Press Release

Richard:                Hey, welcome everybody. Richard here with Jennifer Lader, and we're going to be going through how to write a press release. We're gonna go through it step-by-step with Jennifer.

Richard:                So, just to reiterate for those of you who were on [inaudible 00:00:12] last month, Jennifer and I took you through what is a press release, and when to use it, and all this type of stuff, and today we're gonna go through the specific structure of how to write one.

Richard:                So, just a reminder, why would you even consider writing a press release? Well, it's one of the most effective things you could possibly do if you can get yourself in the media, carries massive influence with your target audience because it's perceived as- there's no agenda, it's unlike marketing, where everybody knows there's a little bit of an agenda. There's completely no agenda, and people put a lot of stock and credibility in things that they see in the media, probably more than they should, but we're gonna [inaudible 00:00:53] today and show you how to write a press release, and the beauty is, it's a very simple strategy. It's free, and if you know what to do, it's relatively easy, but you have to know what to do. So we're gonna cover that today with Jennifer.

Richard:                So, welcome back, Jennifer. People had-

Jennifer:              Thank you.

Richard:                -a lot of good feedback from the first part of this, and we're looking forward to hearing what you're gonna say on part two.

Jennifer:              Okay. Alright. We are actually going to start right up where the last one left off.

Jennifer:              I'm going to start with a story pitch that came in from [Jusey 00:01:25] in New York, and after our last webinar last month, she actually wrote a couple of possible story pitches and sent them over to me along with a possible press release. So, she had two ideas, and she's got a specific person that she wants to write to. She met this person at an opening event, and story pitch one idea she had was, "Would you like your readers to receive a gift in the form of some helpful tips?" Now, this is referring to her monkey's fist. So, that's one idea. In that case, she's basically asking for the publication to do her a favor and publish some information announcing her monkey's fist. What I liked even better than that, though, was her second idea. Right in the middle of the page here, you see, "Would you like to publish an editorial featuring a luxury project in an iconic building?" How's that sound?

Jennifer:              Okay, so what we did was we then took a look at her second item that she sent me, which was her draft press release, and this press release was actually more like an announcement of the monkey's fist. So, it is still aimed at the same audience, which would be the New York City luxury apartment dwellers, but what we tried to do then was say, "How could we combine these, make an interesting pitch for the publication, and then have an interesting press release to go with it?"

Jennifer:              So, what we're going to do now is look at occasions for writing a press release, and ... gonna pull this up onto the screen for you ... So, when to- Whoops. Sorry about that, when to write a press release.

Jennifer:              Okay, so, first there's the obvious, when you've been selected for a new project ... but then there are lots of other times when you can write press releases. You could make announcements about milestones in your work, especially if your project is breaking ground, opening its doors today, has a ribbon-cutting, and anything like that, when your project receives any kind of certification, award, recognition, if you yourself will be attending the ground-breaking ceremony ... Now, keep in mind that sometimes these are going to be what we would call really news-worthy events that lots of people are going to want to know about, for example, if it's a high-profile project. In other cases, it's more something that you would like to get out there, you might not necessarily be expecting a publication to actually run the press release, but you can put it on your own website, and you can put it on social media. So, there's kind of two ways of looking at it.

Jennifer:              Optimally, whatever you put in your press release is going to be news-worthy. That's what we're aiming for. So, when you add services, when you receive an honor, open an extra office, when you participate in a philanthropic event, overcome a major challenge, such as re-opening after storm damage or something like that, if somebody in your office is individually honored, new hires, when you announce someone in the office earning some other kind of recognition ...

Jennifer:              And then, a final category for press releases would be for marketing moves. Now, this would be a case where you have published a book, you have published some kind of report, and usually this would be beyond what you would have in your monkey's fist, unless your monkey's fist has to do with something that you have been researching and really rigorously looking into for quite a while and now you're publishing the results. That would work, but normally we want to have something, again, that's a little more news-worthy, the general population would be interested in this, if you're offering a scholarship or a training program ... and keep in mind that sometimes you could decide to do one of these things, just to get the PR. I mean, of course you want to help people, of course you want to encourage young professionals, but this is really strictly a marketing move, and you can then put out press releases and other announcements about it and get yourself some positive PR that way.

Jennifer:              Now, once you have your event that you would like to publicize, I'm going to show you the press release template, and this is something that you can actually download from the handouts, and you could also download the when to write a press release document that I just went through, also.

Jennifer:              So, for a press release, you actually say at the top of the form, "Press Release," and then you can, right below that, you talk about when it is to be released. Normally, we say for immediate release; however, there are exceptions, and we're actually going to go over one of those exceptions.

