Building Your Startup's PR Strategy with Lexington PR

Ethan: Hey everyone, and welcome to the Startup Savants podcast. I'm your host, Ethan. In this episode, we're doing something a little bit different. If you aren't familiar with the show, normally we interview founders of fast scaling companies to pull out tips, tactics, and stories to amplify your own startup journey. Today we're bringing in an expert in the public relations arena. 

lexOur guest today is Suki Mulberg Altamirano. And Bonus, she's both the founder and a partner herself of two companies in fact, Lexington PR, a full service PR agency, and PressReady, which offers a more DIY approach with-. Which offers a more DIY approach with pitch kits for everything from personal branding to pivoting. I'm excited to learn more about this topic. So let me quit yacking and get Suki on the board. Suki, how are you doing today?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I'm great. Thank you for having me today.

Ethan: Well, thank you for being here. I want to start off with the most basic of basic questions. What is PR?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: PR is all about telling your story and getting your business in front of audiences. Right? So whether that's getting your business in front of the people that you think should use your service or your product. It helps establish credibility, build consumer trust with people that might read about what you're doing before they've tried it out themselves. But really, I think at the core, PR builds reputation and no business can be successful without a strong reputation.

Ethan: That's for sure. And you've got quite a bit of a history in the PR, the public relations space. Could you give us a little bit of the story behind how you got into PR?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, absolutely. So I started my career in New York City and in college there I had the opportunity to intern at a couple places in public relations. And my first position out of school was with Kenzo, which is a French luxury goods brand. And I oversaw PR for them across the US and in Canada. And from there, I hopped over to Elizabeth Arden, handling more kind of beauty PR space.

And then from there, I handled PR in-house for Williams Sonoma out in San Francisco. So that was interesting. It was more from the perspective of a retailer working that sells brands, so you're doing PR on behalf of the products that are sold there, but also off of hundreds of stores across the country. And then from there, I went independent. So it's been a little more than a decade ago and started working with businesses across a much larger array of sectors.

Ethan: What was it that made you decide to go independent? How did you know that now is the time, I know the stuff, I know how to do it, let's do it?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: To be completely transparent, I'm definitely much more of an accidental entrepreneur.

Ethan: Oh.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I think I had a lot of burnout. I knew what I was doing. I felt very confident in the work I was able to do, what I had learned in those three positions. And I really was excited about the idea of A, creating my own business, but B, being able to work with a greater variety, I think, of businesses and different types of stories as opposed to being in-house in just one location.

And I was also a little bit burnt out, and I felt like for all the hours I was putting in, I liked the idea of growing my own business. So I took a leap of faith and found my first client, which was a brand that was sold at Williams Sonoma where I had worked previously. And then from there, it just kind of snowballed and grew.

Ethan: So did you end up working any less hours after you started for yourself?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: No, I didn't work less hours for sure. Definitely not. But it is a different type of burnout. I think it was more motivating. Right? I was excited about what I was doing and feeling like the hours I was growing in were, putting in were growing something for me as well. Right?

Ethan: Yeah.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: So I mean, all those roles were really great, but it's a very different dynamic when you're running your, you're building your own business, so.

Ethan: Yeah, there's something about that feeling.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: I don't know how to explain it, and I never have. And I think that you've put it into words as closely as I've ever heard anybody say it, that there's that extra excitement when you know it's something that it's you're building it. It's yours.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: It's all on your shoulders.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: But...

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: It's a different type of burnout. There's always burnout.

Ethan: Yeah, exactly.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Maybe.

Ethan: All right. So you mentioned that you started at Kenzo and then Elizabeth Arden.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: And then William Sonoma, and there's a couple of brands and a retailer. What is the difference in kind of strategies or skill sets that you need to have working with one versus another?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Well, if you're working on a brand, right? You live and breathe everything the brand does, every launch that happens. I think your whole kind of universe, from a PR landscape at least, is about are you launching something new? Are you prepping for a product launch? And you would want to partner with those retail partners, is there on behalf of the retailer that that's launching at, if there is one to help support that.

But it really comes down to what is your brand about, what are your brand values, what does your brand signify, what do you want people to think of when they think of that brand. Right? Versus I think when you're more on the retailer side, there's a lot of other dynamics because you're the seller of a lot of brands. Right? So what does it mean to be sold at your store, right? And what's the customer experience?

