Episode 16: Public Relations for Your Brand with Renee Warren

Molly Cahill
Welcome to holistic marketing simplified a podcast for health and wellness professionals looking to simplify their marketing. I'm your host, Molly Cahill. And this podcast is brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bake their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com to learn more and use code podcast for $100 off, you can find full show notes, resources and more at Molly cahill.com/podcast. Okay, welcome to the show, Rene, I'm so excited to have you today. And actually with the topic near and dear to my heart, because a lot of people don't know that my background, my college degree is actually in public relations. I never used it. I went straight into sales. But already did your intro. But tell us a little bit about you and what you do. And how did you get here?

Renee Warren
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me how I found you is interesting, because it was like this Instagram rabbit hole. And then I feel like there was somebody else that was on your show that I was looking at. And I was like, Oh my gosh, she has this new podcast is awesome. I know. Right? But a little bit about me is I don't have formal education and PR. My I started an agency back in 2012 when I was eight months pregnant with my first son, and then eight months

Molly Cahill
pregnant. Yeah, he just gets over that what

Renee Warren
to get we wait, no, no, here's the kicker, had a co founder, our business was growing really fast. And then 11 months after having my first son, I had my second son. Oh, I have two babies in the same year starting a business. No formal education and in PR. Also my mentality back then was like, oh, babies, they just sleep all the time. So this and starting a business. I mean, you don't work a lot, you make a lot of money, right? Isn't that what entrepreneurship is all about? So what a realization anyway, but won awards we were doing our focus is really with funded technology companies and helping them with their like, funding announcement or launch. And then I took some time off because I was overwhelmed. And into business coaching. And then did it for a few years loved it. But also good tired of that. Realize My heart is still in PR. And wow, things have changed a lot in the last 10 years in the industry. Yeah, it's not so much different. But anyways, I am living in the mountains in British Columbia, Canada, I have two boys. They're now nine and 10 years old, and a new dog named Blaze.

Molly Cahill
No, I blazes might make an appearance here in a minute. So it's fine. So how did you end up in PR? Like, how did you even start like,

Renee Warren
yeah, so where it started was I was living in San Francisco with my boyfriend, now husband. And he had a company out there called Flo town. So it was like a social platform. And this is when everybody was like all the rage was like your Facebook API and creating these social platforms. But he was like, I want to introduce you to a bunch of other other companies of which I could help do some sort of marketing with because like, I understood marketing. And so this was when back in 2011, when all the companies were creating like cool infographics. And it was like the infographic like stage where if you had an infographic with cool information you are getting in all of the publications. And so I started working with a bunch of these startups, just understanding their content marketing strategy, understanding Google ads, and Facebook ads and how it was helping them kind of get in the news and getting more customers. And so still, I didn't know PR. But then I started working with a woman named Heather, who became a co founder in my agency. And she was in PR, she was doing PR for startups. And as Okay, looks like we're working on these projects together. Finally, one day, I was just like, we should probably start a business together. So co founding this company with Heather. And we create this thing called as PR engine where there's like PR content, marketing and social, we're married together, because we're using the three kind of silos of marketing together to amplify the work that we were doing. And then we created this business. And then we just started to reach out to people like in our network saying, Hey, this is what we're doing. Do you want to sign up and become a customer? And before we knew it, we had clients from South Africa to San Diego, incredible men. We were like, a year and a bit into business. We realized that content marketing is extremely effective coupled with social and PR, but the biggest ROI was actually in doing PR. And so we really honed in on that being like, not the only focus but the biggest kind of thing that we were selling. And then we became a He our company for fun to technology startups. And it just kind of spiraled from there. Well,

Molly Cahill
so let's like, I'm gonna, like jump forward here. For the people who are listening. They're like, What do you mean by Pr? I think immediately people think of like Olivia in scandal. Like, what do you want? Let's, let's kind of like demystify that. It's not something fancy. Let's give some very practical examples of what you mean by Pr.

