Creating Media Moments with A PR Expert

0:00It really is important to zero in on what makes the company product thing different. And that's a good gauge to see if you're ready for PR. If you don't know that, then you got a problem that's more than just about PR.

0:35through media placements, influencer and affiliate marketing, and more. Jesse Klein-Fafana, the founder of the PR agency, LaRue, is here to walk us through some of the strategies she uses with her clients to build brand awareness. LaRue has worked with companies like HealthAid, Bando, Unbound Marino, Mustard Made, and more. Jesse, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Okay, so you've been at this for two decades now, right? It was a long time in the world of PR. how has sort of like i'll put this in air quotes but traditional pr how has the industry changed what are the major shifts that you've seen over the course of the past two decades i would say that the changes have been like earthquake like um and if we go back to the beginning of my career you know it was print it was all about print media and you know that is still around, but almost unimportant right now.

1:29So, I mean, the changes started then, it went from print to digital and websites became the thing. And then from there, it evolved and social came about and social became part of PR. And then influencer and creator and influencer and creator became part of PR. And so it's still in flux constantly. And if you are paying attention into the media landscape, you're seeing shakeups all the time that are tied to publishing changing and media changing. So it's been a moving target. For me, it's kept it interesting, also terrifying as an agency owner at times. But all of the changes that have happened over the years, I think, have ultimately created more opportunity than they've diminished.

2:14Zooming in on the micro, is there a difference between where things were in the world of PR, say 2023, 24 and where things are headed, 25 and beyond? Yeah, I mean, I would say that in the past three to five years, you know, we've seen while it's been cooking, affiliate marketing has been in the world at an important part of, you know, your marketing makeup. It has kind of evolved into the PR lane. There's this whole commerce content, performance PR, part of PR now, and brands need to be doing it. Agencies need to know how to do it. And so I think that's more of a micro shift and it's a continuing shift that's happening day in and day out.

2:57Okay, can we double click on that? So PR and this connection with affiliate marketing. So just for listeners that don't understand simple terms with respect to affiliate marketing, can you explain the difference between, say, affiliate marketing versus affiliate networks versus influencers? Like when you talk in these terms, what is the distinction here? So I would say in my world, you know, affiliate marketing, it can be all the things you just mentioned. But when we talk about it, we're talking about the affiliate funnel. And at the top of that funnel is the big performance PR piece. So that's the wire cutters, the strategists, the Forbes vetted, the things that look like PR, but really they're not just PR anymore.

3:44They're affiliate marketing partnerships between the brand and the publisher, essentially. And then there's the mid-funnel and lower funnel. So it's loyalty and reward sites. And then on the bottom of the funnel is the coupon sites. And so when I'm talking about affiliate, most often I'm talking about that, although it can mean that I'm talking about running an influencer program through an affiliate platform. It can mean a lot of things. If I come to you and I'm a founder and I say, you know, we're growing this startup. We want more brand awareness. We want more brand recognition. But we don't know how to get in the press, right?

4:22We don't know how to get our brand out there. How should I be thinking about it as a founder? Is there a point at which it makes sense for my startup to start to talk to a company like yours? So for sure. So, you know, we get emerging and established brands all the time that are kind of considering PR and they're not sure if the timing's right. And so in the most basic checklist, I say, you know, are you ready to sell? Like, is your website up and running? Do you have inventory? Do you have the logistics figured out? Do you have the basics in place? Because sometimes, you know, the founders are still one man bands, one woman bands.

5:02And, you know, they're exploring. And so that's the first piece. If you build it, they will come. So you need to be built and ready to roll if you're going to get PR. Once they're past that sort of very preliminary piece, then it's looking at the brand, the product, the service, the thought leader, and seeing what the compelling story angles are, right? And as a founder, you have to take a realistic hard look and really assess how different what you're doing is, how unique it is. What is your unique selling point of view? because that's essentially what PR is, right? It's storytelling, it's narrative building, it's coming up with buzzy pitches.

