our conversation, I wanted to share a quick story.

I was working with a company and they got us new cmo and one of the first things the CMO did is meet with the marketing team and he was like, hey every everyone, we're in marketing. Let's make our zoom backgrounds look like we know what we're doing. And I think that ties really nicely into what you said.

Making sure that, you know, you're taking this concept of PR not just into your media appearances, but into everything you're doing. So with that, how can we use PR to grow our business? What part does PR play in an existing marketing strategy?

Well, you know, here's the good news. Public relations is so accessible now.

You know, I would start locally for most people because the reality is your local peeps, meaning your newspapers, radio, tv, they want to interview you. So I'd start there. I'd also start with Google alerts like put your name in that way, whenever you are in media, you will be notified.

And then additionally put like one word in or one phrase. Like when prophet of kindness came out, I put in the word kindness, thereby getting notified that World kindness day is November 13th.

Now I can do a whole PR campaign centered around that World Kindness Day. Then I put in the word publicity. So I get notified and alerted with anything happening. That's great ways to start, simple things to do.

And then great tip is go to nationaldaycalendar.com and look up what holidays might serve and then get a little more creative, you know.

So let's say my relationship expert not only did love, of course Valentine's Day, but then she looked for romance day and all kinds of other holidays that, by the way, there are oriented toward other ways to, shall we say, celebrate love. Because that's what she does. She celebrates love as a love coach.

So I want you to get a little, you know, extended in your mindset with the opportunity and ability to, to have more and the opportunity to really put yourself out there in bigger ways.

I think that's really great to, you know, expand the way that you're thinking about PR people think, you know, I want to get my message out there.

But it sounds like what we should be doing at the start of our PR campaign is find ways that we can connect with things that are already happening in the world and then use that as part of our strategy.

Yes.

So now that we know how to get started, how can we really start implementing PR in our marketing strategy in a way that grows our business?

Well, one of the things I'd like to, shall I say, advise you to do is work on, focus on your PR every week for 30 minutes. Okay? 30 minutes is going to move the needle. And if you can't do 30 minutes, which I'm be a little surprised, then do two 15 minute segments, okay?

And here's the thing about momentum in publicity. Listen, I'm from Michigan originally, although I live in California now, but I like my snowmen.

And you know, if you think about snowballs, right, and you're packing a snowball and it increases and increases as you put more snow into it, pack it. That's what publicity does. It expands and creates momentum.

So I advise to do what I like to call visibility Building activities every single week for 30 minutes.

That might be your Google Alerts piece I mentioned that might be going on National Day calendar and looking for new holidays or going, okay, I see one now. Let's create a media release around that. That might be specific blogs and podcasts you start looking up. Right. So I'm going to recommend you do that.

And that's going to, I promise, make you a big, big difference.

And that kind of focus will create that ongoing content, ongoing activities that put you in front of people and get you the kind of publicity that you deserve.

I want to bring it back a step. You've talked a lot about leveraging blogs, podcasts.

You mentioned in the beginning of our interview that news stations that are local to you and newspapers want to interview you. What is the.

How do you get yourself in front of these people and pitch yourself in a way that they actually want to talk to you, pick up what you have to say, feature your article, or interview you for their new station?

Yeah, well, the first piece that I always do when I'm working with people in media mastery intensives and different things that I offer are the message. You have to do the message first. And the message orients around the problem out there. Like, what is the problem out there?

I didn't ask you what you do, any of you. I'm asking what's the problem out there? Because what the media cares about is interviewing experts that solve problems.

So I want you to get really clear about what's the problem out there. And I will tell you anything I do. We always focus on that first. Has to be around message. So that's a big first thing.

Then once that's created, you're going to find that your confidence is better, that you're more rooted in a foundation of a message. And then what I'm going to recommend is start scanning for those opportunities of where can you be seen and heard.

So, for instance, you know, I was working with a woman this morning who runs a nonprofit, and we were looking at the local media, finding the education editor, we were finding the business editor, sometimes the small business editor, for instance, again in your local business journals. Great person to start with because you're a small business. And, you know, here's the reality. Everywhere and anywhere you get featured.

It's a beautiful thing, really. So I just want to really underline that, that everywhere you're featured is a good thing.

And I think that's a key for those of you to really understand and to connect to.

I love that you bring up the message Because I actually really wanted to dig into that. So can you share a little bit more about the message, what it is, and how we should create it for our business?

Yeah. So the message is really focused on what is a problem out there, and again, not what do you do?

I really want to get people oriented differently because I think most people say I'm a chiropractor versus, you know, the problem today is Zumba. And that's Zumba, not Zumba, you know, and people are sitting on their computers all day and they've got different kinds of injuries.

And here are three things that you can do when you're on zoom. To avoid problems with your body, problems with your neck, whatever. I'm just using that as an example. Right.

And so you want to look at what are major issues today. Certainly mental health is a big issue. Physical health is a big issue.

There are lots of things going on financially, you know, so I think anything you can do to start solving people's issues is something you want to be talking about, and particularly locally, but also look nationally. And listen, I'm unattached. I don't. I think it's great. Wherever you get in media, if it's a small little newspaper or, you know, those.

The things they leave on your doorsteps at times, everything counts and everything matters. And that's really what I want you all to hear, is that everything counts and everything matters.

So if you get in something nationwide, first, terrific. If you get in something local, first, terrific. The point is, get in the media.

Because once you're in the media, the, you know, really good news is you control the message.

I think that is so important, and I love how you're sharing that you should relate your message to not what you do, but the problem or the issue it is that you solve.

And that way it's more relatable to the media and people who are looking to fill these expert spots or interview people who are the expert in the problem that you solve.

Yes.