Renee Warren
Yeah, so my term for it is what's public relations. But I say that it is the mother of all marketing. It's like the umbrella everything fits underneath it. And why is because it's about building relationships. And you want to build relationships with potential customers with potential partners, investors, you name it. And so PR is kind of where you begin. People often ask, When do you start with PR? And that might be a question that you want to ask later. But I say it's from the very moment you either have a business idea, or you're going to mark it, because because the process takes so long, that PR is something you start with from day one, you're building relationships, you've got to learn how to build relationships better.

Molly Cahill
Yeah. So when I think of PR, and so you can tell me if this is like, a different definition than what you would I think of it as like, yes, all the things you said. But as the term is being, as I see the term being used a lot today, in the online business space, or in as we talked about, before, I serve a lot of brick and mortar, you know, chiropractors, massage therapists and such, I think about it as PR is almost like free in a way. Free, because time is not free free is not the right word, like getting on someone else's podcast, that's PR or getting a write up in your local natural awakenings magazine, you know, that's PR, or, you know, getting a mention on mind body green, like or writing an article for Mind, Body greens and things like that. Like, that's what I my brain goes to. So I'll let you kind of expand on that from your mind

Renee Warren
that that is PR in the traditional sense, too. And that's why I think of it as just a way to create relationships with people. So for instance, how you and I connected on Instagram, when I just saw that there was somebody that I was connected with, it was on your show, it was like, Oh my gosh, and I think I like dropped some tips on how to grow. Yeah, just like, and then all of a sudden, I'm now invited to be a guest, which is great. That is relationship building. Yes. As I didn't know what the outcome was like, Hey, maybe I could be a guest on her show. But I just like helping people. And the reason why people are often deterred by it is because it is it takes a lot of time. And it takes creativity. And it takes really understanding like, why it's important to your business, to your personal brand, to your to your company, to consistently be doing it. Because it's unlike, you know, a funnel where you're running ads to a funnel to launch a program. PR is something definitely helps with that. But it's something you need to be doing all the time.

Molly Cahill
Yeah. And I, I have so much content around this. I'm like doing things that don't scale. I think people get into the online business world. And they just automatically forget all of the basic functions of human connection and how, like the one to one connection, like you can't serve 1000s or hundreds if you're not, you know, serving one person well, first. And I love that you just said that about it. Like it's the relationships because I mean, I think back to even how I first when I first launched my business, I wasn't just serving health and wellness professionals. I was kind of doing it for everybody because I didn't know what I wanted to do. Or I was doing Instagram for everyone. And so my chiropractor friend and I because she had the space her office, right? We we ran ads for this, like women's networking group, neither one of us knew how to run ads. We're like, hey, come like, we'll have wine and cheese and crackers. And like if you're a woman and you own a business, like calm and had 20 people showed up. And we like didn't know how to run ads. I think I spent like $15 on ads or something like we were shocked to see like the screen and then you don't like think like you said it's just connections on connections on connections. And it just like that web grows out. And you know, just from listening to your podcast, Renee, I have now started listening to some of the podcasts of the guests you've had on your show. So Renee, you say like we always need to be doing it like talking about PR. What is a like, why is a PR strategy important? How does it play into your bigger marketing? Picture?

Renee Warren
Yeah. So people often want to glaze over the strategy. They're like, No, no, just take my story and start pitching and it can work and it has worked but it's just not sustainable. And so when you look at a strategy, it's like, what is the actual business goal for doing PR. And it's hard sometimes to to attribute wins to actual sales. But here's the thing is PR is really good at helping you build and grow your credibility and your authority. Right? You go to someone's website, and you're like, you know, as seen on Forbes or Business Insider, all of a sudden, now this person seems more credible. Right? And so when you're looking at the bigger picture strategy for your business, it's like, okay, so if I want to, you know, earn $200,000 a year, these are my customers, where do these customers hang out? And how do I get in front of them? is a question we always need to be asking. Then you can take the bigger picture strategy. Okay, so is it going on a podcast tour? Is it reaching out to influencers online? Is it writing contributed articles? Is it reaching out to journalists, editors? What is the strategy, and then working towards that goal? Now, here's the thing about PR is it takes a long time, it's a marathon, not a sprint. I actually have a woman I've been working with for almost three months now. And we only just got clear, again, on her ideal customer, minutes before you and I started recording. And it was like we unlocked this whole other level. She's like, Oh, my gosh, it's actually 50 year old women that are executives or high performing entrepreneurs. She's a health coach. And I said, this is so good, because guess what, as her publicist, now my job got so much easier, right? Yeah. So much easier, because now I know, okay, where are these people hanging out online? Now I know who to reach out to? Yeah. And so the strategy is understanding the goal, where your customers are, and then finding the outlets, the means to represent yourself from a perspective of earned media in front of these people, because then they're like, oh, this Mali girl, she's cool. She was just on somebody else's show. I like her. And now they come to your podcast, and they start listening to you. And now they're like, Okay, now they trust you. And then we buy from those we know like, and trust.