5:40And if you're looking at media and you're a founder or a brand owner, you kind of have a sense of where you wanna be and how viable you are for that. Look, there's always opportunity for PR. Even if it's a product that's a copycat product, there could be a really compelling founder story. There could be a production angle. There could be a unique part of the brand, you know, that that's worth highlighting. But but it really is important to zero in on what makes the company product thing different. And and that's a good gauge to see if you're ready for PR. If you don't know that, then you got a problem that's more than just about PR.

6:21From your perspective, do you care how compelling the brand story is or how compelling the founders or what have you? Or is it just sort of like a simple pay to play? That is to say, like, if I'm a brand and I say, Jesse will retain LaRue, let's go. You don't really care what the company is about? Or are you sort of self-selecting based on my pitch and how it compares to, say, other folks that are coming into the LaRue funnel? So we definitely care. And what I would say is we are self-selecting, but we're not expecting brands or founders to come to us PR ready. We think that's our job. Like oftentimes a founder is really good at the thing they're doing, you know, and PR isn't the thing they're doing.

7:07They're creating a product, they're designing something, they're offering a service and they don't know exactly how to package or position themselves. So we're meeting brands and founders. We're listening and learning about what they're doing. We're kind of extracting what we think those pitch angles are going to be and refining them. And we're looking for a good story, a good product, a good angle. Do we get all of those things with each client over the years? Not necessarily. It might be a really remarkable founder or wonderful founder and kind of an average product or vice versa. But it's sort of our job to kind of help refine the go-to-market PR strategy that we're going to pitch with.

7:54Yeah. And you mentioned Forbes earlier, and I would assume you're then going to Forbes and pitching this particular brand and you want Forbes to say yes, right? So you have to package up that brand in a certain way that gets Forbes excited, I would assume. Exactly. That's what pitching is. And now, like years ago, when there were fewer media outlets and you worked with a beauty brand, a fashion brand, you know, a tech company, it was very specific who you were pitching and what you were pitching. Not that it wasn't creative. It's just that there was less content out there. Now, for almost every product service brand that we're working with, we're pitching Forbes for Founder.

8:31You know, we're pitching BuzzFeed for shopping and listicles. You're covering business, lifestyle, shopping, trade, commerce with almost every brand you're working with. And part of the reason is that in order to create a steady hum for that client, you need the continuity of coverage. But as an agency, it's so competitive out there. There's lots of people pitching to the media. And so the volume of outlets and the volume of contacts and relationships that we have gives us more opportunity in a competitive landscape. Are there certain sectors right now that are emerging that you're excited about?

9:08And are there certain industries that you're like, oh, not another, I don't know, insert beauty brand here or whatever? What industries or sectors gets you excited versus others that you find are redundant or boring at this point? I don't have a category that I'm like, oh, again, like I'm a I mean, maybe that's tied to how I am. I'm a consumer for sure. I like product. I like stuff. And that's sort of the we're in that lane, although we do quite a bit with like tech and food and Bev. But I would say a really interesting evolution right now is sort of the health and wellness space. And it's been going on for a minute.

9:48But like whether it is like longevity medicine, whether it is vitamins and supplements, whether it's fitness, there's just a lot happening. And some of it is pushing the envelope a little bit. And so that's been interesting. I feel like the food space is super appealing. Years ago, you would never see an olive oil in Vogue magazine, you know, or Vogue.com. You just wouldn't see that. You wouldn't see, you know, Asian noodle company getting covered in like a mainstream, you know, beauty media outlet. But that's all happening now. So I think that there's evolution that's exciting in the field we're in, for sure.

10:35Yeah. Okay. So you talked about this idea of compelling story angles. So I'm just wondering, is there like a framework for what makes for a compelling story? Like, are there certain steps that as a founder, regardless of what product or service I'm selling, if I sort of put it through this particular framework, I might get a compelling story on the other side that I can then come to you with? I mean, I wish there was, but what I can say is, I don't think there's a framework, but what I think is really helpful is, you know, if you are launching a business, a brand, a product, you are reading about your competitors, right?