Jennifer:              Okay, you would list the contacts for this press release, because the publication wants to be able to verify that this is a legitimate press release, so you would put your name, your E-mail, and your phone number. You would write a short summary so that the editor or the reporter can quickly understand the contents. It's not the title, but it's what's in it. Then your title, I like to use a format where we're starting with the firm's name, and that way when you have press release after press release, you're looking at ... We'll keep seeing your name in the news, which is really nice. And then, keep it active. What did you do? The firm broke ground, or won a coveted award, and so forth. Next, we put the city and state or province and the date, and then we leap right into the press release.

Jennifer:              Now, the first sentence of your press release should actually be able to stand on its own as a press release or an announcement, and I'll show you what we mean by that in a little while. Go ahead and state the benefits to the community right up front because, like other news articles, we never know when the reader will stop reading. So, the other thing we don't know is when the editor of the publication will decide that we've seen enough. So, what we'll usually do, is write a one or two page press release. The publication itself will condense that, and a lot of times, they'll take the very first paragraph, so be ready for that. Put the most important information at the top, and that's going to include your who, what, when, how, where, and why we care. Why we care is the key element in anything that you publish.

Jennifer:              Okay, paragraph two highlights what's special about this project. Did you cooperate in a new way with another firm? Is this part of a larger project? Is this a high-profile project that's been in the news? So, in that case, you would wanna indicate something about that and hopefully include a really meaningful quote from someone in your firm, or someone else involved in the project, telling why this is important, again, why we care about this.

Jennifer:              Paragraph three can map to bigger news issues, trends, whether it's economic or social, you can use statistics, but keep it high-level. You don't want to bore them with statistics because that'll be the end of your press release.

Jennifer:              And then paragraph four talks about your firm, and this is where we put, what we call, the boilerplate information. Boilerplate sounds dull, it sounds like it's iron-clad, but what you're really doing, is you wanna have a short description of your firm, and keep it very fresh. So you don't wanna have, kind of, just an old boring paragraph that you've pulled off your website somewhere. You wanna have a fresh statement about what your mission is, and how you've accomplished that mission. And then for more information, you can contact me. And show [inaudible 00:09:32] and show your E-mail address, and your phone number. You can also hyperlink to your website if you want.

Jennifer:              So, those are the elements of the press release, and that's provided for you as a template. You can download it and just plug in your information, and what you'll see is the very bottom paragraph, paragraph four, you can just do one time and keep it that way. Same thing with your contact information. And then whenever you have a news-worthy event, you've already got the outline of your press release. You just need to plug in the current date, the title, and what the news is, and then, again, why we care, and mapping it to a larger perspective.

Jennifer:              Okay. Now, we're going to take a look at a live example of this. Okay. So, what we decided to do in [Jusey's 00:10:31] case, was to write a press release that would highlight a recently completed renovation. So, what we chose as the title is, "Aura Studio's Luxury Apartment Renovation Crowns Iconic UN Plaza Building." It's a little bit long as a title, but as you can see, there's some real interest in there. We have the city and state, and we have the date.

Jennifer:              Now, I mentioned earlier, we usually say, "for immediate release." In this case, [Jusey 00:11:08] wants to pitch this story, hoping for an exclusive coverage in a magazine to a particular person. So, what we're going to do is post-date this press release, and then offer this story to the reporter, saying, "We're holding this just for you until January 3rd."

Jennifer:              Okay, so that's another strategy. So, in the first line here, we see, "Aura Studio unites urban living with zen philosophy in its recently completed UN Plaza duplex renovation." So, there we have the whole story, and that's what you need to go for in your very first sentence. Then we go on to say, "This jewel tops the iconic bronze and glass structure on Manhattan's East Side, and displays timeless features that reinforce the enduring contribution of the building itself to the city's skyline." So, the more we can give a visual when we're making these announcements, the better, because when you appeal to the senses, if you have kind of an "awe" factor, which it's nice that this project does, then you're going to be more likely to attract the attention that you want.

Jennifer:              Okay, now, [Jusey 00:12:24] has a very nice website, and it was actually recently relaunched, so we just kind of looked through there to see what might work well, as far as what we want to highlight, and then we found this line, "[Jusey 00:12:38] of Aura Studio applied her Italian sensibility to create a show-stopping space that harmonizes form and function." She provided a quote to go right in here, and then again, looking through her website, what can we say that's interesting about her, or her firm, and we found this, "Mastro is one of the 15 originators of this particular movement in Italian architecture." And, again, this is going to be appealing to this reporter that we're going to send this to because it's supporting a particular lifestyle through the marriage of different veins of thought about architecture, and we're basically telling the reporter that we've got a whole story here for you. It's easy to see from this press release.