Molly Cahill
Yes. That's why I've grown my business. The majority. And this is all tied, is I don't know why I never put it under the PR umbrella because it is, collaborations is how I've grown my I haven't I've never run ads, I'm not against ads, I actually plan to start running them in q2, I just have like a weird brain block around them because they overwhelm me, but I've grown my business through collaborations. So whether that's being on someone else's podcast, or doing a free lead magnet swap for our email lists, or doing an Instagram live together, doing an Instagram collaboration together, you know, on a reel together, I've done masterclasses inside other people's programs. And that's all great examples of, you know, kind of what you what you're talking about here with the PR, but let's let's dive into because the majority of my audience, not all I do have some online health coaches. But let's talk first about the brick and mortar. You know, let's say I'm a chiropractor, and I've gotten like PR This isn't for me. It's like actually, I would argue it's even easier for you because you can go get almost every town has like a little town magazine, or you've got that natural awakenings magazine. Let's talk about PR for a local audience.

Renee Warren
Yes, it's I don't want to say it's easier.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, easier. right word, but it's like to me I can like pinpoint. I'm like, Oh, I know exactly where you would have cific.

Renee Warren
Exactly. So I actually would love to use my sister as an example. So she has a pediatric physiotherapy clinic in Ottawa, Canada. And she, of course, she leans on me for help. And I say, look at your neighborhood, then look at your city in your town, like just how the question is, how far are your clients willing to travel to come and see you as a professional, she determined that her for this client was 100 kilometers away. I don't know what that is in miles. So now we create that on the map, the circle 100 kilometer radius around the business, and we look at all the possible opportunities for media, podcasts, newspapers, anything within 100 kilometer radius, and we just go to every single one of them. Yes. She's like, okay, and I go, this takes time, but even local newsletters. She eventually got on to her what's called Rogers TV. So it's like a local morning television show, where she got to become the expert, pediatric physiotherapist. And she showed up and she did a morning segment. And now she's gonna be the person they call.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, so fun fact. I don't even think I don't think I even told you this. But my first job was selling advertising in a newspaper. And yeah, I know and I'm not even Oh, this was in 2002.

Renee Warren
I'm, I'm giggling because I'm like, I don't even know what that was. look like,

Molly Cahill
I was so poor. Um, this is like 2008. Right, right before the recession, I think I was making like $20,000 a year. Yeah, it was rough. But anyway, I was actually responsible for starting a bridal magazine for our paper, because I, my, selfishly, my territory had a lot of bridal shops, and no, none of them wanted to buy an ad in the newspaper. So I went to my boss, and I was like, Hey, we should start a separate publication. But I say this to say like, we had the bridal magazine, and then it eventually morphed into just like a lifestyle type magazine for the county. It was like a local newspaper. And then it was like a local county, like lifestyle magazine. And we were always searching for people to, to get on the cover or article like, we, you think that you're bothering these people by saying, Hey, I have an article for you, when really it's the opposite. Because trust me, I was on the other end, when they were like, they're a bit like the journalists are busy. And they don't know all the cool stories in the town. Like we only had an office of, I don't know, like 15 people maybe. So it was only who we knew we were like, Who do we know that we can put on the cover of this magazine. So really, you're doing them a favor by pitching what you do

