2102 – Optimizing Influencer Partnerships for PR Success with PR73’s Justin Goldstein

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1:05with us right now justin goldstein justin you are the founder of pr73 your website is pr73.com justin it's great to have you thanks so much for having me 73 year you were born uh no actually 73 represents 73rd Street in Manhattan where that makes more sense. Yeah. I used to live there where I started PR 73. So when I, we actually went through a rebrand this year, we were formerly press record communications. And so we were thinking about the name. I figured the PR is obvious and the 73 is just paying homage to where it all started. Well, now you have a four character domain name, which ain't too shabby either.

1:50Costs a pretty penny, but it's worth it. Yeah, yeah. Well, Justin, give us an overview of the work that you do. You work with some amazing, brilliant clients doing great things in the world. Yeah, give us a tour. Sure. So, you know, we are an integrated communications firm, which means that we focus on, we lead with public relations, but we certainly focus on public relations and marketing and look to create synergies between the two. So our services range anywhere from earned media relations, which is of course a popular package for clients that are looking to get press coverage, all the way to digital marketing.

2:24And so it really just depends on what the client's needs are. But we do lead with public relations in the work that we do. And some of the clients we work with include the American Bar Association, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, AARP, some bigger names that are out there. And we're always looking to, of course, build out that roster and maximize the impact that we're having on our current clients. Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's really interesting that, you know, I find that, you know, a lot of folks that are, you know, kind of PR-centric tend to stay pretty PR-centric. And so when you start to have conversations about linking that to growth goals and, you know, certainly marketing, you know, a lot of, I would say, oftentimes you're met with some kind of blank stares or some immediate response.

3:13Oh, that's outside our scope, you know, and that's unfortunate because I think that PR done well is PR that's integrated. A hundred percent. I think part of the issue in terms of, you know, prospective clients that are looking to invest in PR, or if you have them as a marketing client and you're trying to sell them on the idea of PR is that they don't necessarily understand how to leverage it for their business development. And one of the things that I tell clients these days is PR can be a tremendous asset for top and middle of funnel sales development. And the reason I say that is - You better believe it.

3:47Yeah. So, you know, when you're doing cold outreach, for example, which a lot of people tend to stay away from these days, which I think is a missed opportunity. But let's just say you are initiating a cold outreach campaign. One of the easiest things that you can do is leverage the media coverage to not only build credibility for yourself, but more importantly, use it as a conversation starter, which I think a lot of people struggle with. It's because, you know, the common email is, hey, I saw your, you know, the chief marketing officer at McDonald's would love to chat. Would you be open to having a conversation?

4:15Or, you know, I run PR 73 and, you know, we offer media outreach services. Would you be interested? It's kind of the obvious thing to go to and it feels the most natural. But in reality, I think what what potential clients are looking for, especially if you don't have a lot of experience or can demonstrate a lot of success with their vertical is some kind of credibility booster or something to latch on to. that they can relate to and converse with you with. And that's where the media coverage helps top the funnel. Middle of funnel is where I think it gets even tougher is because you have to continue those conversations with prospects that have stalled out or like the idea, but need to move forward with working with you generally.

4:51And that's where you can drop the media coverage in to continue those conversations versus saying something to the effect of, hey, I know we spoke, we'd love to have a follow-up conversation about an agreement, right? It's having another touch point that's more of value and educational from the work you do with the media. So that's why I would recommend at least one way that I would recommend heavily investing in PR and considering it? Yeah, well, listen, my bias is that, you know, and I've had, I mentioned this before we started recording that about five years ago, we kind of shifted to the other side of PR.

5:22And now we just launched hundreds of podcasts. You know, in PR, though, one thing that I think I would commonly see, and again, we were working with more of an SMB audience. But I would see a lot of clients that would overvalue the visibility aspect of it, the very top of funnel. So in other words, the belief is if they can just get quoted in Forbes magazine, then all their wildest dreams will come true. When I think I worked very hard, because this is exactly what I did with Savings Angel, my other company is that, yeah, the visibility is good. Listen, but these folks are just getting to know you.