Jennifer:              Now, not every press release gets pitched, but when we have a destination, like we do in this case, we're gonna really do everything we can to make it work. So, in the very last paragraph, we have, "Working from an abundant palette, Aura Studio moves easily between periods and styles with inspired designs for living, working, and entertaining." Again, that's something we found on the website that feels fresh. Again, it's a relaunched website, that's one of the reasons why it is so fresh. To see more examples of the firm's projects, you can visit this location. So, she'll be able to keep that last paragraph in, and use that time after time.

Jennifer:              Okay, so now we're going to take a look at her version of that. So, what you saw before was my version, which was in Word, and normally, I would always recommend that you do your press release in Word, and then double space it and send it as an attachment to the E-mail. In this case, where [Jusey 00:14:35] wants to convey to the particular reporter a sense of the style of her firm and the tone of her firm, she put it on her letterhead and it's a PDF. So, that will go as an attachment to the reporter that she wants to pitch. And we're gonna show you that pitch, too. We took a look at the very beginning to see what her ideas were. So, this is what we did with it. Excuse me just a minute. Actually, Richard, are there any questions yet?

Richard:                Let me have a look.

Jennifer:              Okay.

Richard:                I did get told by a reporter once, "Be careful including attachments because some of them have a policy of not opening attachments." Yeah, just a fear of being [inaudible 00:15:36].

Jennifer:              Right. I do hear that, too. It never seems to be a problem with the press releases. It's sort of a ... Maybe it's like an exception. If the publication that you are reaching out to does have that policy that they will not open attachments, you can include it in the body of the E-mail. You could say, "See press release below." And then just put this right on to that. Put the press release right below the pitch.

Richard:                Yeah. There's one question there from Rick, who says, "For press release, submit a photo of the work?"

Jennifer:              Yes. I would do that. Now, if you're pitching a story, like we're about to do here, I would not ... but when it's a press release, I would also go take the extra step of writing the caption of the photo myself.

Jennifer:              So, either, probably at the bottom of the press release, I would write very clearly in capital letters, "PHOTO CAPTION." And then I would write the caption, which basically would restate that opening sentence of your press release. With captions, you always write them in present tense. So, for example, if you have a ground-breaking photo from a ground-breaking ceremony, you could put, "FIRM NAME breaks ground on new project." And then you could go into a little bit more detail. So, allow the photo and its caption to have the possibility of standing alone also because you don't know, maybe they'll want the photo, they don't have room for both, they like the photo, they're gonna run the photo with your caption. They are probably not going to take the time to write their own caption for you. So, it just gives you one more possibility of getting published where it might have gotten closed to you otherwise.

Jennifer:              Okay, so, when you're doing a pitch, you'll see how we handle the issue of photos. So, right up in the subject line, write that you're doing a pitch. "Story pitch," and then you write what the pitch is about and, which, can basically be a summary or a statement of your title of your press release. You basically want to let them know before they even open the E-mail, what you're trying to do for them. So, if you're doing a query, say, "query," like if you wanted to write a story, an op-ed, for them, go ahead and say, "query," up there. If you're doing a story pitch, tell them, because whoever receives that, if they don't look at story pitches, they'll just forward it to the person who does. Rather than having them open it, get disinterested in it, you know, it slides.

Jennifer:              So, "Story Pitch: Jewel Project Topping Iconic Building," complete. So, if you'll notice what I did here, I tried to front-load the words in this case. Since we don't have a top and a bottom of this, I wanted to basically make sure that in the subject line in your E-mail, we're gonna see the words, "Jewel Project Topping Iconic" ... You know, hopefully all of it appears, but we're gonna front-load this.

Jennifer:              Okay, so, the body of the E-mail, of course you want to write directly to a person by name, if possible. We're going to remind the person how we met, or what connection we have ... And here's [Jusey's 00:19:01] question, "Would you like to publish an editorial featuring a luxury project in an iconic East Side building?" So, that was her original idea, and we've just taken it and put a new wrapping around it here. "We're always delighted to read your magazine and want to reach out to you ahead of anyone else." So, what you're telling her is actually two things. You know her publication, and that's a big downfall of many queries because a lot of times it's very clear that whoever is pitching to this publication has never opened it before. So, if you can somehow show in your pitch that you know who they are, and you know who their readers are, all the better. So, "we're reaching out to you ahead of anyone else," means we're giving you the scoop, if you would like to do this story. Come January 3rd, this press release is going out to everyone, and anyone could grab it up, but we're opening this to you first.

