What's in store for this edition:
Celebrating One Year of Attention Seeking
One Year Anniversary
Before we get into it, first and foremost, I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to all my Attention Seeker readers. Please know I truly appreciate all the support and feedback as I build what I hope is a valuable guide to the people, organizations, and businesses, both big and small, who all have a great story to tell and need help telling it. So with a heart filled with gratitude, we celebrate one year of attention seeking, DIY PR, and sunglasses of course. ❤️🕶️❤️
It’s been one year since I’ve started the Attention Seeker newsletter series. The goal has always been to teach you, the hardworking creator, business owner, brand hustler, how to do public relations yourself.
PR is traditionally very expensive and sometimes complex. That’s why I write this labor of love, to break down complex PR ideas and show you how to do it IRL.
Since I have written 50 newsletters packed full of gems, I thought we can review some of the highlights of lessons learned. They are easy, free and yield positive results.
Have in-person meetings
Be charming
Perfect your writing skills
I loved the tips in 12 PR Mistakes and How to Fix Them
No. 1 - Don’t make long pitches.
No. 2 - Don’t use hyperbolic language in a press release.
No. 3 - Don’t use marketing language in a press release.
No. 4 - Don’t send a press release that isn’t newsworthy.
No. 9 - Don’t think you can’t pitch a journalist because you don’t know them.
Standout from the crowd with What’s Your Story?
Who are you?
What makes you unique?
Why should I or anyone listen to you?
How are you different than the others in your industry?
Then you can Speak Everyones Language
Making your message attractive to different generations is important.
Baby Boomers prefer longer-form, detailed content
Balance digital and traditional approaches for Gen X
Mix of visual and written content for Millennials with a strong emphasis on mobile
For Gen Z, mobile-first, video-heavy content is essential
Research! Research! Research! A guide to Broadcast media research
I can’t emphasize enough how important this is when reaching out to journalist or publications. If you work really hard at putting together a pitch and send it to the wrong person, all the effort is out the door. Spend the time to get the information right.
Radio
Television News
Podcasting
And, how to do research for Print Media
Newspapers
Magazines
Trade Journals
How to Build Media Connections
In other words, be a reliable source for a journalist and they will use you more and more. Here’s a list of do’s and don’ts on how to build media connections.
✅ Provide accurate information
✅ Acknowledge and limitations or challenges upfront
✅ Offer high-quality content, expert perspectives, and useful insights to help add value to their reporting
✅ Respond promptly to journalists’ inquiries
✅ Be proactive, not reactive, in communications
✅ Engage with them on social media
✅ Build a reputation of being reliable and delivering on your promises.
🚫 By exaggerating or embellishing
🚫 Not being available on time for an interview
🚫 Asking for headlines or other parts of article to be changed
🚫 Lying
🚫 Trying to control their reporting or writing
There are so many more lessons to highlight. Which ones were some of your favorites?
“If I was down to the last dollar of my marketing budget I’d spend it on PR!”
Do this now:
Did you forget any of the lessons in the afore mentioned topics? Go back and have a read. See where you can make improvements to get your story heard.
Term to Learn
Public Relations — The Public Relations Society of America defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”
PR is about building relationships, making people like you or remember you. There’s lots of functions that fall under public relations like: crisis communications, internal communications, investor relations, events, content creation, etc.
FAQ
Q: A PR firm said they could guarantee placement in a publication, is that true?
A: Perhaps. However it’s guaranteed placement in a garbage publication. These publications only exists for scammer companies and naïve clients. A legit PR firm would never guarantee placement. If you ever have questions, ask me and I’ll let you know. I have a running list of fake publications and scammy PR firms.
Get PR techniques from recent news.
Newsworthy
50 Different Lessons from the News
Every week I take a trending news story and pull a lesson on PR from it for you.
There’s really too many, but these are three of my favorite lessons.
Remember when Jelly Roll teamed up with Dunkin’ Donuts to give away free donuts on National Donut Day?
✍️ Key PR Takeaway: Use micro-holidays in your PR promotions, product development, and social media plans. Planning in advance, pitching to the right reporter, and making sure it is visually interesting are important to get results.
Dark Chocolate to help with type 2 diabetes prevention. You had me at Dark Chocolate.
✍️ Key PR Takeaway: Use professional studies in you communication efforts. Reporters love facts and figures and the studies have done the hard work of gathering facts and figures for you.
Oh all the Severance craze brought lots of stories. Some companies called Lumon got extra attention because of the fictional workplace. What did we learn about how to handle flash in the pan moments?
✍️ Key PR Takeaway: What ever you decide to do, make sure everyone is on the same page. If you do decide for go for a little extra attention, have fun with it, and always stay true to your company’s values.
Useful PR Resources.
🧰 TOOLKIT
PodPitch
It’s been a while since I first mentioned PodPitch (August 2024, to be exact), and since then, the tool has gotten… smarter. Way smarter.
What used to be a fast way to find podcast emails is now a full-blown outreach engine that handles the entire process — from podcast research to smart AI-written emails to follow-ups, automatically.
Here’s what’s new and why I still recommend it:
• Smarter targeting. Drop in a LinkedIn URL or website, and PodPitch scans millions of podcasts to find the most relevant shows for you (or your client). No guesswork, no spreadsheets, no expired shows.
• 5X More Natural Sounding Emails. PodPitch learns from your past outreach and generates pitches in your voice. Edit if you want, or just hit send.
• Real response data. See each podcast’s average reply rate, ghosting frequency, and whether they charge guests —b efore you pitch them.
• Most Incredible PR Tech Support. Their team is incredible. You get real support from a real person. (I’ve met the co-founder — zero “support bot” energy.)
If you gave it a try last year and didn’t stick with it, this is your nudge to take another look. They’ve rebuilt it from the ground up, and I think you’ll notice.
They're offering my readers no contracts or commitments and $100 off your first month. They’ll set you up, personally.
Book a walkthrough here → PodPitch.com/keren
P.S. If it’s not the best PR tool demo you’ve ever seen, they’ll buy you Starbucks. So it's a win either way!
Attention Seeker of the Week
Pete Sampras - Head of Hospitality and Greetings
Pete Sampras, a Silver Labrador Retriever, is the Chief Attention Seeker and Head of Hospitality and Greetings at the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans. With quite a lot on his plate it’s no wonder I met him in mid-nap. Well Pete, you are cute and you even made it in the paper! Good job on PR little buddy.
Do you have a store fluffy employee? People love animals and they make great stories and can get your shop some attention, just like Pete does with the Garden District Book Shop.
Can you believe it’s been a year? Tell me about your PR wins.
Until next week, keep your shades on and stay cool.
Your fellow Seeker,
Keren
🕶️
