Michelle Songy from Press Hook

Sam: Michelle, welcome to Beyond the Inbox. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Michelle: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Sam: I want to start with your background. I know that you were a tech founder in a previous life. And I was doing some research on you before our recording, and I know you spent some time in a remote part of Indonesia, and you told the story about talking to a local business owner about ideas to get him more media exposure. You called that trip the trip of a lifetime. Can you tell me about that experience?

Michelle: Sure. About five or six years ago, I read an article in Culture Trip when I was doing some research on the best places in the world to go diving. And I read about this super-remote place that was almost impossible to get to. Of course, when I was working, I never had enough time off.

So I finally got a little sabbatical after leaving the last company I was working with and decided that it was time for me to go explore this place. This image and this cute little B&B in the middle of Raja Ampat in Indonesia just caught my eye, and I said, "I have to go there one day. I have to go."

So I decided to go by myself, and it was multiple planes, boats, and rides to get there. It took a few days. And I finally got there and went completely off the grid. I remember my mom said that, all of a sudden, I just had no location. I was just in the middle of the ocean somewhere.

And I get there, and it was a hundred times more than anything I'd ever imagined. I'm on this tiny little island, again, in the middle of nowhere, with no real electricity or service or anything.

The first thing the guy asked me—we were talking and having dinner—was, "I'd just love to know, how did you end up here? How did you hear about us?"

And I said, "I read about it in this article in Culture Trip a couple of years ago, and I just always wanted to come here."

And he said, "That's crazy. I can't tell you how many customers we have who come from that one article. We probably get more customers from there than anywhere else, besides referrals—people just coming back and hearing about it."

We talked, and I was thinking about my next move and what I was going to do next. And we talked about, how do you get more of this kind of media coverage? It's so powerful to a small business.

And I had struggled with it before too, having big competitors. We just started talking and tried to think of other ways we could get this again.

And I really said, "It is difficult. You either have to figure out how to do it yourself, learn it, and be educated on it, or have the contacts and network, or you have to pay someone a lot of money to do it."

So we connected over that.

Sam: That's a good segue into this: you founded Press Hook in an effort to solve the problems you yourself faced as a tech startup founder with a limited marketing and PR budget. Can you tell me more about how those experiences shaped how Press Hook helps its customers?

Michelle: Sure. Looking back, the idea was that we were trying to replicate almost an Airbnb model at first. We were trying to create a marketplace.

If we know that journalists have to write new content, come up with new ideas, and get assigned stories every day, how do we land at the right time and in the right place?

So we decided to create a marketplace. On one side, there are businesses and brands that create profiles. These are essentially their press kits or media kits, but digitized.

Once they're on there, a journalist who gets assigned a story, or is just discovering and looking for something interesting and new to talk about, can come onto the site, use it like a little Google search engine, type in the keywords, and automatically find those brands, products, or people they can speak with for their stories.

It gives them more diverse sources than they would know through their own networks and their own research. And then, obviously, it makes it a very cost-efficient solution for startups and small businesses.

Sam: There's a lot I want to unpack, and I think I'll come back to that in a moment. One thing that stood out for me when I was reading about your story was that you were very hands-on when you were working at your previous startup, and you found media outreach to be time-consuming and often fruitless.

What mistakes do small ecommerce brands make when it comes to PR?

Michelle: Sure. I think people try their hand at it in different ways. A lot of them just come in doing it, saying, "Maybe we just email everybody," or, "How do we know who to email?"

They might not have the time, effort, or knowledge to know how to email people, when to email people, and to understand that this is a person on the other side of the job. It's not just a publication you're blasting.

So I think people just do it at first to see what works. And I think that's a part of us being startups and founders—we just try something and see what happens.

But it's not really done in a very thoughtful or meaningful way, and that's what you need to do if you actually want someone to respond.

So I would say, treat it the same way you would treat your own business development to get in touch with your own retailers or suppliers. You want to make a personal connection.

You want to get to know who the people are that you really want to make connections with, build a relationship with, and eventually, hopefully, get them to tell your story or think of you and include you when they do have a relevant story.

I think it's really about understanding, first, where your audience is. You might really want to be in The New York Times or Forbes, but your audience might not be. Your customers might be reading some other publication.

So figure out who your audience is and where they are, and target those publications.

But within that publication, there are a lot of writers. There are staff writers, contributors, and editors. So get to know those people and make a connection with them.

Say, "Hi, I'm so-and-so. I'm the founder or marketer, and I'd love to introduce myself and share our brand or products with you."

And also explain why you're sharing this with them now. Why now? Why is this relevant to them right now?

It's really about the timeliness of why you're writing to them and why that's important today.

Sam: Timeliness is something that I also want to come back to when we talk about gift guides a little bit later on.