Jennifer:              So, "The recently completed duplex is the penthouse of the UN Plaza building," and put it in bold. Remember, people scan E-mails, so if we can just let a couple of things pop out, we don't want to overdo it, because then that gets overwhelming too. We give a few more details about the project and we tell her that we are attaching the press release where she'll find more details and that we're holding it, giving her time to respond, and then again, front-loading this sentence, "Dazzling photos from the renowned interior photographer, [Et Cetera 00:20:35], are available. To discuss this story further, I invite you to contact me." Again, remember to use the word "invite" when you are offering your phone number for more information because it has a very welcoming tone, and then sign off. So, that will go along with the press release itself to that reporter.

Jennifer:              Okay, let's go ahead and take some questions ... Are there any coming in yet?

Richard:                Yeah, there's a good one from Umberto. He said, "So very well with [Jusey 00:21:19] doing these luxury, high-end, fancy projects, what about an average project, with an average budget?"

Jennifer:              Okay, you don't have to be high-end to justify hav- Can we have an example? Let's put it that way. What's an example?

Richard:                I don't know, he would have to check for that, but I mean my response to him, if you have to find the story-

Jennifer:              Alright, I can give you an example of a dental office. So, there's an architecture firm that I've worked with on their PR, and it was a regular dental office, and so it turned out, actually, that the dentist himself wanted to do the press release, but we basically said that, "the name of the dental practice debuts new building with a smile," and that particular building and the design of it, it was very clear that this was a dental office, and the whole thing just kind of worked together. So, when you're debuting a building, that's news. What he did, what we did for him, was we typed his dental practice into the fact that there's a shortage of dentists and built it from there. So, that's the mapping to a bigger story.

Jennifer:              Let's say you're working on a school project, and it's a consolidation of a number of schools, let's say in a rural area. If you can talk about the ground-breaking, then you can map into the fact that these schools are consolidating. This is going to be a school where no school has stood before. So, you're tying it into social trends, and you're tying it into, possibly, a larger news story.

Jennifer:              Let's think of another project. Has anybody got one they want to ask about, actually? Just anybody.

Richard:                Yep. Yeah, yep, sure. A few people typed some in. Umberto, who asked the question originally, said, "A mixed-use project."

Jennifer:              Okay, so like, business? [crosstalk 00:23:26]

Jennifer:              Okay.

Richard:                A mixed-use project here with [inaudible 00:23:32] on third-level and second rental condo units on the second-floor.

Jennifer:              Okay, alright. Well let's say that that building is going up in a development zone, so then you can tie that into the fact that there is this development zone, and maybe there was some kind of difficulty in the process. You have to think about what the story of each project is. So, maybe it was a contentious project, maybe it's a historic project ... What is it that's special and different that somebody might care about? So, don't limit yourself. You can think about, in terms of ... even the fact that this is something that will offer jobs for people in your area. If there's economic revitalization happening in your area, and this is brand-new construction going in, and it's going to employ so many people, that can be the center part of your press release.

Jennifer:              Now, again, you're not gonna have to go into detail, you're gonna keep it high-level because you're the architect, you're not the economic development office of the city, but you're going to give the news up front, tell why this is important, and you can use your quote to do that mapping. You know, "We are delighted with this project because it's yet another sign of the economic growth that's happening in our city." That kind of thing. You don't have to get fancy, but don't tell yourself that this doesn't matter, because every project you do has some kind of story connected with it and it's just a matter of taking a step back and saying, "Well, why would a lot of people care about this?" Newspapers normally care because something is going to employ jobs ... but that's only one of many possibilities. Lead certification is another reason that people might be interested in. If you're in an area that has a lot of sustainable projects going in, that would be a way that you can map this.

Jennifer:              Is there another idea that's coming up? Another kind of project?

Jennifer:              ... Okay, let's take a look at something on here.

Jennifer:              A relocation. So, let's say your office is relocating, and you're just announcing that so that your business partners and affiliates will know. Why is that significant? So, is there something about your new location that is different from where you were before? For example, maybe your first location had everybody in offices, or cubicles, and your new location is going to have a more of an open plan, and that's significant to how you're now conducting your business. So, that would, again, be a way to map from your little bit of news, which is, "Hey, we're moving to a new address," to something that more people might care about. Once you have that bigger piece, the thing that people will care about, it's going to make it very easy for you to pitch that to a reporter.

