Make Sure You’re PR-Ready

Ready, set… no. 

That’s the unforgivingly breezy micro-summary of my last post. But in case you missed You Can’t Hurry Love — Or PR it’s much better to read the article in full. 

For one thing, it introduces and contextualizes the handy Ready-to-launch-and-land PR checklist that, as previously promised, we’re going to expand upon right here, right now, in just a few short paragraphs.

For reference:

For another, the post immediately lit up my inbox with a slew of positive, thoughtful responses. (A couple of outlets even reached out about republishing it!) Such generous feedback around this newsletter debut is not only gratifying, it helps me push through the immodesty of repeatedly plugging it.

But the most important reason to review all the insights and prescriptions in that piece comes down to the aforementioned “misallocating resources” — which, of course, is just a clunky business-speak euphemism for wasting time and money. 

And I don’t know about you, but until the Saudi royal family wants to send me to Bergdorf Goodman with their American Express Centurion Card, I’m a hard pass on wasting time and money. 

So onto our actionable checklist addendum…

Packaging perils: watch those promotional buzzwords 

The first of ten questions on our Ready-to-launch-and-land PR checklist is: 

• Do you have a clear message, style, mission, and set of values for your brand?

On the surface, this particular brand was aligned accordingly. They pulled together excellent packaging for a wholesome, interesting line of products: beauty-and-wellness-minded snacks, teas, and other consumables. Items for focus, for energy, for relaxation, and so on. High protein. Good fiber. Superfood ingredients. Healthy stuff. All good.

Yet while they could credibly answer yes to checklist question number 1 where consumers were concerned, their “clear message” and “set of values” landed on much thinner ice in terms of the press thanks to dicey marketing terms they were employing like “cleanse” and “detox.” 

It’s critical to recognize that there can be claims or trends that publications cannot or don’t want to write about, because they stumble into questionable or objectionable medical-legal-regulatory territory.

If you’re not FDA approved — and I think it’s safe to assume most new brands won’t be — watch that language like a consumer advocate hawk. 

Because if you don’t, journalists will. 

You might not think your packaging/branding suggests, for example, that the products can substitute for regular meals. But the media — who have institutional memory of bad actors with bad products and a professional tendency to sniff out controversy — will err on the side of caution.

At best, that means they avoid covering you. 

At worst, your brand will be featured in a story you do not want to be featured in.

So “clear message” cuts a few ways, including being very clear on any claims, implications, or associations in your messaging that risk trouble in your product category.

Think marketing Miranda: “Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

Additionally relevant to this issue is checklist question number 4: 

• Do you have positive customer reviews and testimonials online?

Especially with anything folks consume, you never want the first person who has a bad reaction to be a reporter. 

In this case, the brand learned the hard way when a journalist sampled their product and had a medical emergency. 

(Oof. Not good.)

Out of that ordeal, the brand ended up having to remove a specific ingredient.

My advice: test, test, and test again. Test privately before you test publicly. Test publicly before you go out to the press. 

And if there is any chance that certain ingredients or aspects of what you’re selling are not for everyone, get ahead of that in your messaging. 

Suffice it to say, going back to the drawing board after going out to the press is the opposite of ideal. You never want to have to revise or refine the “message, style, mission, and set of values” for your brand (not cheap), and then hope media outlets will have the patience and good will to take another look (also not cheap).

And while it’s understandably tempting to hop on trends, always be wary. Are you really “organic”? Are you really “fair trade”? Are you really “sustainable”? 

Have someone on your team play aggressive investigative journalist and scrutinize every claim, every term, every ingredient. 

And try to remember my maxim that today’s trending buzzword can be tomorrow’s kiss of death.

One such cautionary tale:

The FTC’s complaint alleges that Teami, LLC, and its owners, Adi Halevy and Yogev Malul, claimed without reliable scientific evidence that their Teami 30 Day Detox Pack would help consumers lose weight, and that its other teas fight cancer, clear clogged arteries, decrease migraines, treat and prevent flus, and treat colds.