6:03Like, even if they do take action on seeing your name quoted in Forbes, don't rest on the assumption that that's going to make all your wildest dreams. It might be good, but let's plan on it just being good. Like, okay, that's going to check the box. But what we want to do is guarantee the win. Well, what we know is you're getting the placement. And so one way you can ensure like you have more control over the outcome is what are you going to do about that? So you mentioned a brilliant example of using that for outreach because third party validation beats conversation. And so when someone says, listen, here's a clip of our boss on CNBC, here's a clip of our CEO on CNBC, here's a clip of our CEO here, da-da-da-da-da.

6:55Like, we're moving. Like, you can't argue with that. So, like, those are so valuable for moving folks along that are in your user journey. A hundred percent. You pretty much sum up what I tell every prospective client that we work with or every client that values the work that we're doing, but inevitably wants to have that conversation of, hey, we've been doing this for six months, a year, whatever it might be. You know, I'm not really seeing a business impact. So how can we reorient this program to provide that business impact? And what I always try to tell clients before we work together or prospects is that you have to think past the placement.

7:32That's my overarching message, right? So it's how is this placement going to provide value to you beyond the quote itself? Because in my opinion, the chances that you're going to get a new business lead from getting quoted in the Wall Street Journal is maybe 10%. It's really not that high. But the ability to pull value out of the media placement is incredibly high. So using it for a social post, using it for a newsletter distribution, using it as we just talked about for outbound, you know, cold prospecting, using it to continue prospecting or prospecting conversations. Those are four ways right there that you can leverage a media placement and create value.

8:08Oh, and even trying to get, you know, speaking opportunities or award opportunities with that as well. So those are five key ways that you can do it. You just have to be very proactive about doing so. Yeah. Yeah. Trend wise, what are you like if you're looking in your PR crystal ball over the next year or, you know, here we are looking at 2025. What do you think are going to be the important things that maybe all business owners should be mindful of? You know, maybe just given, you know, just overall trends in traditional media, you know, more influencer-based media, certainly social media and all of that.

8:50Like, where does PR fit here and how has PR maybe been evolving and will continue to evolve? 100%. I would actually address that in two different categories. One is let's take the media landscape first. And then from a business perspective, from a media landscape, I think there's more opportunity than ever. It's getting your mind oriented around the fact that new media is incredibly valuable. And the conversation that continues across PR circles is the election essentially proved that, right? We had podcast interviews that now President-elect Trump had done, which basically, you know, some people say powered him to the White House.

9:26And so while traditional media still holds incredible influence, in my opinion, I think the idea that, you know, legacy media doesn't have swing or pull is, I think that's a bit of an overrated statement, personally. But new media like podcasts, sub stack, mediums like that are getting increasingly powerful. And I think we just have to understand the definition of a valuable or top tier media placement has evolved and expanded. And so we need to allow more media to come into the tent of our minds that we find valuable and acceptable, and then we can leverage to our advantage. So it can't always just be the Wall Street Journals and the New York Times of the world.

10:04It also has to be the podcast, the big podcast and sub stacks of the world, too. Excuse me, even satellite radio as well. And so that would be my media prediction is that I think a lot of people are going to start to gravitate towards that idea next year. It's not going to be full throated in terms of, I think, people fully accepting it, but they will start to accept a little bit more than they did. From a business perspective, what I would say is that for anyone in the PR industry or anyone looking to hire a PR firm or an independent contract or whatever it might be, I think understanding that we are still very much in a service industry is going to be incredibly important.

10:41And so, you know, there's all this conversation around artificial intelligence and AI taking over service industries like PR and marketing. Personally, I think that they're still going to be playing more of a supportive collaborative role because at the end of the day, you cannot make up for the fact that there is a human on the other end of the line that's going to make your life easier and really show up for you 24-7 from a real tangible way versus a bot or an AI that isn't fully developed and probably won't be for years to come. And so now with that being said, there are still going to be a lot of people that rely on those tools in order to get the job done because they are more cost effective.