Jennifer:              So, if you don't pitch it, the press release, and you don't have to, if you don't pitch it, then you just send it in to a variety of outlets. You might send to your city newspaper, your business journal, a magazine that publishes this kind of thing, and wait for it to appear. If it does not appear, go ahead and call them in two or three weeks in the future and see. "Hey, I'm following up about the press release I sent you. Did you receive it?" Or you could follow up by E-mail, same thing, go ahead and forward the press release to them again. Now, it sounds time-consuming, but it doesn't have to be. Just send out the press release, put it on your calendar in two weeks, check and see if the press release has appeared.

Jennifer:              It's worthwhile because once it does appear, you can put that on social media, and you can publish it on your website, you can link to it, and so you can get a little bit of mileage out of it. Even if you don't do a lot of that, but you just want to have it on your website under news, you can send out another press release in three or six months depending on the size of your firm and the number of projects you have, and you basically have some steady flow of news. Even if it's not every week, every month, even every other month, things are happening and after a little time goes by, there will be this track record and if somebody visits your website, they can see, "Oh, they did this historic home." "Oh, they did this project that was reclaiming marshlands." They'll have a track record and they'll see what kind of work you do and get engaged with you that way.

Jennifer:              Are there more questions?

Jennifer:              ... Okay, Richard?

Richard:                [inaudible 00:28:48] to you, Jennifer, so I'm not coming in but ... There is a question from Craig, "How do you make a house project stand out from the crowd?"

Jennifer:              Stand out in a crowd, okay. Well, again, ask yourself what's special or unusual about this house project. Now, of course, when you're doing a house project, you need to get the permission of the people who live there. So, you can make the case to those people that, "this is a news-worthy project because," Now, it could be because of where it's being built, what kinds of materials are being used, perhaps it's a passive house, you know where ... Okay, I think everybody knows what I mean by that. There might be something else special about it, and those are the ones you're going to pitch, or do a press release on.

Jennifer:              If you're doing a sun porch renovation on somebody's house, you probably don't need to do a press release about those; however, think about your firm. This is where you might want to get more into about your people or your marketing moves. So, while you're quietly doing renovations on existing homes, and it's not high-end, and it's not historic, what's your firm doing? Are you submitting work for awards? Are you involved in your local professional organization where you have an office? And we might announce that, that you've been elected to an office, that you've received an award. Is there something that your firm could do as far as getting some positive PR, in terms of cooperating with other firms on a philanthropic project? Are you making a donation for a certain cause? So, there are a lot of things you can do press release-wise for your firm, without actually having to have the most interesting project in the world.

Jennifer:              I hope that helps.

Jennifer:              Okay. What other questions can I answer?

Richard:                John has asked about, "Does it have to be something that's news, or can it be topical? I released a monkey's fist."

Jennifer:              Okay, so I'm still puzzling over that and maybe, Richard, you would have some contributions to that conversation. My tendency is to think that if this is something that a lot of people would be interested in, or that is in some way objective, like you've done some kind of study or you have compiled a directory of all of the architects in your area, or something like that, then you might have a chance of asking a publication to put it out there, to put a notice out about it. Whereas, if it's something like how to hire an architect, I'm not sure that's going to be news-worthy by your local newspaper. You could still make a press release and put it on your own website, send it out to a few places, and see if anybody picks it up. I think they probably won't.

Jennifer:              What you might want to do, and this is something that [Jusey 00:32:22] chose to do, is to announce her press release, she has an E-mail list, so she has decided to go ahead and take the announcement that was originally the draft press release that I showed you, and we polished that up a little bit, and she is distributing that to her E-mail list. Another architect I spoke with this week has a postcard that she's planning to send to all of the people in a certain geographic area, announcing her monkey's fist.

Jennifer:              So, I think the monkey's fist, if it doesn't have a clear interest, again, answering that "why we care," then you're better off somehow announcing it directly to people who might be interested. You could even send it with an attached letter to the kinds of construction firms or contractors who would be interested in that kind of work and might want to know about you as an architect, but probably not a press release is going to appear in your local newspaper.

Jennifer:              Richard, what are your thoughts about that?

Richard:                Yeah, well we had a good one the other day from Kurt Kruger who's in our mastermind group, and there are changes being made in the [Heesen 00:33:44]/Brentwood area, there are changes being made to the local by-laws and so he is releasing a press release about the changes, or he's put out almost a public notice about what the impact of the changes are going to have on resident's ability to renovate. So, in that case, because it's tied to something of high-relevance to the audience, far more likely to get ear time. So, any by-law changes or ... yeah. So, I'm sure that will get ear time, you know? That's-

Jennifer:              Yeah, and that's a great thing to go ahead-

Richard:                So, if you're looking for, I mean, I guess the secret here is that if you can piggyback off something which is already news, so you already know the topic is news-worthy, and then you piggyback your press release on top of that, then it's automatically news-worthy because it's a news-worthy topic you've chosen to use.

