How to Get Media Exposure

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Chatting With Experts, where I speak with amazing and phenomenal women from Africa, from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora. Today’s topic is How to Get Out There and Get Known. In other words, how to get media coverage and stand out online to get clients My guest is a powerhouse publicist, podcaster, and publisher of Speakers Magazine, where she transforms emerging and best-selling authors, experts, and entrepreneurs into standout stars. She’s the genius behind the scenes positioning, packaging, and promoting top speakers, authors, brands, and subject matter experts because she is the CEO of [00:01:00] pamperrypr.com. And with that, I want to m- welcome Pam Perry to Chatting With Experts. Welcome, welcome.
Dr Pam: Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. How are you?
Paula: I am amazing. Couldn’t be better. How are you?
Dr Pam: Good. Good. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you so much for having me.
Paula: Absolutely. I know I left out pieces of your bio because everybody who I invite to the show has such an impressive bio, and yours-
Dr Pam: They can Google it, Paula. They can Google it. It’s like, it’s not important.
Let’s get into this conversation. Like, they can just, like, it doesn’t even matter, like, who I am. It’s like, “What is she gonna tell me?”
Paula: Well, I know you’re a powerhouse podcaster, like me, and well, when I say podcaster like me, I’m not a powerhouse podcaster. You are. But, you’re here to talk about PR. I’ve been doing it a long time.
Yes. We are here to talk about PR. Let’s talk about that, Pam.
Dr Pam: Yeah, so public relations in terms of media coverage, it’s a whole gamut of [00:02:00] things. PR is really one spoke in the wheel for marketing. So before people can even buy from you, they have to be aware of you, so that’s where PR comes in.
Paula: All right.
So, um, I always hear about, you know, people talk about, well, they mix up sometimes media and branding and public relation. Break that down please because, you know, it’s so confusing now where we have so much out there to choose from, but I know there’s more to what you’re doing than what people think.
Dr Pam: Well, they all fit together, so yes, it is true that PR, media, public relations can be a lot of different things. It could be crisis communications. It could be uh, public relations in terms of what it is a person is doing on stage, what is your PR positioning. And then also, you can’t really get PR or media coverage unless you have a brand.
So when I say you have a brand, you have a platform, you have what people think [00:03:00] about you. So if you were to pitch, say, Oprah, and they’ll say, “Well, what is their hook? What is their angle? What is their brand?” They’re gonna Google you, and basically that Google is your North Star about how you, how you stand, how the media’s gonna look at you.
Because Google doesn’t lie,
Paula: right?
Dr Pam: So they wanna see what it is that you have, that other assets, whether it’s your speaker reels, your podcast, whether you’ve been featured in online magazines like Madame Noire, or you’ve been in Essence Magazine, or if you’ve been in Time Magazine. They want to see the digital footprint that you have, and that all kind of blends together your brand.
Once you have a brand, it’s easy then to pitch you to the media because they don’t ever wanna bring anybody brand new to their platform. They want some kind of cache in your name, some kind of little bit of notoriety in your name. So that’s really where that is. And then marketing is the whole thing, like, well, why do you want to have PR?
Because you want to either sell a book, [00:04:00] get people to an event, subscribe to something, get them in some kind of action. And so I always say it goes with the whole AIDA, Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. That’s something I’ve learnt in college. Awareness, meaning like getting people aware of you, then getting them interested in you, then desiring what it is that you want them to do, and then finally taking action.
So that’s the AIDA method. It’s an old, you know, I just remember that from way, from steps from way back. But the hardest thing today is getting awareness, getting people to give you their attention.
Paula: Even with all what we have? I mean, now, this is not like 30 years ago.
Dr Pam: Noisy. Mm-hmm. It’s very noisy now. We have too many things, too many choices.
It’s very noisy. Before, it was like, okay, we have, like, TV stations, ABC, CBS and NBC, and then televisions went off, I think probably at midnight. Mm-hmm. Right now we have, it’s 24 hours. It’s seven and we got streaming, we got Plus television. We have [00:05:00] Tubi, we have YouTube. We have so many options.
We have Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire. And so people really can watch what they wanna watch when they wanna watch it. So I’d just like to just thank anyone who’s watching right now because time is a very, very big commodity. It’s the most expensive thing. And so I just appreciate people who do give their time really watching something, because there’s a million other choices, a million other things that they could be watching on their phone, on their tablet, on their laptop.
So it is the number one thing, getting attention. That’s why TikTok took off so fast, because it was very big on getting people’s attention.
Paula: Yes. So how do you transform, you know, like someone that’s doing. One of the things that you, I noticed is that you transform emergent. So if someone’s emergent, they should come to you as a author…
yeah
as an expert.