Customer experience, I think is definitely part of both, but it's really a part of a retail location. Right? When somebody goes into a store and they walk through. And I think there's just a little bit of a different level of complexity when you're looking at retailers that have hundreds of stores across the country.

Or you might have an event in a store or a special guest or a celebrity chef, right? If it was William Sonoma coming in to launch a new cookbook. But also, how do you support the brands that are bringing in? So in PR, at a retailer, what are the key brands that the retailer really wants to promote, and how can you support that internally as well in conjunction with their own teams?

Ethan: So you mentioned in-store several times there. Is there a pretty major difference when you're dealing with a retailer, or I guess even a brand that is fully online and does not have an in-person presence?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I think the customer experience component is still critical in either realm, but the means through which you promote, I think from a PR standpoint is pretty varied. One of our largest clients right now is Pink Lilly, and they're a fashion retail, and they're online and they have one retail location.

And then if you look at, say, a William Sonoma, whereas before, when you've got those hundreds of retail locations, you end up focusing a lot on bringing people into a retail location. So that entails more what are the events that you're doing to bring people, and how are you building foot traffic? So I think it's the same. Right? If it's digital, how are you bringing foot traffic and how are you sending people through?

Right? What are they clicking to get through? But it's really just different tactics. I think at the end of the day, right? You're trying to get customers in front of that retailer and you want to convey the values of the retailer and why people should shop with you, and why should they trust you, and why should they feel good about spending their money with you. So I think, yeah, at the end of the day, that's the same, but the tactics are just different.

Ethan: Gotcha. So I'm hearing, I mean, a lot about user experience. And part of user experience is user interface and obviously content that's on the site and how things are presented and all that good stuff. I guess I didn't realize that there was so much, maybe, overlap between design and PR.

When I think story, I think words, I think, not necessarily just type but words. But I guess yeah, it absolutely comes down to how those words are presented as well. I mean, when you work with a company, do you get into, who are you mostly interfacing with when you're with these companies?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: So our internal, sometimes we're working with founders, and then if not directly with the founder, we're usually working with a marketing team and supporting that marketing team's endeavors. So it's a little bit different at each company, depending on how they have things set up internally.

But the first, the very first thing we do when we come in is take a look at messaging and what's the story and how is it being told? Because it's, I mean, it's common. We've been brought on, we've also been brought on to help businesses from their VC firms that have invested who the business might be doing great things, their business plan is solid, but they're just not getting them the attention publicly.

Not enough people know about it, and investors want to see greater valuations, and so they want to see them in Forbes and Fortune and all those big names. Right? So stepping back though and helping look at how are you describing what you're doing and what's that message and what are those words.

Because really at the core of anything you're going to do in PR, it's sharing those words, right? you're using those words to share it in the media or to put directly out onto a blog or to work on an article on behalf of leadership. But yeah, that is definitely, I agree. And design, it goes hand in hand. You can't really, design brings those words to life. And to tell a good story, you need to be able to have both, right?

Ethan: Right.A

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: For it to be interesting. Yeah.

Ethan: So maybe this is an ill-informed question, but what's the difference between PR and advertising? Or are they two sides of the same coin as one part of another? Is there a huge difference?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: There is a big difference. I think both are aimed at storytelling. They're spreading your narrative, and they're very targeted, right? To getting a specific message out there. The big difference is that PR focuses on earned media, which means you're not paying for that space in the publication. So you have less control about what is written. Right? You can't just give somebody something verbatim.

You've got to figure out why your message is interesting to an editor, to an outlet. You've got to pitch it, you've got to follow up. It can take a lot of time, a lot of manpower hours, and it can take multiple tries, right? To get into a certain publication. But that's the biggest difference versus in advertising, you are paying for that space allotment or the clicks or whatever that partnership is. But yeah, I think they both get at the same goal and they should work hand in hand to tell the same message.

Ethan: So you mentioned earned media.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: I know that they're... We're beginning to tread in the depths where I'm just completely lost, so.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Okay.

Ethan: As long as you're holding the flashlight.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: Then we'll make it through this together.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: What's the difference between earned media, owned media, and paid media?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: So earned media is what you read in a newspaper most of the time. Most of the time, right? A non-sponsored story, a legit story that an editor wrote about your product or your service, and they put it in their publication. Right? That is earned media. You did not pay to be in that, you do not pay directly for that article.

