👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
This is Part 4 in a series about PR.
I dived into how to get press talking about your brand, and how to get people talking about your brand. Now, I’m talking to a few of the most brilliant PR experts around.
This week’s PR guru is the multi-talented, multi-awesome Alyssa Musket.
Alyssa began her career at Sony Pictures, moved into talent and brand PR—then started her own PR and marketing consultancy, when she realized it would allow her to focus solely on supporting mission-driven companies.
Alyssa is also the co-founder of Sesh, a therapist-led group support platform, and one of the most genuinely caring people on the planet.
Most recently Alyssa worked as a publicist with human rights nonprofit, DigDeep—which is focused on bringing clean running water to the homes of 2M+ Americans who currently live without access. Inspired by their work and sparked into action by a friend’s need for ongoing mental health support but an inability to afford adequate care, Alyssa pursued her belief that community-led solutions at scale can create a truly effective path to sustainable change. She joined the therapist-led group support platform, Sesh, as a co-founder in early 2020. She is passionate about Sesh cultivating a safe space where people of various identities can find accessible mental health support and build community - especially for vulnerable populations that are typically underserved.
Alyssa is a PR Person Who Wishes PR Wasn’t So Important
I wish that we had the ability to have conversations about important things that are happening, whether that's with products or brands, without having other people promote them.
But the sad truth is that the only people you would hear about if there wasn't public relations are the people that are comfortable talking about themselves and their products all the time.
You need people who can take your product or your brand and shepherd it out into the world in a way that you might not be comfortable doing, and that's just the basic truth of it.
Not everybody has the gift to self-promote, and that's where public relations professionals come in.
The Credibility Halo
Press Gives You a Legit Look
Our culture is so media-driven, that there's a certain level of credibility and respect that comes with being featured in the media—whether that's right or not.
DTC Companies Really Need It
If you’re clicking on ad off of social media, people may look at your site with no press mentions on it and think, “What is this product? Did it just come out yesterday? Are these reviews real?”
Then they’ll think, “Hmm, I should probably go with this brand over here that has a lot more press.”
Nonprofits Really Need It, Too
If you're a non-profit that doesn't have any sort of press or awareness around you, then a lot of people don't view you as credible, which is really sad, but really true.
Press is going to expand your access to really important donors or high profile celebrities who are looking for a cause to support.
Not All Press is So Saintly
As PR professionals, we know what's happening behind the scenes where sometimes a brand can pay for the press. And people are more media savvy these days than they were five or ten years ago—just because of access and the historical press that you can find online now.
But in a busy day, if you don't work in media, you're not going to think too deeply about how that brand came to be mentioned in that publication. That's what makes it still worthwhile for the brand to pay for press. It is a necessary evil.
Alyssa’s Best Advice
You Have to Put in the Work
The biggest mistake people make is trying to run before they walk. It sounds so cliche, but it's so true. Make sure you have the product or information you say you do before you ask someone to write a story about it.
Research, Research, Research
You need to know who is going to care about the story. For a nonprofit I worked with, we would build targeted lists of journalists who were already covering those issues, or who were covering non-profits, or who were covering those regions they were working in—and then we would write personalized pitches to them.
Build the Relationships
It takes time to build credibility with the reporters themselves. Even if you’re bringing a miracle product to market or you're solving a huge problem or you have statistical data that your company is saving lives—it can be tough.
You're not going to see an overnight shift. You have to genuinely enjoy the relationship building aspect of it.
You Could Get Lucky…
The journalism world moves so quickly right now, and reporters need pitches and they need stories because they need clicks. It's a vicious cycle.
So you might slip in without the relationship, if you have a pitch that catches their eye. But definitely don’t count on it.
You Should Never Ever Ever…
Reach out to a list with a mass email, and ask someone to care about a brand that they've never heard of. Take the time to really make the effort, especially when you're starting out.
Give Your Pitch Human Touch
Write at least one line into the pitch that's targeted to the journalist. It will raise your chances significantly. If you want them to read your pitches and care about your brand, you should care about their work too.
Don’t Hesitate to Reach Out to Celebrities
If you can find a celebrity that aligns with what you're building, especially if your mission-driven, then start those conversations. It's not like they're going to do it for nothing, but if you're a baby brand—they'll get that.
You want someone who is going to love your brand as much as you do. That might be impossible, but they should love it a lot.
Find a PR Professional Who Has Worked in Your Field
They will have that contact list already, and they can go back to those relationships that they already have with your baby brand or your new product.
They also have their own personal credibility that the reporter trusts. Them taking you on says to the reporter, "Hey, I decided to work with this client, so I've already done due diligence." So, you do get a bit of a leg up.
Get Comfortable with the Spotlight
As a PR professional, you're usually in that line of work because you don't personally want be in front of the camera. I can't speak for everyone. But for me, that rings true.