Renee Warren
just become that the go to person like another client of mine, Amber. She's in San Diego. And she's we're working together because she's launching a book. And she's like the go to person for anxious moms, and helping, and she's on Fox News five, like she has been on it a handful of times now. Amazing. And now she has these clips for her website. And it's like, there's that authority credibility building. Because it's easier for them to just send her a quick message saying, Hey, we actually have this segment idea, or we need a source for this. Can you show up tomorrow at 9am. And she's like, 100%. It got her like it took her a while to get there. But now she's that person. And that's leveraged to pitch other media as well saying, Hey, look at how good she is on air. She's really good. Yeah. So locally, brick and mortar, regardless of it being like any type of business is just do that. Look at how far your clients are willing to travel to come and see you. And then just hone in on every single possible media outlet, including influencers, radio, newspapers, blogs, anything, even like going into your local, like rink or arena, or where people swim and looking at bulletin boards, or you're posting stuff up there. That's still relations.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, no, I love it. Let's talk about I'm actually sorry, I didn't prep you on this. So if you don't want to talk, let me know. But let's talk about influencer marketing when it comes to like local areas, because I've heard some mixed reviews before I've had some people who are like, oh, did not turn out well, because this person wasn't even my ideal client. And then it was like it felt it felt funny, you know? I don't know, do you want to speak to that, like the influencer marketing when it comes to a local

Renee Warren
100%. And I'm going to use this example. I love this example. So this was back in 2014. Maybe we had a client. And this was when like, Twitter was the Instagram. We had a client who was like this body positivity app. And for some reason, they're like big aha, like, I would absolutely love it if the author of the book 50 Shades of Grey, because that was the big thing back then tweeted about them. We somehow got the author and I forget the author's name was tweeted about this company. Right? So they're like 50 or 100,000 followers, whatever the number was, and we're like, oh, this is good. And that led to zero sales, zero, download zero, nothing. And like, even in the back of my mind, I was like, yeah, that that looks great. But I know it's not gonna amount to anything. And where we don't give enough credit to smaller blogs, we don't give enough credit to the people that have 200 followers on Instagram or 2000 that are active that have specific content that have high engagement. Yes. And so like in my language, right, and it's like maybe I'm a micro influencer, I don't know, I have like 5500 followers on Instagram. But here's where I noticed is powerful is I can sell a $9,000 coaching program to those followers, right? I can sell a six month PR retainer to those followers. So it doesn't matter if it's 100,000. Right. Let's look at the people that have those big followings. And then actually look at the engagement they get. Like I see these people that have a 250,000 followers. I'm like, Wow, that's amazing. And then they post something they get four likes and one comment. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, so your content either not being delivered to your audience, or those are just a bunch of bots.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, it's probably bots. But yes, I get it. And I mean, if it's small town, it's a lot harder. It's definitely doable. But I mean, for example, for some of our how this intersects with what we teach our client, our students and what we do For our Instagram management clients is on our highest tier Instagram management package, we will go out to, like, for example, we have a pediatric chiropractor in Raleigh, North Carolina. And there's this cool mom's blog called triangle families explore, where she posts all the different parks and like, you know, trampoline park, like fun things to do with your kids around the area. And so we'll always like tag her in her story, like, you know, share her the triangle families explore stuff to her stories and like, tag her. And that would be really cool. I need to tell her after this, can you take her reach out to heard? Yeah, like that's, that's, to me kind of a good example of like how you can hone like or harness local, like you said, like influencers, like mom blogs or whatever,