Dr Pam: Yeah. When I say to you- Not really. Yeah, not really. I don’t I don’t do PR. Like, I don’t do publicity for people who are emerging. Okay. I help [00:06:00] people get to the point where they are going to need a publicist.
Paula: Gotcha.
Dr Pam: So a lot of times people say, “Oh, well if I just get a publicist, it will he-…”
Well, a publicist then has to help you with maybe your website, helping you with your photos, helping you get together your offers. All of those things that lead up to, like, okay, a publicist. Like, I’m working with a, someone who has done marketing, um, not marketing, but someone who has done work with Jill Scott and Issa Rae and Will Smith, and that sort of thing.
She already has a brand. So basically I can call a TV and radio station and say, “Hey, let’s book her.” Okay? She has a brand already. She has a name. She’s been out there. Versus someone who’s just starting, it’s hard to really sell them in because they’re just starting. Mm-hmm. But in order to be sold in, you have certain things that you need, steps that you need to get ready, set, go and speak.
So I tell people, I said, “In order to get ready, one of the things you gotta get your mindset right. You gotta understand what it is you’re going to do, what is your offering, all that kind of [00:07:00] thing.” Set phase, getting the assets together. Professional headshots, even if you’re gonna be doing Zoom.
Professional camera, getting your lighting together, all those things. Uh, speaker reel, speaker, media kit, press release. That’s the set phase. And then go, how to pitch. Who do you pitch to? What do you say? What are some of the things? And then speaking, speaking on stages, what, what that’s involved, how to really pull that together because then that’s a whole nother thing that people have to do.
So, there’s two sectors of people. People who need to work with a publicist but they need to get ready, so I have, like, a program for that, and then those that are really ready, and then I work with them getting them booked into the main places where they need to be, whether it’s Oprah Essence or online publication, whether it’s The Root, those kind of things.
Depending on their platform of what is how to match them to the media that makes sense for them. And that’s where a lot of people don’t have clarity, so then they have to go and, like, let’s work with where you’re going because if you don’t have [00:08:00] clarity, then I can’t book you. So the publicist doesn’t say, “Well, what do you do?
Let me, let’s figure this out for you.” The publicist wants to just pitch you and get you on. Where someone else who doesn’t have that clarity, they have a whole lot of work to do. That’s kinda like a fallacy. People like, “Oh, I just need a publicist to work that out.” It’s like, I don’t have a magic wand to really do all that for you, okay?
It’s just like I try to help you, but the magic is not in the magic wand. It’s really, like, getting clarity first, the foundational things.
Paula: Got you. So listening to you, so you would work adjacent with someone who could, l- like a coach, for example, who would help that person get clarity with where they wanna go, and then once they have that clarity, then you can work with them.
Dr Pam: Yeah, once they have the clarity and the assets.
Paula: And the assets, of course.
Dr Pam: Mm.
Paula: Okay. All right, got you. And then you-
Dr Pam: They need assets
Paula: All right. Do you… So question for you. So do you do things like, well, maybe not, [00:09:00] ’cause I was gonna say, like, personality, you know, the personality testing and so on. That’s not you because-
Dr Pam: No
Paula: mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.
Dr Pam: Yeah. At a certain point in time they come already ready, and they’re- Okay … an expert already. They just need packaging.
Paula: Uh-huh.
Dr Pam: So the packaging and the promotion is what a publicist would do, help you with. So a lot of times publicists will work with stylists, because sometimes people need an entire brand.
So it’s not like, “Oh, I’m gonna run out and do a photo shoot.” Okay, well, I put together, I have in my Ready, Set, Go a brand photo shoot planner, because a photographer can only take pictures based on what you come up with and what you say you wanna use these photos for. So photo shoot planner will talk about poses and the kind of props that you may need, the kind of colors that go with your brand, maybe a background, maybe uh, behind-the-scenes photos of you, maybe in action at work, on the stage.
So it’s all-inclusive. So when you’re doing a photo shoot, it’s not just like, oh, just get a [00:10:00] photographer out there, but that’s part of the PR of it because we need those photos. You’re gonna spend two or three hours with the photographer. We’re going to need those photos. You’re gonna need your makeup, your hair, your styling, all of the things, the props, whether you have a magic wand or you have a prop of a microphone if you’re gonna be a podcaster.
You know, that kind of thing. So props that I tell you that you need to bring. That’s what the whole holistic thing about a publicist that can work with you, because you have that clarity. So then it’s like, okay, these are the things that we need, but the foundation of it is just getting in that ready phase.
And also, too, when someone starts getting a lot of PR, they can expect some things to change, how people see them, and then also how they see themselves as well.
Paula: That’s important ’cause they’re two different angles. How people see them and how they see themselves-
Dr Pam: Mm-hmm
Paula: … you know? Hmm.