So now that we have our message, how do we ensure that we're implementing it successfully into our PR campaigns? Do we just email the local news outlet and say, you know, this is the problem I solve.

Let me know if I can, you know, be an expert in any of your articles. Do you send them a fully written article? How do we start getting our message out there?

Well, and one of the things I want to say is it's about consistency, right? And consistency and persistency.

So one of the things I would do is look to see, you know, what are the Issues, I'll say even, let's just take locally for a moment and as opposed to here's what I do, here's what I do, turn it to you. You know, I know you help people. Let's say you're talking to a magazine. I know you help our community to get better results.

So here are some things that I want to recommend that you can. That your readers, your viewers. Right. Use the you word is what I'm pointing out here, can do.

So that's, I think, really a key that we have to really focus on you words for the media so that they understand that who they're supporting is their readers, their viewers, their listeners. You be the expert and you can say, yes, I'm an expert in X. Fill in the blank.

And you know, I help people save money, small businesses save money and keep more money.

You know, maybe you're talking to the small business editor of your local business journal and I want to give you three tips for how to do that and make it really easy for your readers. Would you be interested? Like real straight pitches that rely on the problem solution that we talked about. That's your script, so to speak.

And then I just leave it real, real simple, real easy for them to say yes to.

The other thing I want to give you as a tip that's super great and sometimes even easier to get in is there are holidays that celebrate certain things, like International Women's Day if you're a woman, Hispanic Heritage Month if you're Hispanic, not to mention Black History Month. And the list goes on and on and on. Here's also the good news. There are media that are oriented toward those specific areas. Latina magazine is huge.

Black Enterprise magazine is huge in the business world. Right. Like, where could you focus in to perhaps using all parts of who you are and what I like to call everything you've got.

I love that. I think that you're really taking this concept of, you know, I'm someone who wants to promote my business and get my message out there.

And you're taking the lens of the person that you are pitching, wants to serve their audience. So their viewers, their readers, their listeners.

And so speaking to them in their message or in their language and sharing the value that their readers, listeners, viewers can get from you, who is an expert. I think that's a really smart way to go about it. And so I love how you've just clearly laid it out.

And the other thing that I love is how you're mentioning about using the whole part of you, I think that one, it's really great because you're able to tap into publications that, you know, are looking for experts who identify, you know, with your background or what have you. But you're also able to use that to grow your message.

So the final thing that I want to ask you, because what we focus on a lot here on the podcast is doing more with less. And so what is the ROI on publicity?

I know, like maybe if you're on, on the Today show and you're getting in front of millions of viewers, that would be different than getting in front of a local publication. But what is that roi? And where can will we see that tangibly if we implement a PR strategy in our business?

Well, super great news. There's a lot of ROI on publicity. So let's talk tangible.

In my industry, how we as professionals measure it is if you had paid for that piece in your local business journal, your daily news or the TV show or, or whatever you featured, how much would it have cost? I promise you, in advertising, it would have cost probably $50,000 and up. No kidding. And probably a lot more, depending on how big the market is.

Okay, so I know in my local paper it's $50,000 for, you know, basically I got some great PR for a client. One and a half page article would have cost her $50,000. Okay, so let's look at that. That's one way to measure it.

Also, I want you to realize that the, so to speak, the elevation of your expertise, the increase of your, well, your perception, how people see you, the trust in the marketplace and the get in line first because, you know, frankly, you're being seen and heard. And that means that people will know and know your business name, your name.

I call it the I've heard of you somewhere syndrome, which increases your leads, your referrals, your name recognition, the trust again in the marketplace, very high. And you've earned media. I mean, really, people are talking about you now.

You can leverage that, and that is incredible ROI to create clients and visibility.

And, you know, here are concrete examples, not only the article, but let me just say one client following my system got one line in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, walked into a consulting interview and he said, I googled you and I saw that you've been featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She got a $36,000 consulting gig, free publicity.

One line in the Minneapolis Star Tribune using these systems that we're talking about that I'm teaching you right now.

I think that's such a great example, because people are going to Google you. And so if you are aligning yourself with these publications and showing your expertise, like you said, even one line, which is crazy to. I would have.

I came into this interview thinking it would need to be a lot more. And the ROI there is insane.

And it's like, even if he didn't bring it up, you know, there's that intangibility that's given from being featured in the media. So, Jill, you are somebody who's helped over 100,000 people with their PR strategy. I'm curious, what's next for you?

Oh, what's next for me is a couple things. One is I do a media mastery intensive.

I just love serving people this way because frankly, I found a way to bring media there that people can actually get, you know, get wonderful interviews on. And I really want to. I think I'm doing that once a quarter now.

And I think if I were to look at that, probably I would do it every month, perhaps when the need shows itself. Right. So I'm excited about that.

I love that. I think that's a great way to cultivate these relationships in your community and like you said, bring that media presence into what you're doing.

And I would be excited if that's on a more regular basis.

If somebody is listening to this conversation and they are realizing that they want to start a PR strategy and in fact, they need some help with it, how can they get in touch with you?

Oh, thank you. Well, first of all, of course, my website, jill lublin.com and lots of L's in there. Jill lublin.com.

i've also created a wonderful free gift for all of you, which is an action guide. More great tips even than what we covered here. Plus, super fun.

You get an interactive live class with me where you get to answer all of the PR questions and I'll, you know, give you even more great content. So that's interactive and live. It's all part of the free gift. And that is you can get that@publicity crashcourse.com freegift.

Amazing. Thank you so much for that offer. I will put it in the description.

So if you're listening and that sounds good to you, that and Jill's website will be there for you. Jill, thank you so much for joining us today. I really got a lot out of our conversation.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Growth Pod. If you enjoyed it, leave us a review. I look forward to seeing you in the next one.