Renee Warren
physical, local, and then there's like, local in the terms of very small niche market. So I had a client who is a she was a paralegal to immigration lawyers. So Mike, that's very specific. Right? And turns out a very big industry. And there's a lot of immigration lawyers in the US. And she's like, but I want to work with female immigration lawyers. I'm like, even better, because I'm honing in on a market. And I go, Are these women? Are these lawyers on Instagram? She's like, Yeah, they are. And I go, Cool. How about this week, your chore is to go connect with five of them, like, engage with them comments, and then a couple DMS don't sell anything. Yeah, guess what happened? What? Like two of them turned into long term pain coins? Yeah. That's it. That's she's like, Oh, it works. And so every week I'd asked her, I'm like, did you do it again? She goes, No, I didn't. I'm really intimidated. I'm like, but you have new customers. Yeah. And here's the thing is, if you have something that you believe in, that you're selling, and you're not putting yourself out there, you're doing these people a disservice. Here's what happens with these lawyers is now she's giving them time back, because she's doing the paperwork, they can grow their business, they can serve more people that want to immigrate into the US. So she's allowing the lawyer to actually do a better job because she's taking off the all the paperwork off that lawyers plate. So if she hadn't put herself out there, this would have happened, she wouldn't have the customer and that lawyer would have just still been drowning in paperwork.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, I had a post that did really well recently, where I said basically exact same thing you said, and I was like, it's so funny how we think about things differently. That's why I'd never put how to sell without being salesy. I don't use language like that. Because to me, I'm like, and I don't want to sell ice to Eskimos, I want to sell I know I have something people need, like, I don't want to sell. And you do too. And if you don't think that people need what you have, then that's a problem. I can't solve for you. You gotta go back a few more steps. You gotta go to work with a life coach or re redefine your offer or something because if you don't believe in it, no one's going to and I always say like, if you're hungry, and you go to like, grab a meal somewhere like I'm you know, I'm gonna go to Chick fil A Chick fil A in Canada.

Renee Warren
No. No, we don't. Or maybe we do. I just don't I don't I've never had Chick fil A in my life. I don't know. The only thing right?

Molly Cahill
I ever eat but it's, it's, they their owner is not like that's a whole nother topic. But anyway, let's just say I like go to the grocery store and I buy you know, a banana. I'm not going to be like, Oh my gosh, that cashier was so salesy. Because I'm like, No, I was hungry. And then you had food and that might need and now I'm not hungry anymore. Exactly. Yeah, what you do is the same thing. I always joke with my chiropractors because I actually didn't get chiropractic care when I was pregnant, because I didn't know that that was the thing. I'm like, I wish one of you would have seen me hobbling along and been like honey, I can help you

Renee Warren
crack my back. I'm actually going to see my chiropractor after this call. Right in an hour.

Molly Cahill
Oh, cool. Well, and like you know, think about your sister in law you said like, there's people who don't know like, I can help you.

Renee Warren
Oh, and this crazy even like even to go like 18 levels deeper with pediatric physiotherapy. What's what's the first thing that comes to your mind in going and having your child go see a physiotherapist? It's probably like, oh, sports injury? Yeah, right. They twisted their ankle and now they know. The stuff they do is crazy. Like, she's worked on babies as young as two weeks old. Yeah. And there's thing called torticollis. Right where their necks kind of like that's what a pediatric physiotherapist does all the way up to understanding why a child might have incontinence at night. Like my youngest was still wetting his bed a little bit later than most kids do. So I called my sister and I was like, hey, like, I don't know what to do. She goes, Oh, here's some physiotherapy things you can do to help them guess what happened? He got by at her, but if she wasn't putting herself out there to share her knowledge that content, she like there'd be more moms at home cleaning dirty sheets every single night because their kids wedding their bed.

Molly Cahill
Right? So you and you also, this is so funny that you found me because I feel like we have so many serendipitous, like moments where I'm like, Yes. She posted yesterday about a wealth is greed. Yes. That just like, love my heart or made me so happy when I was like, yes, you're gonna be on my show tomorrow, because this is still in line with how I think. I think women think Well, I just want to help people. And I'm like, that's great. I just want to help people too. But I also want to make money doing that thing. Because if I don't, I'll go out of business, and then I'll help no one. Mm

Renee Warren
hmm. Yes. So the Post says money isn't a negative thing. Greed is right. And I believe you probably believe the same thing is I hope everyone can go out and make the most amount of money possible, because it's not greedy. If you're using it as a means to serve others. Yes, it's greedy. If it's like, I want to buy a private jet, and a plane, I mean, those things are fine. But as long as you're giving back, you're giving back in terms of like, your time or something to charity, whatever. But the reality is, the more you can earn, the more you can return, you give back to the people that are in your community or for charity, whatever,