If You Had Unlimited Budget for Just One Thing…
Our culture is so celebrity-driven, I would go after the one brand partnership that you think would be a dream—the biggest celebrity influencer who would be your perfect brand advocate.
This would have the biggest impact long term—because it would help to catapult you in front of both reporters and the general public.
Alyssa’s Favorite Free Resources
For brands that don't have a lot of money and are trying to get some attention:
Look on Twitter. A lot of journalists will share out if they're looking for pitches. They'll share their email addresses. It helps if you have that targeted list ready to go, and then you find them on Twitter instead of just trying to search Twitter randomly, for journalists that are pitching, asking for pitches about your topic, go look at that specific journalist Twitter feed.
Sign up for HARO (Help A Reporter Out). It’s a listserv that blasts out different requests from the media when they're looking for a quote for an article or something. You have to be really speedy in responding—but if you are a good fit, then you've got a good chance of in.
Why You Should Treat Your PR Person Like Your Priest
I've had clients who were not 100% honest with me. It's most frustrating as a PR professional, because you do your job and you put them in front of reporters and you think you have the whole story. You do the media training—but you can only do a media training for what the client is telling you.
When you’re preparing for a launch, you need to have your PR professional with you on everything. They need to know all the things you know in terms of what the strengths are, where your weak spots might be, or where your blind spots might be.
Founders may not always want to see the blind spots. But you need look hard—and think about where you could get caught up in a way that’s potentially harmful to your brand.
If a founder is withholding something and you don't get to it in that media training, and then a reporter asks the question and then digs a little bit deeper and the client says something that they never said to you, you’re a coming from behind —versus being able to jump in and help get them through it.
You don't want your publicists to ever be shocked. They're the ones who are going help you. And if you don't feel like you can trust them, you need to get a new PR person.
Tips for Brand Launch vs a Product Launch
A brand launch is a tough sell, if the reporter has never heard of your brand before or you as a founder.If you're starting from scratch, you really need to pound pavement—and getting a PR professional who understands the space already is going to be the most important thing.
With a product launch, you sometimes have a leg up because you're an established brand. You might already have some friendly reporters. You might already have a little bit of buzz.
Then, it's about finding the news angle that your product is hitting. What's happening in the media today that is relevant to the product that you are launching now?
For example, it was in the news the other day that the water in Sacramento is tasting particularly dirty. If you launched a product that cleaned the water, this would be a great way to tie into the current new cycle. You could potentially go after publications the Sacramento area where people need your product.
Advice for Crowdfunding Campaigns
If you're crowdfunding, you still need to build a targeted list around your product. But, you should also look at what stories are coming out about crowdfunded products right now, and in what publications.
What are the hooks in them? Is is the number of people backing it, or the background of the people backing it, or the fact that the company has already raised X, Y, Z to build this product, or that this is a product we really need.
What is it that is making people care about it? There needs to be a common thread. You're always looking the common thread to weave together, and then try to apply it to your own brand.
Alyssa’s Greatest Hits
Alyssa’s Favorite Project
The work that I did with Dig Deep—a national non-profit that deals with water access in America—is my favorite, hands down. I was promoting awareness around the limited access to water that more than two million people in America face today and the unique, regional solutions that DigDeep has developed.
Dig Deep got coverage everywhere. They were on CBS. They were in The New York Times. They were on NBC just the other night.
Their work is incredibly powerful, and they're a dream team to work with. I also had the luck that the story itself is inherently interesting. They just needed the right people to come along and help them find a way to package it up.
Her Outrageous Entry into PR
It was Alyssa’s first time out supervising talent on her own—at her first job with a PR firm. She was in charge of Willam Belli, one of New York Magazine’s “most powerful drag queens in America,” during an appearance on a Comedy Central late night show.
Willam asked Alyssa to get some Smucker’s Uncrustables (tiny pre-made PB&J sandwiches). She assumed it was to fulfill a craving for a childhood snack.
Alyssa had someone bring them, and it certainly was a snack. In the middle of the show, Willam took one out of her bra—which was stuffed with them. She took a bite out of it, and tossed the other one to the host.
Afterwards, Alyssa pitched it out as a hilarious thing that had happened “because honestly, [she] still can't stop laughing about it now.”
What Makes Alyssa Happiest
It's most rewarding to me as a PR professional when it truly is a story that not many people have been paying attention to—and you figure out the way to make them turn their heads and listen.
That’s a Press Wrap
I hope you all have learned from this four part series on PR. Big thanks to Alyssa and Jennifer Birn for sharing their insights.
And if there’s a PR question or topic I didn’t cover in this series that you’re curious about, or a campaign you’d like me to dissect, let me know in the comments.
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About Me
I help early stage founders create the kind of brands that get customers so obsessed, they’ll do your advertising for you.
Based on my experience founding my own consumer brand, I developed The Branding Sprint—a uniquely collaborative, streamlined, and agile approach to brand creation.
Click here to learn more about The Branding Sprint, or schedule a call with me.