It's a legit article that was not sponsored. Owned media, those are your own channels. Right? On your own website. So your owned media could include your blog, which is a really great spot to put out your own messaging. Controlled owned media can include your social media channels, anything that you own, essentially where you're publicizing your own message. And paid media was the last you asked me about, right?

Ethan: I believe so. If there's more then I would love to know.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, paid media would be the realm of advertising where you're paying, it's a sponsored post. Right? Sometimes there are articles, there's a lot of articles out there these days, right? That appears to be earned media articles, but they're actually sponsored where the company has paid for that specific story, and that's how it gets placed.

Ethan: Yeah. You actually read my mind with that, because that's what I was going to ask is, are there a lot of times where paid media is being kind of paraded around as earned media? It sounds like the answer is yes.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yes.

Ethan: So.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: I mean, is that... I don't know what the right question should be. Is that okay or is that what we're after?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: It's a line that has continued to blur more and more, and some outlets are more upfront about it and some are not. But yeah, there's a ton of media out there that is sponsored but not overtly shown. And I don't know that, I don't even think there's a lot of legalities around that even. But it is the reality of our times that it's not always labeled as such clearly.

Ethan: Right.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: There's some loopholes around that. Yeah.

Ethan: Loopholes in, is it like a, I don't. I mean, is it a legality thing, or is it more of a do what's right by the people type of thing? And everybody.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Loophole's kind of in like outlets.

Ethan: Interprets it slightly different.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. No. I mean, loopholes in that outlets have found ways to note it, but not in a way that probably the average reader would understand. So obviously, right? Like affiliate marketing, that's slightly different, but that's where a media outlet features brands, but they might only feature brands that are part of a specific affiliate channel so that they'll get a component of the sale.

And so most outlets today will state that, "If you purchase from here, we might make a commission on that product." And that's very upfront and clear and understandable. But there are also a lot of long form articles where it might be less clear, and that's really just outlet to outlet. It varies. And it's unfortunate. Yeah. I think the average reader, they should have the right to know if something was sponsored or not. But there's just a lot of ways to show sponsorship that don't always say the word sponsored. Right?

Ethan: Right.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Or maybe there's a specific network that somebody has paid to be in, and therefore they can publish that article, but it's not as overt as it could be.

Ethan: Gotcha, gotcha. Do you feel that that is a, I don't know how to come by this, do you feel that that is a helpful thing to the industry or a harmful thing, or just a totally inert thing?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I think.

Ethan: That we're not full?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. I don't think it's helpful, per se. I think there's always a time and a place for sponsored media, absolutely. But I think having a clear distinction, because a lot of business leaders can get confused, right? Or they might see a piece and think that it's a PR piece, and then when you look into it further, it isn't.

So I think it can also prohibit when if there's too much, there's not enough opportunities, right? For a startup or an earlier stage businesses who aren't going to be able to sponsor those posts to get their voice heard. That's unfortunate. Right? You hope that it doesn't, one doesn't eliminate the other, but I think it's just a reality. There's always been a kind of a silent handshake sometimes between big advertisers that might just get a press placement. But today it's become a little more overt. Right? You might just pay for that placement, so.

Ethan: Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: All right. Let's get out of the weeds a little bit and come back up to the top for some air here.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: All right. Sure.

Ethan: Do you believe that every startup needs to be thinking about PR right from the beginning or ever? I mean, are there some startups that just don't need it? And maybe I'm asking a barber if I need a haircut here.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. No, I think.

Ethan: But what are your thoughts on that?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. No, absolutely. I think every startup needs to think about their value proposition from day one. Right? They need to think about their reputation, and being able to clearly share their story. And that means letting people know why they should care about what they're doing. And that, to me is really early stages of your PR. Now do they need to hire somebody to come in and do their PR from day one?

No. And I would 99.9% of the time, never recommend that a startup hire an external PR person in those early days, because their stories probably going to change, you might not know who your user is. You don't need to be spending money on PR. There's a lot of other components of the business that I think should be in place before you would even consider bringing on somebody external to support PR. But yes, you should be thinking about how you convey what you do from day one. Right?

Ethan: So.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Internally.

Ethan: Yeah. So, okay. So let's talk about those very early stage folks who shouldn't be bringing on the external teams yet.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: What are the things that they need to be really thinking hard about? I mean, obviously they've got a million different things going on. They've got product, they've got people, they've got... you know?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: All sorts of advertising, everything going on. If they needed to just think about one or two very specific things for PR, what would those one or two things be?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I think number one is the message, what I was talking about before, right? What's their value proposition and why should anybody care? But number two linked to that is who is their audience? Because if you don't know who your audience is, you won't ever be successful at PR. Right? Who's your user? Who do you need to get in front of?