Dr Pam: Yeah, if someone sees themselves, like say I may book them on a [00:11:00] Times Square. The, uh, a billboard.
Paula: A billboard. Mm-hmm.
Dr Pam: And they go and, and they see themselves. It’s a different way where other people are seeing them, but also it translates, like, how they see themselves now.
Like, wow. Yeah, I, I, I have arrived. I really am what I say I am. So, so those are the kind of things when I, when I put people in… I remember I had one client that I had on a billboard in, you know, in Detroit, in a big, large billboard, and she was just flabbergasted. Driving down the street one day and seeing herself on that billboard.
She’s like, “Oh my God, that’s me.” And, you know, I see it in people anyway for them, but now for them to see them themselves is really transformational for me, seeing, having them see themselves like that. Or even just the cover of a magazine. You know, sometimes people say, “Oh, you know, I see, you know, the cover of the magazine, you know.”
Melody, she was also on Times Square. She saw herself on the Times Square as well. And, it just translated how she saw herself. Now, she was a business person, she was a coach. [00:12:00] But now seeing herself more like that, uh, celebrity CEO is really kind of funny to see people see themselves now as that. I was like, “Yeah, that’s what you are now.”
Paula: So another person or another, um, professional you’ll probably have to have in your toolkit would be like a, this may sound kind of out of, may sound out of the world, out of this world, is like a therapist. Someone to now tell them, “Okay, now you’re at this point. This is how you now, you need to walk in that.”
Because you may see yourself like, okay, this is the point you wanna get to, but you know, it’s like when you get there now, it’s how to now walk in that limelight,
Dr Pam: It is. That’s a big, big part of it. I will tell people I’m a publicist not a therapist, but you may need a therapist after working with a publicist because there are some things, the mental things that go on.
And, you know, one of the things is that there’s a saying that says, ” Oh, don’t believe, you’re believing your own hype.” Because they say publicists hype you up. Well, we are. We’re supposed to put your best foot forward. Uh, we put out the hype, all those [00:13:00] things. But at the end of the day, we’re still the same people.
We’re regular people. But the publicist puts out the hype for you. You don’t live in the hype. The hype is just what we do. You don’t live in the hype, so don’t believe the hype. You’re not gonna be in the hype state all the time. You’re not always gonna be on the billboard all the time. You’re not always gonna be on the cover of the magazine all the time.
So I always tell people, I said, “Do not take this literally. It is just what we do, and that is just for that moment, because you’re only as good as the next PR outlet hit.” So yeah, you could be great today. Don’t live in that, because people forget it tomorrow.
Paula: That’s
Dr Pam: Yeah, that’s why people have to do PR all the time, because it’s one media hit to
the next.
Paula: That’s reality.
Dr Pam: Mm-hmm.
Paula: That’s the world.
Dr Pam: It’s the I-N-G, and it’s marketing. It’s I-N-G. It’s not just like, “Oh, I marketed once.” Okay, well we gotta keep doing it. McDonald’s does marketing all the time. Ford Motor Company markets all the time. Even though we know those brands, [00:14:00] it’s something we have to do all the time.
And so you have to find a new twist, new angle, new way of getting refreshed in front of an audience that is like, “Oh yeah, I heard about them.” Okay, well, no, this is new. This is different.
Paula: Now that brings me to a question about Speakers Magazine. That’s how I got to know about you. Tell me more about that.
Dr Pam: So I started it because, um, a lot of the magazines would not feature my clients. So I said, okay, instead of waiting to uh, ask, be asked to the table, create our own table, and that’s what Speakers Magazine was.
So I basically put together a magazine where Les Brown’s been on the cover, you know, Kim Coles, those kind of people, and then people in between that you haven’t heard of that are really amazing speakers, but they have to hold events. They hold signature events, and those are the people that are on the cover.
People who are on the cover have signature events, and the magazine is circulated at their events. Given to people at their events. In between are other speakers that [00:15:00] are, go along with that theme. If it’s leadership, then people who speak on leadership are in that magazine. If it’s about wealth building, then people who talk about wealth are in that magazine.
September is our magazine for self-improvement, self-improvement month, so people who, who are therapists or people who help other people improve their lives, that’s the theme of that magazine. On the cover is Mike Quinn. He has a book launch coming out. He does events. Those are the kind of things. Uh, August um, is a magazine that’s gonna be at Martha’s Vineyard.
Uh, those are the people at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, so people who are interested in that field. But it’s so many. I’ve been doing it 10 years. It’s so many amazing speakers, and they’re on the website speakersmagazine.com. They’re in the physical issue. You know, whether they’re in the physical issue or they are, um, in the issue, what I call, like, the online issue.