11:14You're paying attention to where they're living, what they're doing, what their social strategy is, what their marketing might look like. And by being versed in the space, right? I feel like you can kind of start to glean why you might be different, aka better, you know, what the point of difference is. So while I don't think there's a formula, I think it really is about looking at what you're doing and extracting. And oftentimes founders know this, you know, they came to the space because they didn't find what they wanted in the market or they didn't find it exactly the way they wanted it. And so they kind of often have built in what their angle is.

11:59So it's the why of what they're doing. And so I think paying attention to that. But conversely, the other thing I would say is that almost every founder is convinced that they've recreated the wheel and are inventing something entirely new. And that's so rare. It happens. But they might have a new take on something. But and I say that not to be like a downer, but because it's part of expectation management. You know, a lot lots of times people not in the media landscape or pitching or dealing with producers or editors think, you know, they'll snap their fingers and there's their cover story, their feature story, their segment on how I built this.

12:44Well, it's not so easy. And it's because there's a lot of competition out there. Um, so you really have to, to kind of be honest with yourself and zero in on what's really remarkable about what you're doing. Um, or the remarkable data points, maybe what you're doing, isn't that remarkable, but your sales cycle is interesting or, or your growth has been quick. And the reason for that is compelling. You know, there's different hooks and different ways to get coverage. from your perspective and from the larue business model side of things do you ever find yourself in a position where you are pitching pr in a way that's i don't know more challenging today than it was a decade ago for example you have a founder on the other side saying you know why do i really need this pr thing we can build organic content we've got a community We have X number of followers on Instagram.

13:44Like we have a YouTube channel, whatever it is. Why is it that I need to pay you, Jesse, to pay LaRue to be in Forbes? We can just do this organically. Yeah, we hear that all the time and versions of that. We hear because we're in the affiliate lane, we work a lot with performance marketing executives who are all about data and tracking as they should be and looking for tangible results. And an affiliate has that. And PR is there are some metrics for PR, but they're still kind of fluffy. You're tracking brand awareness with PR. So, I mean, we get nonbelievers all of the time and we say why we believe in PR and we show our body of work.

14:26but I'm not, if someone is aggressively not interested or doesn't buy it, as an agency owner, my contention is not to push it. You're fighting an uphill battle then, right? More often than not, what we get are people that understand the value of PR theoretically. And when we have a big win for them, then they are bought in, right? But we have to deal with a little bit of skepticism prior to that. And then we get people who are like, it's all about brand awareness. And PR is the best tool for building brand awareness in tandem with all these other channels. So it's an array. But we spend part of almost every call probably having to explain why PR is still valuable.

15:14It's a good time. Yeah. When you talk about big wins with Prospector or otherwise, like what does a big win look like? Can you even highlight for us some of the big wins and perhaps some brands that you've worked with? Yeah. So, I mean, the typical big wins are like products on Good Morning America or The Today Show or Oprah's, you know, holiday favorite things. Those are all big wins. You know, they create momentum and movement, but it could come in all shapes and sizes. We just had a client that was dressed Sabrina Carpenter on a skit for SNL's 50th anniversary celebration. Right. And it's not traditional PR, but because that can then be deployed on the brand social, we can then also pitch that out.

16:03Right. For coverage. And so you're like pimping out a media opportunity, essentially. You're taking a thing that lived in one place, using it, you know, when it was on television, then it was used for social, and then we'll pitch it out for media coverage. So, and that's one thing that's cool about PR in 2025 is that we work with all the other channels, and sometimes we're leading strategy on those other channels. So if we're working with an influencer, developing a partnership or a brand collaboration, that brand collaboration goes on the client's TikTok or Instagram, it goes viral, then we can pitch that out for, you know, media coverage as well.

16:42And so it's got sort of three lives, essentially. So, yeah, I mean, our clients, you know, we have a lot of different clients that have had major collaborations with celebrities that we've done a lot of press around. Just on the metrics piece for a moment, do you find it beneficial to do sort of like reverse data capture where you have a client that says they go on Good Morning America, as you described, or SNL or whatever? They have this big lift. Isn't it incumbent upon you to then go back to the client and say, like, what happened to your traffic after that Good Morning America appearance? And can you share that data with us?