Because you need to be able to take those two items to create a pitch essentially, and find the media outlets that are going to be relevant to you. Right? Because then the third component is, okay, I know what my message is, and I know who cares about this, who will benefit from this. So now I need to look at what are the media outlets that they're reading, and where are they getting their news.

Or where are they reading on social media, right? So that you can get in front of them. Because that'll help you target your pitch. Because otherwise, it's just like throwing darts at a wall. Right? If you don't know who you're going after and what you're selling. And that's probably all a part of your initial business state, right?

Who are you selling to and why do they care? It's very linked to that. So really, by the time the business is seeing success, you're selling, you know who your consumers are, you've got a lot of that done. It's probably just about adapting that to a PR message and then going out to the world with it at that point. Right?

Ethan: Gotcha. Okay. So just obviously the basics.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: Cool. So...

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: You mentioned pitching. And before we started recording this, we were talking a little bit, and you mentioned needing to have a great elevator pitch. Can you tell us a little bit about elevator pitches?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, so an elevator pitch is really the opportunity to share your unique value proposition in front of audiences, and it should focus on what they're going to gain from your service, your product. And it should be really concise. Right? So you're going to use your elevator pitch with a lot of audiences. I think from a PR standpoint, it's really a sentence or two that you want to be able to narrow it down to. Because when you send an email to an editor, you're going to want to write to them.

And the first thing is, "Hey, I saw you do X, Y, or Z." Or, "I saw you covered this topic. I saw you covered technology, new technology, and I thought you'd be interested to know that I created" business name [inaudible] "That does this." And you need to be able to catch someone's interest in that first sentence. Because editors, they're inundated with a lot of pitches, a lot of people trying to get their attention, and people are just short on time. So being able to explain in a memorable way, but really concise what you do, is just critical.

Ethan: Gotcha. So that's the real short and sweet, but very clear.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: Cool.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Here's what our business does, here's why it's great. Two to three sentences. Yeah.

Ethan: Is there some magic or some secret sauce to making a great elevator pitch?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I think it's just making it not about you, right? Which is really hard. Because when you're a founder, and I find this, right? You think about, "Here's all the things I'm doing, this is all the stuff I'm going to be doing." And how do you narrow it down? But really thinking about that audience that you're selling to and what they care about and speaking in their language.

Right? So cutting the jargon. The elevator pitch, you don't want jargon in there. No one's going to understand because say, your user might not have the same expertise that you're bringing to the table, right? To be able to produce whatever you're selling them. So I think cutting the jargon, cutting to the chase, don't bury the lead.

And really speaking about, I don't know, I try to think of it from the most jaded standpoint ever. I lived in, I'm a former New Yorker, I lived there for 13 years. I'm like, you just see a lot of people that are, they're just jaded. And I don't mean that in a negative sense, but sometimes what's special about what you do? What makes it different from everybody else that's doing the same thing? Right? I think cutting fluff and cutting to that is what captures interest.

Ethan: All right. So we've covered the elevator pitch. And then still thinking about these new, these young companies. Do they need to be thinking about pitch decks or press kits or anything like that? And maybe not from day one, but is there some point pretty quickly when they need to start thinking about those types of things?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, that's a really great question. Because people can spend hours making press kits and sometimes that's not really, I think, necessary in those kind of scrappier, you got a lot going on earlier days. I think what's necessary is you need to have a, really, a boilerplate description of what your company is.

Right? You should have that ready. You should have a bio of whoever the founder is, have that ready. And then it's really about creating your pitch, which is what you're going to email to press directly. And that can be a core topic that you want to promote, but each of those pitches needs to be catered to what that journalist talks about.

So that's a highly edited, but maybe you're announcing a new launch. Right? So what are the core components of the launch that are going to be entering to media? And then the personalized intro will change for each person. But really that's all you need in the beginning days. You don't need a bunch of press releases, you don't need to make a huge media kit.

That's what editors need. Right? They need to know who you are, what you do. You should have images available. So maybe that's a high res image of the founder, a company photo, something that brings the business to life, if it's products, product shots. But that's really it. I think press releases can be of use sometimes, but most of the time editors are short on time. And a short email that captures attention is. You can always offer to send more later. Right? So I wouldn't spend a lot of time or money on producing a media kit per se.