Molly Cahill
which is so funny, we should do another episode later on about like money mindset, because I feel like you and I are so aligned on that topic, because I've had to do a lot of work. I've had to do a lot of like subconscious work on it. Get Rich Lucky Bitch is a great book. If you have not read Have you read that one? No. Oh, and then shout out to my bookkeeper Kelly Marshall. She's incredible. She does monthly money mindset calls with me. And because I used to even feel guilty about having like a cleaning person, because I was like, well, like, well, you're paying her like, you're putting money in her pocket. And then she puts money in it. Like, why would you feel guilty about giving another woman business? And I'm like, I don't know, because? Because I'm a spoiled, privileged white woman. And I don't know what she's like. But that doesn't make

Renee Warren
any sense. You're giving other people permission to do the same. Like we have a house manager. Her name is Betty. For years, it took me so long to accept. Yeah, except the fact that there's people here. Almost like we have a cleaning lady and a house manager. How like, why is it possible because Betty is so busy running our lives personal professional taking care of her kids, when we need her to take in the dog, whatever it is that now it allows us to grow our businesses, it actually allows me to be a much better parent. Because guess what I'm not doing in the evenings. I'm not cooking and cleaning. I'm actually playing the hockey with my sons. I'm helping them do their homework.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, my friend Kate has a house manager. And that's actually next on my husband's not open to the idea yet. But yeah, sorry. We've gotten off the PR topic. That's my fault. But I think the nose really this is really good. But so let's we'll come back to Yeah, we should have another conversation about this. But I want to make sure I have some action items for my listeners. But let's talk about you're busy, right? Like, if your health coach or carb or whatever, whoever you are, everyone is busy. And it's like, how do you carve out time? It's like, Molly, this is like one more thing.

Renee Warren
It is it could it could just be one more thing. But here's the thing about marketing is don't do everything at once, right? Don't run Facebook ads enough to a funnel and then do a huge social media strategy. And then PR, no, that's just stupid. That's just really bad advice. I always say PRS is consistent thing that you need to be doing from day one. And it doesn't have to be 20 hours a week, it could be four hours, six hours at tops. And here's the thing is you can shoot you can train junior people on your team, you can train your your receptionist how to do this, you can train your VA, how to do this, the whole point and the most important piece of advice is to just always be scouting for opportunities.

Molly Cahill
So what does a good pitch look like? In your opinion?

Renee Warren
Oh, my gosh, the pitch. Let me tell you, I rewrite my pitches all the time. I think for my current clients right now, Janet, I've been working with for three months, I've probably rewritten her pitch like 20 times. Okay, 20 times a good pitch is short. To the point there's no attachments. There's maybe one or two links to absolutely irrelevant information, which could be a website or a social media account. And it it's so specific to the person being pitched that they almost like we didn't realize I needed it. It's what we mean, it's an art. If you're a pet journalist, for instance, because I have a I have a client who is into pet supplement space, right? And there's and there's like, oh, this new study just came out that came out last week about how the pet supplement industry has grown by 14% in the last couple years, and it's expected to grow to 26%. And I was like, Oh my gosh, hey, Molly. I actually just came across this really cool study about the pet supplement space that I thought would be relevant to you as a pet writer. Here's the link. Cool. That's a relationship building tactic. And then maybe I'll go do the pitch as a follow up. Right? So maybe this person doesn't reply, Molly doesn't reply to me. Then I'll reply week later saying, Oh, and by the way, if you ever need a source to talk about animal wellness, or anything about pet supplements, I'd love to introduce you to my client, Suzy, who are you sending this to? A journalist. So that's thing, give value and then do the pitch. So pitches are short. Sometimes if you can be really smart about your words, it's 200 words or less.