17:25Because that's important data for us to understand as a PR agency, because we can actually quantify this and track it. Yeah, we absolutely do that. It's hard to make that a template that we can say each time, like use as a case study. But we, you know, in our, in the case studies we do build, we do try and get that info regularly, you know? And then that's the other part of the affiliate piece being added to PR is we can use some of the metrics from affiliate to kind of make a case for the power of PR. Because at the top of funnel, it's still, even though it's affiliate and even though it's this publisher brand, mutually beneficial partnership, there's data.

18:14And the data is sitting with the publisher and it's sort of almost validating the placement. you know, and it's a good metric for PR as well. Is there any way to make your model completely performance driven? Or is it sort of like the traditional mix of monthly retainer plus some sort of performance or bonus or incentive on top of that? So we work predominantly often, you know, we work via retainer with a performance commission. And, you know, we have our standards of pricing, but there are brands that will lean heavier into performance commission. And it's a two-way street. For us to be able to do that, the brand can't be operating and building in a silo.

19:04It can't be like, hey, LaRue, we want you to work for just performance commission. We're going to do no other marketing, spend no other money. That's just not a realistic approach to 2025 growth, right? Like they need to be investing to a certain extent in paid search, in paid social, in social media. And if those things are happening and there's, because affiliate also doesn't work in a silo, there needs to be brand awareness for it to be effective. And so we'll lean into the performance commission opportunity, you know, selectively. But on the traditional PR side, It's a retainer and it's because it's 2 ,000 million hours spent crafting pitches, writing, strategy.

19:53And oftentimes we're getting brands coming to us where maybe they're launching a new product once a year, but the rest of that always on coverage they're looking for. We have to be like spinning plates and coming up with ideas to help keep them relevant. It's a blessing. It's great when you have a brand that's like got a really proactive marketing department and between product launches, between newness is coming up with strategies, partnerships, you know, creator plans, whatever it may be that we can work with. But a lot of the time they're not doing that. And we're functioning sort of as the engine to help, you know, create media moments, essentially, that we can talk about.

20:36Yeah. And I appreciate this idea of, you know, spokes around the marketing hub sort of idea that, you know, these things don't work, you know, as a standalone initiatives. It's sort of a blend of all of these things. Do you feel like there's ever a moment where, you know, it's just not the right time, the company's too early? or do you feel like there's kind of always room potentially to introduce PR even at a very early stage? That's a good question. I think that there are plenty of times that we've passed on working with an opportunity that's come our way because we didn't feel it was viable.

21:16We didn't feel like the story was strong enough. We didn't feel like it was going to resonate or it would get purchased, you know, like with our contacts. And so for us, there's nothing worse than spinning your wheels, pitching and writing and not getting anything picked up. It's like, it's so it's the worst. So we've, I think there are companies and brands that maybe aren't right for PR. They might be better served on social selling, you know, on TikTok shops. There's other ways for them. in terms of timeline. I mean, I think PR helps at every stage. I really do. You have to be ready. Yeah, ready to sell.

21:56Like as you mentioned, right, you're ready to sell. But assuming they are, right? Like I sort of feel like we're at a stage now where even, you know, early stage venture-backed startups that have early product market fit, but perhaps not a robust marketing strategy overall could benefit from that initial boost, say, on a Forbes or on a BuzzFeed, right? And you see that. It's sort of like the early, it's like a leading indicator almost that this brand is on the right track, that there's some legitimacy here. That's, I mean, that's a huge part of what PR does. There's the credibility piece, right?

22:31And so to your earlier question, sometimes when brands come to me and say, well, we have, you know, UGC and why do we need PR? And we have, you know, an internal marketing machine. And that's one of the biggest reasons, you know, that third party seal of approval, stamp of recognition helps, right? And depending on what industry you're in, it helps a lot or it helps a little. Okay, so let's shift gears and talk a little bit about influencers. This is a hot topic, We see a lot of celebrity collaborations with respect to brands, influencer partnerships, different ways to carve out these deals in terms of how these celebrities are getting involved.