Ethan: Awesome. All right, so in talking about all of these earlier stage tactics and items that we need to be thinking about, you are, besides just being the founder of Lexington PR, you are also a partner at another company called PressReady. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, absolutely. So I co-founded PressReady a couple years ago with Liz Anthony, who's another publicist, but colleague from, we worked together for quite a few years. And our goal with PressReady was really, I think, being in the industry for a long time and seeing a lot of early stage startup businesses that wanted to be seen.

Right? They wanted to be heard, right? They're doing cool things. They might be seeing their competitors in the news headlines and feeling a little frustrated like, "Well, do I have to just sit and watch this forever? How do I get in front of," but not knowing where to start. But also not being at a point where it makes sense to bring on a big agency. So we work together to put together some tools that are more like specific kits that help guide founders and their teams to be able to go through more of a DIY PR process in those early days.

So helping them with workbooks that kind of help you create that elevator pitch, or how do you put together a media list? There's a step-by-step process for how to build a media list. So really a lot of those tactical things that your PR team would do to help walk through. And really the goal was just to provide something that was economical and helpful and just timely, right? For that point before it makes sense to bring on an outside firm.

Ethan: Yeah. I love that you kind of saw the need to fill a market hole for those companies that want something but can't afford the big agency.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: So let's talk a little bit about when should a company start thinking about bringing on the agency or spending more time, more money on PR?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. I think once you've got your value proposition clear, you know your audience, your product is selling, your sales team is in gear, right? Things are going, things are working, you're growing, right? You're seeing success. That's when it's a great time to start thinking about PR, right? But, so maybe you're seeing that success, but you're not quite getting covered by certain outlets, or you're seeing competitors come along and they're doing similar things and they are getting covered by the news.

Right? So making sure that your voice is heard in the industry. But I think it's really like your business is at a steady pace, and it's grown enough that you feel confident with the message that you have, with the story you want to share, with the value you're providing so that when you go out with PR, it's just very clear and it can be targeted, I think, because that's when you'll see more success.

Ethan: So let's say a startup, here's this episode, or a founder, here's this episode, and they're pretty sure that they need to hire a PR team rather than using the kind of DIY or the kits like what PressReady has, where do they start looking for a PR team, and what should they do to vet the companies to ensure that they're working with the right agency or the right team?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, absolutely. I think looking through your network is always great. So LinkedIn can be a great tool, who do you know, who's connected to someone you know. Because I think recommendations can go a long way. If somebody you know has had a good experience or not a good experience, that's great to know beforehand. So I would definitely reach out to my network first. And personally, and then maybe through social media, taking a look there and seeing who might work.

Google search is a great spot. I think you should… looking at companies that have experience in your sector. So I think that is very helpful. And when you're speaking with firms, I mean, some good questions to think about are, can they share samples of some of the work they've done for clients? Mostly from the standpoint of recent press clippings. And that's really just samples of articles that their clients have been on. Or if it's a guest article that they placed for a client, being able to show, just being able to bring to life a couple examples of that.

I think understanding who you're going to be working with as well is really important. Because sometimes it's not the same people that might be pitching your business that might actually be working on the account once you start. So understanding that beforehand I think is really important. And understanding how do they define success? What are the deliverables you're looking for? What are the goals that you're achieving together? But that sounds basic, but I think having real good clarity on that is important.

Ethan: Yeah, I think as long as everybody is on the same page but getting to that same page is the difficult part, and it takes a lot of communication and a lot of real work to understand each other's points of view and incentives and everything like that.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: I don't know if there is any, or if there are any in this industry, and maybe this will be helpful not only to the folks who are out there trying to vet different PR companies, but also the companies that are working, already working with agencies. Are there any measurables or analytics that can come out and be defined in this space?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. And that's always been a trickier part of PR because it's not advertising. You don't always have, you're not always privy to some of that data that media partners might provide if it's an advertiser. But I think at the end of the day, important things to look at are obviously the quantity of coverage, but also the quality of coverage that's being produced.

And quality, I think the things to be looking at are the reach of the outlets that are placed in. So that's something we always look at. What are the unique visitors per month to a website where you've been placed? If there is an affiliate component, because a lot of affiliate marketing is kind of branched over into PR where say we're pitching a product to be in a roundup on today.com, and it will have an affiliate link, I think, but you still entails a pitch for that.