Molly Cahill
Okay, that's a good Yeah,

Renee Warren
I mean, here's the thing is, you're getting the taste of it, too, as a podcast host, you receive pitches, and there are going to be some really good ones, and there's going to be some really terrible, I keep all of the all the pitches that get sent to me to be on my show. Because I use it as a lesson because if I'm intrigued by the email, then I'm like, somebody else would be intrigued by this approach as well. I also have free resources on my website. And I actually have a really cool free resource too, that I've linked for you email pitches that have actually proven to get media wins.

Molly Cahill
Okay, cool. Yeah, we'll make sure that gets linked in the show notes below.

Renee Warren
Yeah, so these are, these are actual pitches. I've used to get clients in media on top top podcast shows. They work, sometimes they don't.

Molly Cahill
Are there any websites that you feel like are kind of like, best places to start? You know, I'm thinking things like, medium and MindBodyGreen? Like, what are your thoughts on those?

Renee Warren
In terms of who to pitch? I always say if you've never done it before, never go to like the top tier publication. Yeah. Right. Just get the kinks out by reaching out to people that might be like local bloggers, or a smaller publication. But the most important thing is providing value like, yeah, tell the story of why you're the right person for this or why you're the right guest for the podcast, or why the story angles important to the audience.

Molly Cahill
I've done it before. I know when I pitched a podcast before, it was like, Hey, I just looked through all of your episodes. And I see that you've done episodes on, you know, paid social media marketing and on email marketing, but you've never done any on organic Instagram marketing. So you know, I'd love to come on and have you don't I mean, so it's like kind of filling that gap, and also showing that you've done your homework on what their show is about.

Renee Warren
Yeah, that is absolutely perfect. That is so perfect. Because to me, it's like, she gets the sense of the content that my audience wants or that I talk about, or the people I interview, and she sees where there's a gap in the content, like my audience are much like you and I, the maj printers. Do you know how many times they get pitched men like 55 year old accountants or lawyers? Men? I'm like, sure, but I go if you've actually paid attention, the only man who's ever been on my show is my husband.

Molly Cahill
Oh, yeah, I have one client who she went viral about three months ago. And she's still we're still fielding DMS and emails from someone who I'm like, clearly, this is a massively sent like, nobody has looked at what you do. Like this is,

Renee Warren
you know, that brings up a really good point, never mass pitch. And what I mean by that is, every single email or message you send to a contact or journalists is to them. Now I use it, I use Google templates. So I actually like a craft the outline of the email pitch, and I'll put it in a template. And then for every single person I go to reach out to I update the information where necessary, but it's not like I put in 50 email addresses BCC everyone send the email? Yeah, that's not going to work.

Molly Cahill
Do you ever use the hunter Archer,

Renee Warren
I am trap. So that's a group a Chrome extension that helps you find email addresses. There's also snow.io. There's muck rack, there's a bunch of different tools you can use to actually find email addresses. There's really expensive software like proudly Mark rack as well, where you can pay 1000s of dollars to get all this information. It just depends on where you're at in your business and who's doing the job.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, and if you're unfamiliar with why we've been asking this sometimes, like just sending something to the general like info@whatever.com is probably not gonna go to the right person you want to find the health editor or the you know, the editor, not editor like you don't like the health. Absolutely thinking of like all these small publications because where I live, we get three magazines a month. One is just for our neighborhoods or neighborhoods huge. One is just for our town and one is for like the greater area. Wow. Yeah. I mean, we didn't have that at my old like where I lived before. So

Renee Warren
are you in any of those newsletters? Not

Molly Cahill
yet. No, I haven't made time for I haven't carved out time. But also to be fair, it's It's one of those things like I've had to put on the backburner right now, because I did just get the podcast up and running and to go through a rebrand. And we're onboarding two new team members. And so I'm pretty good about saying like, alright, well think about that in q3.