23:15Talk a little bit about how LaRue sort of views this landscape, where you get involved, where you don't, and the impact that an influencer or a celebrity can have on a brand trajectory. Yeah, I mean, we work really heavily in partnerships of all kinds, influencer, creator, celebrity. It's become kind of a cornerstone for a strategy with a lot of the brands that we work with. It's changed and evolved over the years. You know, 10 years ago, it started where it was just chasing the big macro influencers that had huge audiences because that's where we would see the most return. Maybe it was more than 10 years ago.

23:58And so that was one approach. And then that got so saturated that it was like micro and nano and small. And like that became another another strategy, another play. And then it was a hybrid of the two. And celebrity has always kind of worked, you know, from back early in my career. I was doing celebrity collaborations and we still do them now. But I think the key with all of it is like this authenticity piece that when you're a brand and, you know, you want a partnership, you want a partner that is actually a believer in the product. And it makes a huge difference. So for us, oftentimes brands are coming to us to come up with who should the talent be that we partner with and what should the partnership look like?

24:45And then, of course, how can we broker that deal? We do all of those things. But, you know, we also don't like any partnership that's purely transactional. And so the way that a lot of the collabs are born is that we'll see a celebrity that's actually drinking healthy. You know, we'll see a photo that was caught and then we'll like approach them because we know they're an actual brand fan. Right. And that's just one example. But when there's real interest in the product, it makes a huge difference. If you're starting out and you're unknown and don't have an audience yet, you know, we work, we broker partnerships there.

25:23Our celebrity is a little harder because it's so costly, but we'll do a lot with influencer. We'll do seeding campaigns. We'll do brand ambassador partnerships. It's the Wild West from one influencer to the next. It varies. One influencer might want a commission partnership and other might want commission and flat fee. It's changing on a partnership by partnership basis. But it's a really worthwhile tool. I think that the hardest part of it is that there's just not singular, concrete, industry standard processes. You can't know that an influencer that has 100 ,000 followers is going to be five grand, a flat fee, do X, Y, and Z.

26:04It's a constant negotiation. And that can be challenging for an emerging brand. Yeah, and I assume you also don't want to get into this business of talent management at a certain point. Like you probably have a roster of influencers and celebrities for certain brands that approach you. At the same time, you describe this space as kind of the Wild West, you don't want to become this like talent management agency, because I assume that's just not the business model. Right. So it's sort of like striking a balance between, you know, finding the deals that are appropriate, but also not stepping into this world of like managing a roster of celebrities or influencers and dealing with all of their demands.

26:47No, it's never fun. And we've had periods in the life of the agency where we've done more of that or less of that, you know, because we do a lot in thought leadership. So we'll get founders or talent that will come to us and want us to create a PR strategy around thought leadership. And even if they're a founder or a CEO, there are times where they then are becoming sort of a creator unto themselves, an influencer unto themselves. And you end up in this sort of talent management role and you're booking speaking engagements and brokering, you know, skincare deals for them and you're questioning your life.

27:25You're questioning your life. Okay, so you mentioned early on about the sort of like PR landscape and how things have changed. I wanted to come back to this topic that I think about as it relates to not only, you know, industries that we're in or founders that we speak with, but, you know, this idea of competition. And in your world, you're in a competitive space. I mean, there's no other way to slice it. So how does LaRue stand out? Like, what are the unique differentiators for you as an agency? How do you separate from the pack? I mean, I think we're, I'm sure I'm like every other founder where I'm like, we're definitely different.

28:05But I think we are different. You know, we've been around a long time. You know, we're a small team. We're 26 employees. Over half of them have been with me for more than seven years, from seven to 15 years. So that's a pretty high, high level of stickiness for an agency. I think we're scrappy and small. And that mentality has been one that we've kept even from when we were six people to now. And so we don't stand on ceremony. We're kind of up in our clients' shit. We want to know everything that they're working on, you know, their full marketing calendar, their sales cycle, who the key executives are.