You can see, then you can see through your program, right? Exactly how many clicks, exactly how many sales came through from that. So that's a really interesting part if it's that type of a PR program. But I think otherwise, it's really looking at reach, is it getting in front of the right audiences too? Right? Is it getting on a website that's targeted to your readers? And then there's also a lot of SEO value from PR.

So a lot of the high authority websites like cnbc.com. We had a client featured in CNBC's Make it, right? And it told their entrepreneur journey. And that includes a hyperlink from that page of the story to their website. And that is a big boost for their SEO, because that's a high authority website that won't just put in a link in another means, it entails getting an earned article. So those are some of the ways to look at, I think the value.

And then also are people hearing about what you're doing? Right? PR, good PR gives you content to share in your social channels, in your email marketing and elsewhere. So when you use that coverage, right? It gets in front of the first audience that find it there. But when you also share it, are your users, are your readers, are your consumers receptive to it? Right?

We had a client I could see on LinkedIn that was featured in a-. We placed a… we do a lot of Byline articles, which is where we'll help support creating an article on behalf of an executive, and then we place the actual article in an outlet. And I saw on LinkedIn that a customer shared that article, and then my client saw that their executive was featured, and so then they were able to comment on it and say. So I think there's, it's just there's a lot of layers to it for how you can evaluate success.

Ethan: All right. So you're talking about getting your content onto other folks' websites, and so that's content marketing or external content marketing, but there's also the internal content marketing, which would, I guess going back to what you mentioned earlier, is owned, owned media. And that would be corporate blogs or internal blogs or anything like that.

Do you see there being a massive difference in value between spending? I mean, if I'm going to write an article, should I be putting that on my company's blog, or should I be trying to put that piece of content on someone else's website? Or should I just be doing both?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: I know. There's a time and place for both. I know. And everyone, no one has time, right? In those early days too, it's hard. But I think here's the benefits of both. If it's going on your own media, on your own blog, you have complete liberty to what you want to say. You can put the exact messaging in the most direct, a more direct sales way, right? Then you can in a typical PR piece.

So there's a great benefit to that. And I think, and I'm not an SEO team, but I think there's a lot of overlap between having specific SEO keywords in those blogs, or having a long word count or hitting certain topics in those blogs that that's absolutely, I think, really important. And it's something that you have completely in your power to write, to put up, to post. You're not waiting on somebody else for that.

Right? It takes time, but it's completely in your own control because it's your own site. So I think the other side where you write a guest article that you might place in an outlet, that's of incredible value, I think personally, because that establishes you as a thought leader in an outlet that's basically touting your leadership and what you have to say on that topic. So, that gives you a third party touting you. It helps people get to know you. But that article cannot be as direct sales for your product. So that article would have to pick a theme that connects to what you do, and it talks about those value points, but it can't talk directly about your service or it won't get picked up. So it's definitely a nuanced version. It's not the same piece of content, basically.

Ethan: Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense to me. And then coming from my own background, I've been playing around in SEO for many years. And I'll go out on a limb here and say, I've seen a ton of these corporate blogs that are just, there's crickets. I mean, there's some…I've seen some sites that have hundreds and hundreds of blog posts and you go down to the bottom, and for some crazy reason, they published the number of views on the post, and it's two.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Oh, no.

Ethan: And I'm like, this article's been out for 12 years. It's got two views. What is happening here? So basically, I guess, this is Ethan's advice to people out there. If you're going to write a blog, yeah, do what Suki says, use the keywords, make sure that people are actually looking for those things that you're writing about. Because if you don't, then you're going to get two views in 12 years and waste a lot of time.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: A lot of hours. Yeah.

Ethan: Yeah, absolutely. All right. I'll get off my soapbox here. So what are the biggest PR mistakes that you are seeing companies make out there?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: So that's a hard one. There can be a lot. Yeah. I think, well, the first one is just not talking about what they're doing. Right? I think especially in those days when maybe it's a founder and a small team, let people know what you're doing. It might change, but it's you talking about. You're not hiring a PR team at that point, go out, share on LinkedIn about what you're doing, share with your friends about what it is, send those emails.

I think sometimes when it's your own business, people can become really shy to be self promotional or feel like they're, it's easier to support somebody else or talk about something someone else is doing. So I think A, is to use the context you have, use your network from the early days. I think B is, the second one would really, mistakes would be… not being able to describe what they do.