The complaint also highlights promotional Instagram posts by Cardi B, Katya Elise Henry, Brittany Renner, Adrienne Bailon, Princess Mae, Jordin Sparks, Alexa PenaVega, Leyla Milani-Khoshbin, Jenicka Lopez, and Darnell Nicole. Followers who read those posts could not see a disclosure that the endorsements were paid-for unless they clicked the “more” option.

In addition to taking action against Teami, FTC staff has sent warning letters to the ten influencers alleged in the FTC’s complaint to have made inadequate disclosures.

“Social media is full of people peddling so-called detox teas, promising weight loss,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Companies need to back up health claims with credible science and ensure influencers prominently disclose that they’re getting paid to promote a product.”

Enough said.

Premature founder profiles: making it all about you is not the way to debut

We all want to be ready for our closeup.

The myth has been drilled in our heads since birth: being photographed and written about = success. Even once we become savvy enough to recognize that’s not true, the allure still pulls at us subconsciously. 

Resist the temptation. Leading with your story is seldom the way to launch your brand.

We get this ask a lot from new clients. Are there exceptions? Sure. If you’re already famous or associated with a prior success of note, it might make sense. If not, consider these wise words a colleague recently shared at a panel event:  

“You have to be the first, best, or only. It has to be unique. It has to be different.” 

Even then, I suspect you should probably still wait to pitch your founder story. The relevant checklist question is number 8:

• Do you have realistic PR goals, with brand awareness and credibility at the top of that list?

In other words, you might feel like everyone wants to hear about all your hard work and sacrificing against the odds, but I can say this even as a woman founder: unless it’s a little item for your small town newspaper or an alumni magazine, it’s not going to mean anything and it’s not going to sell anything.

At Press Hook, we want to focus on getting your product out there first. 

With a new brand especially, journalists won’t want to focus on you personally until after they know all about your products and see them succeeding on their merits. That buzz must come first.

Now, maybe you as an individual can enhance your brand story… if and only if your story is somehow intrinsic to the origin story of the product(s). 

Let’s imagine, for example, a circumstance where someone who struggled with breastfeeding their first child invented a better pump and corresponding app. That narrative is core to the product and should therefore be in the mix — but the focus is still effectively fixed on the brand story, not on the founder per se.

Otherwise, as far as the press is concerned, you’re just another founder. There are millions of us out there. Sure, the reason why you started a company is important, but first your product needs to sell itself. What makes it so innovative? How does it outshine competitors?

Credible, organic success in the marketplace is ultimately what will make you interesting.

Wait in the wings until the proverbial applause gets real loud.

Image isn’t everything — but it’s a lot where PR is concerned

And for the moment, I’m speaking specifically about images in the literal sense: photos, videos, illustrations.

Media is more visual than ever these days. Having excellent images to illustrate and promote your product(s) or service(s) is essential before pitching the press. 

If you give them a great image to use, it absolutely boosts the odds you’ll be featured. (If you have the capacity to give them an exclusive image or two, that can be even better.)

This element falls under checklist question number 9:

• Do you have someone within your organization prepared and empowered to closely manage your PR efforts and the relationship(s) with PR service providers?

Securing high-quality, media-worthy brand imagery is central to that process. You don’t want to go out to the press if you’re still in your DIY photography stage.


Kickstarter and other problematic pre-launch PR strategies

The following may be a controversial claim since pre-launch PR is absolutely a thing, with plenty of prominent advocates and purveyors out there to take the other side of this argument.

But for the vast majority of new brands, I think the pre-launch period is a critical time for many things, but not PR.

The relevant checklist questions are 3, 4, and 10 (but especially number 10): 

• Do you have a solid social media presence and following?
  

• Do you have positive customer reviews and testimonials online?
  

• Do you have the supply chain and distribution resources in place to meet a potential surge of PR-generated consumer demand?

If you’re a new brand still in the pre-launch phase, the answer to all three is surely no. Now, I understand Kickstarter and comparable platforms. But, to me, unless it’s just an unbelievably wild and original concept — again, “first, best, or only” — the pre-launch PR tactic is rarely newsworthy, and therefore not worth the expense. 

The press is risk-averse and you’re asking them to gamble.

On the other side of the coin, speaking to checklist question number 10, how are you going to capitalize if you do get a media hit or two? 