We started this call with a story, and you mentioned a story a little bit earlier on as well. What role does brand storytelling play in PR? How can more brands leverage their founder story when reaching out to some of these media outlets?

Michelle: Right now, it's more important than ever before.

Find that good story, figure it out, and really connect with and understand why you started something and how that can connect with your customers.

Especially for the Gen Z generation, it's really about the story. You want to understand why you started it. Is it because of some sustainability effort that you saw? Is there a real gap in the market? What are the competitors doing or not doing? Do you have a personal experience that people can connect to and understand?

The product is one piece, but the story can get you there, get you coverage, and create a connection faster.

Building the brand's story is just as important as building your products.

Sam: Are there any brand stories that come to mind—some favorites that are doing really well right now when it comes to PR?

Michelle: I can think of so many. I'll pull some from our website and see what I have.

But anything about maybe a family experience, parents, a sickness, or something you went through—I think people love hearing, especially with startup stories, about you starting something in your backyard or with your mom, and some funny story about what happened.

I think it's about making it personable to what the problem or core issue was, and creating more of an emotional tie.

It's hard to be put on the spot on this, but there are so many I've read that are so great. I think it definitely comes back to tying it to you as a person and how you realized and figured it out.

Sam: I think one of my favorites that comes to mind—and I might be biased in saying this because I wrote an article about them many years ago—is the men's grooming brand Harry's.

There was very much a David-versus-Goliath story in the marketing, where they started the brand because they felt like men were overpaying for razors. And I believe they were one of the first subscription offers for razors.

That's a brand story that sticks in my mind.

It's interesting: when I was writing this article and looking at some of the links they were attracting, it wasn't necessarily about the products or the business model. It was about these two guys who came together and decided to go up against, I think, Gillette, which was the Goliath in the story.

That's just something that has stayed with me for a long time.

Michelle: Yeah, that's amazing. If it's true, resonates, and is authentic, it just feels so much better.

Not everyone has a crazy story like that, so figure out what is meaningful. Because you're going to be telling the story over and over and over again.

Whatever feels good, lights you up, and really gets you passionate and going—that should be your story.

Sam: Do you think it's more common for bigger media outlets to tell the story of the founder or co-founder versus the creation of a product?

Michelle: It's always where it begins. It's where we started. How did it begin? Why did this start? And then it leads into the product.

At first, yes, we try products, we taste things, and we like them. Then you want to understand, "Whoa, did you hear the story about how this product came about?"

So I think it depends where you started. But a lot of times, we do start by looking at and seeing a product, and then we develop that understanding of who they are and where they came from through being more involved with them and being customers.

Again, it goes hand in hand. But the further you go, people probably get more interested in your story and then develop into your product.

Sam: Speaking of attracting backlinks from big media sites, you wrote in one article—I believe this was on the Press Hook website—"In today's digital age, media coverage is nearly impossible to garner without affiliate marketing."

Tell me more about that. Why is it so important?

Michelle: Especially for ecommerce brands and anything in the CPG space, this really came about a couple of years ago. It started taking over and became something we started to see and get asked for on the editorial side.

There are still some people who are confused. They're like, "Is this sponsored? Is this not? What is this? Why do they keep asking for affiliate links?"

It is the way that these publications are making revenue. Some of them are writing a story that has super-high SEO.

I've heard stories of articles about the best comfy couches going live, and they sell millions of dollars through these.

They're pushing hard. They have great writers. But instead of just turning on more ads, paywalls, and subscriptions, this is an organic way.

They still choose the products they want to write about, but at the end of the story, they do want to put those links in the affiliate program because they're getting a little kickback from that story, the readership, and the credibility that you're getting from that.

I personally think it's such a win-win for the industry.

Right now, every media company has an ecommerce team. They have an ecommerce portal. They're writing product reviews and product roundups.

They know that it's working. It's connecting to customers, selling products, and working really closely with brands.

Again, it's not just, "Pay us X amount for one sponsored post or advertisement." It's a lot more meaningful. It feels more organic.

And if the publication you're working with starts selling a lot through your brand, then you can work with them and offer them a higher percentage. Hopefully, they'll continuously keep working with you on a closer basis because you're both benefiting from that, and you're really connecting to the readers who are your customers.

So affiliate marketing in the PR and editorial space is more important than ever. If you don't have one, I wouldn't even do it. It's just that important.

And it really means something to the publication too, because you're offering them something in return.

Sam: When I see list posts like "Best Mattresses 2023," if I'm reading an article like that through the eyes of a small ecommerce brand, it's very easy to feel like it's impossible to compete with these other, more established brands.

My question for you is: how can small ecommerce brands with affiliate programs compete with these larger companies that can maybe offer larger percentages in their affiliate programs? Is there a way that they can stand up and compete?

Michelle: Oh, yeah. They're constantly looking to reinvent, add new things, and find new products and businesses to include.