I'm sorry, I'm back on the elevator pitch, and that's boring. But really being able to say what you do and why it matters, I think that's a big mistake. And if you're at the point when, say you're sending out pitches, don't ever send out an email blast to a bunch of editors all at once or everyone in BCC.

I think pitching media, when you get to that point where say you're writing an email to a specific editor at your local newspaper about your business or whomever, take the time to read what they do and personalize it. Because I guarantee you, if you don't, you're just going to get… it just goes in the trash. So it's better to pitch less people and make those pitches better than it is to just kind of do a mass send.

Ethan: Okay. Let's get into that just a little bit. So I don't want my emails to go into the trash.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah.

Ethan: So based off of what you already said, do some research on what those editors do, what they're into, what they release stories about. What else is there? I mean, does it all come down to what's in the subject line or the first few lines in the email? Or is there another way that I can make sure that my message is getting read and that I am not just speaking into a void and waiting for people to junk my emails?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, absolutely. So I think the very first sentence of the email you send should speak to why that editor would be interested in your business. So are you pitching a local business journal? Put right up front, "We're Nashville based business, and we're in the technology sector." Okay, I'm pitching the technology editor at the Nashville Business Journal.

Right? Okay. He's going to see right away, that's interesting. "And I thought you'd be interested to know that we are launching X, Y, Z in the coming month, and we wanted to give you an exclusive look at that. Here's why it's really exciting." Key bullets. Right? So I think it's really about tailoring it to the person immediately.

And then for the subject, do they write, don't ever put a press release or pitch or announcement or anything that's benign. Right? You want to get to the meat of why your pitch is interesting. It's like, say you're pitching the Nashville Business Journal, "Nashville Tech Company launches X, Y, Z," or is there a column that they write? And does that column have a name?

Then maybe that could be the first word of your subject with a colon and then your pitch. But really you want to get to the point in that subject pretty fast. And I mean, editors, they're looking for great content. Right? And in PR, we always... and I was taught in the early days that your role is to make a journalist's life easier. And how do you do that? You give them good content, you give them interesting stories, you help provide input that their audiences will like. Right? It's a two-way partnership, so.

Ethan: That makes sense to me. So what is next for Lexington PR? And maybe this is related or unrelated, but I heard that you all won an award recently.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, thank you. We did. We were recognized this month by the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, which highlights women entrepreneurs and women owned businesses in the best service provider category. So that was pretty exciting. We have a lot of big projects in January, a lot of big launches coming up. And we're working on growing our Nashville office and Seattle office right now, both of those locations. So that's exciting. But we've got a big event scheduled in January for one client. And we're excited for the new year.

Ethan: Awesome. Well, congratulations on that win.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Thank you.

Ethan: That sounds fantastic. All right. Last big question. What is your number one piece of advice for early stage entrepreneurs?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Stay the course. It's hard. It's harder than it seems. Don't give up on a crappy day, because there's going to be a lot of them. And there's going to be awesome days too. Right? But I think I have tangible goals too. Having small goals sometimes means that you can celebrate those achievements that you've made when you might be trying to get from A to Z.

Recognize those steps you've made along the way. But a lot of times it's really about staying the course, right? I'm sure you might relate to that. I don't know whether that's life comes in the way, business things come in the way, you have children. I don't know, but the world exists, right? So...

Ethan: Yep.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Sometimes it's about staying the course and adapting to the challenges, but remembering why you wanted to do what you're doing in the first place.

Ethan: That is strong advice. Stay the course and have a good elevator pitch.

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah. Yeah.

Ethan: All right. Where can people connect with you online and how can our listeners support Lexington PR?

Suki Mulberg Altamirano: Yeah, they can find us at lexingtonpr.com, our website, and they can catch up with us on Instagram at Lexington PR as well. And we're pretty active on LinkedIn. Same location, Lexington PR or Suki Altamirano.

Ethan: All right. Suki, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been a lot of fun. And listeners, you can find everything we talked about today, all the links, everything else over at startupsavants.com/podcast. All right, folks, that's a wrap for this week's episode of the Startup Savants podcast. I'm going to keep this outro short and sweet, so listen up.

Watch the show on YouTube and leave comments. Share this podcast with your friends. Ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts and Spotify are encouraged. And as always, for tools, guides, videos, startup stories, and so much more, check out truic.com. That's truic.com, truic.com. See you folks. All right. Thank you very much.