If you’re properly set up for pre-orders, that’s better. But otherwise, journalists won’t see the point of telling their readers about something they can’t buy. The best outcome you can hope for is priming the PR-pump for later.

Can you afford spending a lot of time and money merely to generate a bit of anticipatory awareness with the press? 

If you have a track record already, perhaps that’s a sensible investment — e.g., you’re an established, successful seltzer brand planning to release a new hard seltzer.

Otherwise, I say don’t. 

Sales before stories: the fragility of preemie brands

Apropos of all that, I recently ran into a former client: a super-creative sole proprietor bootstrapping a brand new shapewear brand ready to take on the Skims of the world. 

Happily, she told me she “loved Press Hook” despite a less than stellar three-month engagement back in 2023. But I was sorry to hear that she had to quickly retreat. 

Basically, she had no marketing budget at the time, no sales, and got antsy when the handful of journalists who’d requested samples were not turning right around with coverage. 

I get it. She was checking the site every day (as she explained almost apologetically), feeling that she simply couldn’t afford to continue. 

Remember, we never want to be your only marketing spend. The relevant checklist questions on that score are numbers 5 and 6:

• Do you have a PR timeline that allows for at least 3-6 months to start seeing coverage, given that editors and writers typically require considerable lead times before publishing?
  

• Do you have the financial resources to support that 6 months, considering that effective PR typically requires about 10%-20% of an average brand’s marketing budget?

When you’re effectively a preemie brand, it’s a tricky and fragile stage: big potential but not up on your tiny feet yet. 

And, hey, to be fair and transparent we could have done better: here was a client we shouldn’t have taken on, slipping in under the wire before I fully understood the importance of saying not yet, as in: you’re not ready.

We’re always learning, the PR game is always changing, and — with all due respect (and apprehension) for AI — successfully traversing the media landscape still remains more of an art than a science. 

But this I know: we never want to be your entire marketing spend. 

And trying to get press attention before having real sales to speak of is impractical and unrealistic. See checklist questions 3 and 4 again:

• Do you have a solid social media presence and following?
  

• Do you have positive customer reviews and testimonials online

Happily, this shapewear brand is now considerably better positioned, having gone viral on TikTok and faring well on Instagram. I still hope to help out however I can. After the founder and I chatted for a while, we agreed to reconnect again soon and discuss her goals further. 

[I may also have to throw together a future piece about what preemie stage brands can do to get better positioned and primed for success on Press Hook. Note to self!]

Meanwhile, for anyone starting out, it’s important to stay patient and positive. Stories take time to happen. They also take time to tell.

And it’s equally key to recognize that no one has all the answers. Yours truly included.

In fact, sometimes a brand I assume is not ready for PR proves me very wrong by diving right in and totally crushing it. 

Which brings us to this final lesson…

See stories on the horizon and bake PR into your brand DNA

This particular company was a subscription Japanese snack box. 

I figured they were doomed. Destined for obscurity. What’s that Matthew McConaughey romcom? Failure to Launch?

Yeah, well, importantly, it’s not just that people evidently enjoy Japanese snacks way more than I realized: This brand was brilliant at cultivating press. 

They did cute, clever, visually-striking things that editors could not resist. They realized how to market around numerous holidays and all those inevitable gift-giving guides publications must churn out season after season, year after year.

It’s all about checklist question number 7:

• Do you have either prior firsthand PR experience or an informed understanding of today’s PR landscape, including all the differences between earned, paid, and owned media?

Well, trust me: this brand had a very “informed understanding of today’s PR landscape.” They understood how to feed themselves by feeding the machine.

The lesson for all of us there is don’t think about PR as some stock, sterile add-on. Don’t think about it as a separate, final round of effort (that you might even just outsource to someone else). 

Bake PR into the very DNA of your brand and products from minute one.

Meanwhile, if any of you have pull with the Saudi royal family, kindly let them know about my workable familiarity with Bergdorf's various departments and that they can reach me here.

Or just keep sending me your PR-relevant experiences, questions, insights, and any other feedback.

I’m here for the community and will do my best to respond!