They don't want to just keep adding the big corporate ones that everyone talks about. They're constantly looking and finding what's new and what they can recommend next.

So if you can find and write down all those articles—the really high-SEO articles that you want to be in, the "10 Best" or "Best This" articles—they update them every year, and some of them update every quarter.

Find those writers and those articles, contact them, and let them know you exist. Tell them you would love for them to test your product and explain why.

That is more than worth it. I can't even tell you how much it is.

They do look for those products. They're looking for those products because their editors are asking them to keep the articles updated.

If an article was published yesterday, they're not going to update the story the next day. Don't ask them to do that. They'll get annoyed.

But let them know that you're there and that you exist.

As long as you're sending them a relevant pitch because it's about something they write about, that's fine. That's what they want: to hear from more types of products that fit what they write about.

There is absolutely a chance. I see it every day.

They might have some relationships with bigger brands, and that's fine, but they have to develop their stories.

Sam: For any smaller ecommerce brands listening to this episode, what are some of the characteristics of an attractive affiliate program from the perspective of a larger media site that might cover them in an article?

Michelle: There are a few programs that are all connected to Skimlinks.

Some of those are ShareASale, Impact, Partnerize, and Awin. You can look those up.

There are a few programs connected to Skimlinks, and that's the main affiliate network that most of the big publications use.

As long as you get on one of those main programs, it's up to you. They all have different pricing and needs depending on how much affiliate revenue and how many links you're pushing through them.

Some are really good for younger brands and startups that are just getting started. Some are better when you start pushing a lot more transactions through and need something more advanced.

There's a handful of them. Pick one, look at them, compare their prices, and find out what works for you.

A lot of them are also on the Shopify App Store, so you can just search for them and there is an automatic integration there. It's super simple. It takes a day or two in total.

Sam: We talked a little bit earlier about gift guides, and you will typically see "Best Products 2023," and so on.

Are there any other types of content that ecommerce brands can go after, other than gift guides and reviews?

Michelle: There are obviously product roundups: the best things to buy for Mother's Day, or top trending products on TikTok for a certain category.

Product roundups are one style.

A product review is an individual review you can get written up. Those are definitely harder to get. And again, that comes down to timeliness.

Why are they writing? They have so many people pitching to them. Everybody wants a big product review.

Why now? Why do they have to write about you right now?

Maybe you're offering them an exclusive before the product is actually launching and going to market. They love that. They love being the first one to break a story.

Again, it helps them with SEO and rankings.

You have to think about connecting to them and really finding the right person who can maybe break or take your product launch. That can obviously be an amazing feature to get.

So there are product roundups, features, and trend stories—just being a part of a trend that's happening in the market and having them contact you.

Another big thing is that, day to day, journalists are constantly looking for expert sources. They're looking for sustainability experts, fashion experts, lifestyle experts, and people across a broad range of subjects.

If you can get connected to them in that way, and they can see and know you, and you help provide some commentary for their story, then they have a connection to you. They know you.

Maybe you talked and told them some other things, and then you can start building that relationship. They can think about you for future stories.

I do think having someone in the company—whether that's the founder, a CMO, or someone else—who can really talk on behalf of the industry is important.

Don't just be there to pitch yourself. Be there to help them craft their stories on important topics. That's another way.

Sam: I'm sitting here listening to this and thinking, this all sounds great, but at the same time, I'm reflecting back on my own experiences of doing link building and contacting editors and understanding how much time it takes.

How can small ecommerce brands make this part of their weekly process, where they're actively trying to get more PR, especially when you have to be so timely in doing it?

Michelle: It's definitely quality over quantity. I've learned that after many years.

It's not about blasting. It's not about trying to do something really quickly just to see if you get a quick response or a quick story made.

At Press Hook, we provide a lot of these PR 101 courses and structures.

It's a few pitches. It comes down to what we would say is a maximum of 10 every week—quality, targeted, nice pitches to an editor.

Again, think about it the same way as if you're emailing the procurement director at Whole Foods, Sephora, or somewhere else. Think about how you would craft an email to them.

You can take a couple of hours every week. If someone on your team can write quality, targeted pitches once a week and maybe do one round of follow-up with them, that's it. It's not as difficult as it seems.

But it's also hard if you're out there doing that. That's why platforms like ours exist, because we can help get journalists to come to you in return by seeing you and knowing who you are on a daily basis.

No matter what, proactive outreach is important. Do it. There's no reason not to.

But there are also other tools out there that can help you maximize your efforts and get more coverage.

Sam: I'm guessing knowing when certain promotions—or rather, holidays—are coming up is going to help inform when you do this outreach.

So if you know Valentine's Day is coming up and there is a good product fit with some of the content that media sites are writing about, you know that maybe in January you want to start pitching certain outlets.