Renee Warren
Exactly. Yeah. Well, and here's the thing about the pitching. Part two is called there's so much and I have a lot of free content on those could be a toll other other episode. But it takes time. Yeah, right. It takes a lot of time. In it's maybe it's not a thing for you right now. And time in the sense of like, it's not 50 hours a week, but it's like, it takes months, like six, seven months. An example is I helped my husband with his book launch. And I started pitching certain shows in September. That only replied back to me like a couple of weeks ago, at the time of this recording, it's like end of February, wow. takes five months sometimes for shows to get back to you. And so it's like pitch and maybe follow up once no more than that. Oh, that's good to know. I like yeah, and then also reaching out to and finding journalists to look for. So like, I have one client. She's a pretty well known journalist. And I'm coaching her from a business perspective, because she's starting a really awesome content marketing agency. And she so the funny thing she does we do all the time is after our hour long coaching call, she always asked me how many email pitch emails that I get in our last last hour, I'm always like, Oh, I don't know. It's like, on average, it's like 70 emails. And here's the thing. People are pitching her, based on an article she wrote seven years ago that she doesn't write content about anymore. Oh, wow. People aren't doing the work. I have somebody on my team for for 10 to 15 hours a week, her only job, her only job is adding to and updating our media list. So she goes and she looks for the podcast shows to make sure the contact information is right there relevant. They take guests all this stuff, other media outlets based on the industries that our clients are in, that's her only job. And again, like I said, there's a lot of expensive software out there that can do it. We've tried it all this process works for us the best.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what's well like to wrap up? What's like one thing, what's one easy step that somebody can do today, to start their PR efforts?

Renee Warren
Really, there's so the one thing is honing in on exactly who your ideal customer is. crafting your unique hook your your why behind why you started your business. Because, like, people, like journalists can easily go and find out what product or service you're selling by going to your website. And if you're just another chiropractic clinic, or you're just another physiotherapy clinic, they want to know why you're different. So what's the story, how you're unique? What's the hook that they can sink their teeth into, and then just draft out that story in a Google Doc, and then have people you know, that are good writers or somebody on your team, review it. And that eventually will become your pitch. And that's the story that you share online, through your reels through social media, the marketing that you're doing while working with Molly. That becomes a story. And that's the most important thing at the same time, in tandem with growing that media list. Publication Name contact information.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, my one tip would be to piggyback on what you said, Yes. All that. And then also, I would start, I like to start with warm leads. So you would be shocked how many people like some of the chiropractic business coaches I've worked with closely, I'll look on their website. And I'm like, Hey, I saw you were on this show. And this show, would you mind doing a really quick email introduction? Like here? Like, I've even like, typed it out for him for like, can you just like send this, this email? And like the same? Like, if you're just a brick and mortar clinic, ask your patients I guarantee you they know somebody who works for the local paper or radio station or? Yeah, I feel like sometimes that can be a little less intimidating, starting with like a warm, and that gives you the confidence to do more of the pitching

Renee Warren
totally. Oh, yeah. Always start with who you know, are just like in any business, though, there's like this, this curve, where it's like, you have this initial injection of cash and revenue, because it's like your friends and family, and then their associates that come in. And then when that's dried up, it's all about how you market to the cold traffic. And that's why you need to hire people like yourself and me to help understand like, how do I get in front of people that don't know me yet? Right? But yes, start with people, you know, do what you can with what you've got. And then you go from there.

Molly Cahill
Yes, absolutely. Well, Rene, thank you so much for being on the show today. How can people find you and I know you've already given us one resource, but tell us a little bit more about how we can find you and work with you.

Renee Warren
Yeah, so I have a podcast called into the wild. And I talk with female entrepreneurs about all things in life that relate to health, wealth and relationships. Because we are more than just entrepreneurs. So if you go to go on iTunes or Spotify is called Into the Wild, you'll see me and pink. Otherwise, you can go to WWE. Well do women.com to check out my PR services.

Molly Cahill
Yeah, I love the name, by the way. Love that. All right, thank you so much, Renee, and I can't wait to see some action steps that people have taken. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to holistic marketing simplified, brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching, captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bait their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com To learn more, and use code podcast for $100 off, and hey, you know, every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast. Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly a K Hill. That's c h i ll I would greatly greatly appreciate your support. I truly appreciate you so much. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.