Jennifer:              Right. Yeah, that works very well. Just the public service component could go a long way for you, because you are helping people directly, but then you're also showing that you're the kind of firm that wants to help people directly. So, that really works for you two ways, and I'm sure you did that because it is helpful to people, but hopefully by helping other people, you'll also be helping your firm.

Jennifer:              Okay, now, there are online press release websites, basically. They are called news [inaudible 00:35:26], or news wires and there are a couple of them. There's PR Web and PR Log, and you can basically post your own press release on these, and they even allow you to put a photo on there. Again, [inaudible 00:35:42] something that's news-worthy. So, I've never had one rejected, but I do believe they read them and make sure that this isn't just an advertisement, a free advertisement. That way, you can have your entire press release published online and link to it from your website, so even if your local business journal just takes your first paragraph, you've still got the whole thing that you can publish on your website. And you can look into various ones of those to see which one appeals to you the most.

Jennifer:              Okay, are there other comments or questions? Did anyone try pitching a story to a reporter or an editor after our last webinar last month? Did anybody give that a try?

Richard:                So just type that in if you did. There are more questions. Eric Lam, who's another mastermind neighbor, "Is there a time limit for an event to still be relevant?"

Jennifer:              Okay. Well, that's very interesting because that is the very issue that [Jusey 00:36:59] and I talked over in deciding which of her projects she would announce, because as it turned it out, that high-end apartment wasn't a very recent completion, but she's got the photos now, and it has a timeless element to it. So, as long as it's still relevant, I would say no, there's not a time limit. Now, if you're talking about a particular event, like a ground-breaking, you'd want to get that out definitely within the first month after it happens, but if you are completing a project, and as you know, it takes a while to get the photos together on that, so, on those kinds of things, something like the dental office, the school, the mixed-use building, any of those things, it would be nice to do it within the first three months after it's done, but you can certainly stretch it out if you need to. If you just haven't gotten around to it, just go for it. Go ahead and try it.

Jennifer:              Okay, what else?

Richard:                Okay. Can a press release be a commentary or something else that allows you to air your points of view?

Jennifer:              No. What you'd want to do for that is the op-ed. So, that was one of the things we briefly mentioned last month. If you have something that's more like an article, you can pitch that to various publications, too.

Jennifer:              Now, we have quite a few people who are in the commercial area, and if you have a business journal, a lot of times they are looking to fill their pages. Especially in a month like this one where we've got holidays at the end of the month, and they may not have the usual amount of content that they would like to have. It's a great time for you to write a story because it's also a time when people have more time at home, and they might be more likely to read your story.

Jennifer:              And basically, what you would do, is send the same kind of pitch that we already talked about, put in the subject line that it's a story pitch or a query, this might be more appropriately a query, and then the subject matter. Like ... Let's see. Nothing's coming to me off the top of my head, but anyway, whatever you're gonna write about, go ahead and put it in the subject line, and query, just like we said, writing to a person and telling what you want to write about and why their readers would care about this. Be direct about that. "Your readers will want to know about this because," and then wait for them to reply to you. If you don't hear from them, just like with a press release, follow up. You can offer that you can write a 500-word article, or however long a typical article is in that publication.

Jennifer:              We've had other stories of members who have used their monkey's fist to approach various publications, saying, basically at a conference, "Here, I published this, would you like to have a copy?" And ending up with an assignment to write for the publication. So, you could go about it that way, too. If you're basically using your monkey's fist to show that you have some expertise in an area, and that generates ideas on their end with what kind of stories they would like to have from you.

Jennifer:              Okay, what else? What else can I tell you about press releases?

Richard:                Who says, "An answer to Jennifer's question, we recently had our home featured in an Atlantic Sunday newspaper. We had pitched it to the homes' feature writer more than a year ago." So, they must've ... I'm not sure if they re-pitched it, but in terms of success recently, you asked if anyone had any recent success. Maybe they re-pitched that article, or maybe they're just pulling it out of the newspaper, or the Atlantic Sunday newspaper pulled it out of the drawer and said, "We can use this now." I'm not sure.

Jennifer:              Oh, well-

Richard:                So, that's good news.

Jennifer:              Whoever wrote in, can you clarify, was that a re-pitch? Or the publication kept it on file?