And I'm guessing the same with Black Friday and Christmas—you want to be ahead of everyone else. Am I on the right track? Would that be fair to say?

Michelle: You're a little bit late to the game.

Sam: Okay.

Michelle: We typically say about three months out. You should start at least three months out, and then you can work your way in because there are going to be last-minute stories up until the week before Valentine's Day.

Mostly, we start seeing media get stories assigned around three months out.

Some can be even further, especially if it's print. That's going to be six months out.

Then, for Christmas and the holidays, that's the only one that's a lot different. That starts in July, or even June.

You need to get ready. You need to have your holiday gifts and gift guides ready in the summertime.

I would get them ready in June and be ready to pitch in July.

Even if they're not live on your site and not ready to go, you still need to get ready, because they start landing those stories early.

I would say that by October, most of them are finished writing them. In November and December, they're doing last-minute, quick gift guides for what you can buy very quickly.

So they need to know which gifts can be shipped super fast and who still has inventory left.

Sam: That's really fascinating to hear, Michelle, because I feel like being organized would give you such a competitive edge over some of the bigger brands that have the budget but maybe don't have the same organization as a smaller, more scrappy brand.

So I think that's quite inspiring to hear, actually.

Michelle: Yeah. I hear it all the time.

I didn't know this before either. Someone emailed us the week before the Super Bowl and said, "We have this huge release we're doing on this app. We want to get it out. It has so much coverage potential for the Super Bowl."

And I'm like, "A week? You should have started that a year ago. No, you're out of time. They're already working on stories three months out."

It's just about understanding how a publication is built, doing a little research, and looking at guides. Again, there are a lot of resources out there.

But you're right. It's what it's all about. It's about timing, understanding, and bringing structure to this role, because it is different.

You need to understand how it works if you want to do it right and get the most out of it.

Sam: Let's assume that our fictional small ecommerce brand lands a nice backlink from a big media site, and they're getting some earned media and nice exposure.

What are some of the things they can do to really make the most of it, outside of taking the brand's logo, putting it on their website, and saying, "As featured by," and so on?

Michelle: Putting it on your website is obvious. Talk about it on social media.

A lot of times, we see people using it as an advertisement themselves to acquire customers.

Email your existing customers. Tell them, "Harper's Bazaar just said to buy this. This is the best new product for moms for Mother's Day."

Let your customers see and know, because they'll be excited for you.

They want to know that they own this product and now it's being written about. It also gives them other reasons and ideas for how the product can be used in the future.

So we see a lot of people doing well by using it in their own customer emails.

Also add it to your LinkedIn, add it to discussions, put it in your sales decks, marketing decks, and investor decks.

When you do your monthly or quarterly investor updates, list the press you've gotten. Share it with your investors.

Let them reshare it on their networks, and they will. They love seeing that. I know that.

Another way we see people using it is when they're looking to get into a retailer or somewhere big. They might forward the publication or press coverage to them and say, "Hey, look at us. Look what we just got into."

That's exciting.

You constantly want to be sharing it and showing it off. It is a big achievement.

Share it with not just your mom and dad, but with as many people as you can. There are plenty of networks and uses for it internally as well.

And obviously, it's exciting for your team to see.

Sam: Michelle, I'm cognizant of our time soon coming to an end.

One question I wanted to ask you before we start wrapping up is: you recently launched an AI-powered press-release generator tool. I wanted to ask you about that.

Michelle: Sure. I would say there are lots of good ways and bad ways that we're seeing ChatGPT being used.

But we did find some really useful ways it can be used, especially for small brands and businesses.

People like me before—and still to this day—can barely tell you how to write a press release. There is a structure and a way to do it.

I'm not a good writer. I didn't even get into journalism school or English school, so that makes me nervous, writing something like that.

But this tool is amazing because it literally prompts you and tells you what facts and things it needs from you.

You put in a little bit about your brand, about the launch, why you're launching, and what it's for, and it develops an entire press release for you.

We also have something similar that helps you pitch, so it can actually help you write a media pitch as well.

The press-release generator is free. You get a few free uses.

Check it out. Google "AI press release generator." I think we're the top result right now.

It helps you figure out the structure, and it writes it pretty nicely.

I still advise that you definitely need to look it over and make some edits. It might throw some things in there. It has a mind of its own.

But it's a good structure and a good place to start. Make some edits, send it out, and see what happens.

Sam: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've really enjoyed it.

Michelle, where can our listeners go to learn more about Press Hook?

Michelle: Our website is presshook.com. That's P-R-E-S-S-H-O-O-K dot com.

Sam: Perfect. Well, thanks again for taking the time to join us, and best of luck with Press Hook and everything else.

Michelle: Thank you so much. I really appreciate this interview, and I hope to see some of you guys soon.

Sam: Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle: All right. Thanks.