11:17But I think they'll come to the realization at the end of the day that it's not perfect yet and it may not ever be. So the more that you can show that you're providing exceptional customer service, the more you're going to keep that business and also the more you're going to want to stay engaged in the PR or marketing entity that you're working with. Yeah. Justin, you know, for folks that are listening right now, who would be maybe some examples of folks that you would be a really ideal fit? You know, obviously, there's, you know, there are a lot of PR professionals out there. And obviously, you have your core strengths and kind of your superpowers in areas that you specialize in.

11:57And what are like some of the just the greatest alignments that you've been able to have over the past couple of years? Yeah, sure. So our media relations is definitely our bread and butter, meaning that we go out and work with reporters to essentially persuade them to cover our clients in the media. Right. So having those one on one interactions, reporters, the Wall Street journals, the show Rogan podcast, whatever it might be to interview or cover them in some some way, shape or form. Also, areas like messaging development, speaking opportunities on the marketing side, brand development, and digital marketing as well.

12:35We also have launched into the CRM space where we're helping organizations to better understand how they can leverage their in-house marketing or PR elements within their CRMs and to build their CRMs to more effectively just pump out those marketing or PR assets on a more consistent basis and be able to have more value extracted from the CRM work that they're doing. So those are three core areas that I would say as well that we resonate with. But, you know, again, if you check out our website at PR73.com, you'll see we have a list of services that we can support. And in terms of like initial conversations, what does that usually sound like?

13:19You know, when someone says, hey, listen, you were referred to me. What questions do you typically ask and, you know, what are you looking for? Yeah, I think we also, let me take a step back. Yeah. I think we want to get an understanding first if you're currently working with a firm, because what I think naturally happens is, even if you may not be happy with their firm, there's an inclination to not want to necessarily rapidly leave that firm because you're so used to working with them. And so we just want to make sure that if we're going to invest the time into the conversation, that there's the potential for us to collaborate or just understand when that potential may pop up so that we can be fully prepared internally to take advantage of that opportunity and set expectations at the top.

14:02I think it's also understanding what your systems look like internally. So if we're going to work together, what kind of systems do you have in place to be able to leverage and build upon the work that we're doing so that you don't come to us in six months and say, hey, I love what you're doing, but it's just not working for me, right, for my business. So we want to make sure that before we do anything, do we need to come in first and help build the system so that you feel confident in the work that we're doing and that that work is going to be able to provide value for you. So those are probably the two initial questions that we ask.

14:35And then we essentially just dig deeper into the strategy, what your ultimate goals are, and then we kind of go from there. I was hoping you were going to say that. I was looking at a LinkedIn post you made, and I love this question and the way you phrase it too. Do you have a system in place to make use of the results that we develop together? And listen, I kind of ask that question in different ways. I think obviously like that's like the biggest thing I'm concerned about. Like I'm like, it's not even worth even talking about engaging. If, you know, I need to know I can bring you intense value.

15:09And if not, I'm not a fit, you know? So, you know, so it's, it's, you know, that coming together and knowing that they're going to be able to connect the dots because, and I've seen this before is sometimes people will look at PR and I think they're looking at it maybe for more vanity reasons or ego reasons. And look, yeah. Are you going to feel good? Sure. That's going to fade though. And at the end of the day, then you're going to look back, you know, a month from now or whatever, and you're going to say, was that worth my investment? Well, at the time, sure, it was a great party, but yeah, I love that you've connected business.

15:43You know, it's basically searching for and being emphatic that there's a business justification for everything that we do. I love that. 100%. And we absolutely, absolutely can help with building that system out. It's just making sure that we use your budget wisely in order to spend the time to build it out before we start doing the work. Yep. Love it. Love it. Love it. Justin Goldstein, again, founder of PR73, your website, pr73.com. There's a big blue contact today button right there. And of course, lots of research and resources on the website certainly can kind of go through the list of clients that you've worked with.

16:21And they are many Marriott, General General Motors, New York Public Library, some really great nonprofits in here, too, which are just thank you so much for for being of service there. One of my favorite organizations, Veterans Affairs. But, yeah, the list the list is plenty. So, Justin Goldstein, thank you so much for joining us. Great conversation. Of course. Thanks so much for having me.

16:53Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

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