Richard:                Yeah, he just, Harris Phillip says, "It took a while for the reporter to get her photographer scheduled. Not a re-pitch." No, so, there you go. Sitting on a shelf for 12 months, and they finally got a- Maybe they had space for it. That's the thing, sometimes they just don't have room for your article, and sometimes, they're desperate for news. And sometimes it's bad timing, sometimes it can sit on the shelf for 12 months, and then they come back to you 12 months later. So, the point is, if you're not putting out news releases, they're not gonna contact you. You know?

Jennifer:              And of course, whenever-

Richard:                Remember ...

Jennifer:              Go ahead, Richard.

Richard:                You go.

Jennifer:              So, whenever you do have an article appear, you're going to, of course, write to the reporter or the editor, thank them, and offer to be a resource to them in the future. And hopefully, they will follow up with that, but if they don't, certainly send them your press release again in a few months after that. Make it something a little different from last time, a different kind of story angle for them, and in that way, build a relationship.

Richard:                Yeah, I just want to reiterate something Jennifer just said. Make yourself known that you are available to be a resource to them, because you may get even more value out of being their go-to building commentator than the original article in the first place. If you want to talk on that, Jennifer?

Jennifer:              Right. Even if you can connect them to other professionals in the industry, you're helping them. And, I mean, it really does happen. They will later help you also. So, just like with any other business relationship, you want to keep that going as long as you can. Include them in your dirty thirty, include them on your news letter, whatever you can do to keep in touch with them without it being too much, of course. Okay? Moderation.

Jennifer:              Okay, any other questions about-

Richard:                So-

Jennifer:              -pitching the query? Yes, go ahead.

Richard:                Yeah, one from Craig Tyler in Sydney, and he doesn't mention it, but I'm reading between the lines here, he's struggling for this rugby team, it's not doing very well, but says, Actually here's a good question," so he states to us first that it's already a good question, so that's good. Thanks, Craig. We don't like to make up our own mind on that one. Craig's a good guy. Craig and I have a little bit of banter back and forth. He's an Aussie, so he can handle it. "A new house that you want to get published in a magazine, if you want to go to five magazines to increase your chance of getting published, well you can't push the same press release at five different magazines. Do you need to craft five different press releases?"

Jennifer:              No, I would write one. I would send it to all five publications, unless one's a favorite, and then you can use the same technique we showed earlier, where you're going to hold it to a certain date. If that's not the case, write one press release, send it to all five outlets, and offer it as a, even with a, story pitch. You can pitch this to multiple outlets.

Jennifer:              Now, I would pitch them one at a time, and you're going to want to tweak the pitch to make sure we're talking to the right person at the right publication, and why their readers will care about it, because every publication is slightly different from all the others. If you're sending out one press release to multiple outlets without the pitch, then I would say send it to yourself, and then BCC all those other outlets, because none of them want to think that you're sending this to anyone else.

Jennifer:              Now, if one of the publications says, "Yes, we would like to do the story," I would immediately write to all of the other publications, withdrawing the story pitch. So, you know, as long as you really feel that your offer is going to come through. So, once it becomes clear you've got somebody else who's going to do this story on you, you can go ahead and write to the others and say, "This story is no longer available." Now, ideally, you have a different story that in a few weeks or months, you could pitch to those same people again, and now maybe they'll start to see you as a little more desirable, in terms of being the subject of the story. But there's no reason to hold it and do one at a time.

Richard:                Exactly. Alright, Phillip Andrew Jessup asked another question, "Now that we've got a home published in a major metro [inaudible 00:46:21] to lifestyle magazine?"

Jennifer:              Okay. I don't think I heard all of the question because you were cutting out, there.

Richard:                Sorry. He says, "Now that we've had this home published in a major metro area newspaper, what's the etiquette of submitting to lifestyle magazines?"

Jennifer:              Oh, I would just submit on a different angle. So, if the newspaper published an article based on the geographic area, then I would pitch it to magazines because of the materials you used, or the design, the economy of the space, you know, look at what's unique about this.

Jennifer:              And I just want to add, because this came up in an earlier question, too, you may not do a press release about every project, but you could certainly pitch any project to someone out there. So, if it's a home remodel, for example, maybe that doesn't warrant a press release to your local newspaper, but yes, there may be either a section of that newspaper that publishes stories on that kind of thing, or a magazine where you can go out and say, "We've just done this gorgeous renovation, and your readers will want to know about it because this resort area is becoming very popular as the other ones become overcrowded, and let us show you what we can do with one of these old, run-down houses." So, that's going to be a very interesting story for someone. Just keep pitching different angles, especially if you're a small office and you don't have a lot of different projects out there, you could spread this out over time.

Jennifer:              You know, we were talking about what's the time limit earlier. You don't have to do this all at once. You don't have to spend significant time every week pitching stories, but just as you think of it, "Oh yeah, I think I'll write to that magazine, too." You don't have to have the whole press release as a back-up. You can just have enough information to wet their appetite. And you can put that right in an E-mail. Something that only takes you a few minutes, especially if you're already familiar with their publication.

Richard:                That's everything. Alright. That's great. We've had a lot of questions. There's been a lot of interest. A lot of people are saying, "Thank you very much, Jennifer."

Jennifer:              Oh, you're welcome.

Richard:                It's been a great couple of sessions, and so I just want to thank Jennifer again for her great content. I'm just conscious my microphone keeps cutting out. I'm in a foreign location on holiday and I can't plug in to the wall, but if there's any final question, guys, just plug it in, and then we'll wrap things up again and that'll give you guys time to head away and write your press releases, and see what happens. Do you find this is a very good time of year, Jennifer, being around Christmas, that the stories and the publications, they run out of stories? Is that what you [inaudible 00:49:34]? It certainly is down under. Is that the case up in the Northern Hemisphere?

Jennifer:              Some of the newspapers can get very thin during this time of year, so I'm thinking ... I mean, they do publish holidays events, so you have a lot of photos of that kind of thing, but it's usually thin on things like the business news or the home features, or things like that. So go ahead and pitch it. Just because Christmas is coming up, or because the New Year is coming up, it doesn't mean that everything stops. The paper is coming out every day of the week, or once a week, whatever the case may be.

Jennifer:              Go ahead and pitch it when you have a slow period, too. I mean, you may not be as busy as usual during these couple of weeks because people are harder to get hold of and so forth. When you have a slow period, or if you're a little bit between projects, that's a great time to jump in and do some marketing. If you have really some slow time, give it half a day. Go ahead and put a lot of feelers out and then watch what happens as they come back to you, even as you start to get more busy after they first of the year. So, use your downtime from your projects for your marketing. Now, if you're too busy to do that, because you've got so much happening in the way of your projects, congratulations, first of all, but also go ahead and just send out those E-mail pitches, where you're not putting a whole press release out that you need to spend an hour fixing and editing and so forth. Dash out the E-mails and put the feelers out there, and then get back to work.

Richard:                Yep, and comment here from Romero, "I listened to the advice from last session, and managed to get published. It's been a week, and I have not seen any increase in calls."

Jennifer:              Okay. Alright.

Richard:                Yep. He hasn't seen any entries, because, my answer to him, was that's how life rolls, Romero. Sometimes a press release or publication causes a flood, other times, nothin. But, you can always reuse the articles, because even if no one calls because of it, those articles are great for building your credibility and they can be sent to clients before you have meetings with them, they can be posted in your office, you can reuse them and get all sorts of other benefits other than just getting an initial surge of phone calls.

Jennifer:              Right, and what you-

Richard:                But sometimes it does cause a surge of phone calls.

Jennifer:              Yes. Keep putting them on your website, though, because one of these days, somebody will be visiting your website, and they will see in your news section, oh, one, two, three, four, five, six press releases, and it looks good. Again, it's the idea that you've got something happening. People like to go to professionals who are busy. You don't want to go to the people who aren't busy. So, go ahead and generate energy. When you're doing this, you are giving energy to your firm, and you are showing that your firm is active, and you are circulating, and you're circulating information about yourself and it's all good. It all comes back to you in a positive way. So, don't get discouraged, just keep going with it.

Richard:                Hey, that's great. Everybody's saying, "Thank you very much." They're very excited. "Such anticipation," says Michelle. "Hadn't thought of putting out the news release on the website before, thanks," says Phillip. "Thanks, Jennifer, you are a great coach," says Umberto. "I hope you and [Jusey 00:53:13] have a good Christmas." That's it, guys, I think we'll wrap this up. Thank you very much, again, Jennifer. Great session. I don't like it when you come on board for a couple of sessions and run better sessions than I run, so we'll have to keep you off the airwaves for a long time.

Jennifer:              Okay, well thank you everybody. [crosstalk 00:53:34]

Richard:                Thanks very much. Hey, thanks guys. Yes, this will be put on the Office Hours on the members' website, so thanks for joining us, and any final thoughts, Jennifer?

Jennifer:              Oh, happy holidays everybody, and I hope that you will have a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year.