The online issue online, not the website, but the online issue have [00:16:00] speakers’ reels embedded into there. Because so many times people say, “Well, I don’t know how to find a speaker.” Well, here’s Speakers Magazine. Go online, watch their speaker reel, and you can book people here. Inside the magazine is, like, who they are, what they do, what are their speaking topics, and then their reels are there, so you can hear it.
A reel is, like, two minutes and 30 seconds. So Speakers Magazine’s run into 10 years. The last four years we’ve done Speak Sell Shine to help people get their speaker reels together, their photos and all of that. So yeah, I’m excited about this because this is where so many people… Laticia Nicole speaks every week now.
She’s speaking every week. She’s been on the cover three times. She holds events and that sort of thing. She has books. Um, but it’s a way where the general media may not have picked her up. So we, we pick it up. Senita’s another one. She’s in the Washington DC area, but she has a wonderful story, and she speaks, and she’s speaking, I think at the [00:17:00] Urban League is where she’s speaking at their national conference.
And she just has been doing really, really well. But again, the traditional media would not pick up those kind of things. Yolanda, another one. She launched her book and launched an event. Again, this kind of like helped set her on the map of where she’s going. People who were in here were speakers, other speakers that were at her conference.
So she had a conference, and then within this were other people who were at her conference. So that was really the whole point of it, and I made it this size because I miss Jet. If anybody remember Jet, it was Ebony Magazine, and then there was Jet, and Jet was like the small size of pocketbook size. Yeah, the magazine.
Mm-hmm. And that was the size I wanted to make it.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Pam: Easy to carry, easy to consume.
Paula: Okay. All right. Woo. All right. Thanks for explaining what that was, what that’s about. I saw your face light up, and so I knew I had to bring that up.
Dr Pam: Um- Uh, yeah. I have a ton of them over here. I have a ton [00:18:00] of them. This lady here is doing so well. She’s in the DMV area, and she has a YouTube channel, oh my God, Wyevetra, and just really started speaking. As soon as she was on the cover, she started speaking at a group called, women’s ministry groups and women in government. She started speaking, and she’s just on fire. She just needed exposure. That’s really what it is. I wanted people to just get out there and get known. That’s really the whole point. They were already good. They just needed to be on other platforms.
Paula: On other platforms. And that’s part of what you do. You say you work hard to get your clients. Help your client’s brand and get paid like a superstar.
Dr Pam: Yeah.
Paula: And that’s what you do. You get them-
Dr Pam: Yes
Paula: … get exposed, get exposure, get paid, which is important, and so that they can continue to do what they’re passionate and good at doing.
Dr Pam: Mm-hmm.
Paula: And, you know, get other people out there aware. ‘Cause as you said, AIDA, awareness, desiring-
Dr Pam: [00:19:00] Interest.
Mm-hmm …
Paula: and action.
Dr Pam: Yes, yeah.
Paula: Is a lot of things that you need.
Dr Pam: They have to have awareness, then they have to be interested, then they have to desire it, and then they have to take the action. So it’s AIDA. It- it’s definitely- A-
Paula: A-I-D, I missed the I. Yeah. Okay.
Dr Pam: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. That is so, so key. Every touchpoint of your brand is something where people are looking at and, lack of better word, judging.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Pam: And, it’s can be something as simple as your Zoom camera, uh, something as simple as your voicemail message. Sometimes you’ll just say, “Well, you know, I didn’t set up my voicemail message.” Well, no, leave that voicemail message when people call if they don’t get you. Make it exciting. Make it so that they know a little bit more about you.
Drive people to your website. You know, “Hey, I’m not here right now, but go to pamperrypr.com. You can download my free ABC, da da da. And then in the next, you know, 24, 48 hours I’ll get back to you.”
Paula: I love that.
Dr Pam: You know? But at this point in time, at least they know what they can do in the meantime.
Paula: I love that, and [00:20:00] that’s a simple thing to do.
Dr Pam: Yeah. Everybody has voicemail.
Paula: Everybody’s got… For now, right? Yeah. At least for now.
Dr Pam: Yeah, yeah.
Paula: Yeah. Ooh, I could talk with you forever, but I’m looking at the time. So for those who have joined us, and those who are listening later on or viewing this on YouTube, how can they get in touch with you?
Dr Pam: pamperrypr.com. That is where they’ll find all the things. Everything. And I even have it at the bottom of my screen here on the Zoom. I always tell people, too, that’s a little trick. I said, “You know, sometimes you can just put in your name, but sometimes put in your website,” because people are staring at these little boxes and they’re just staring and staring.
Stare, let them stare, and then let them have them go somewhere and do something. Okay. So pamperrypr.com is right there on there. It’s a branding touchpoint. And then once you’re… Obviously, if they go to the website, the website is good, it’ll convert, meaning that, you know, people will take an action there.
You know, whether they connect with you or they download something free or they buy, you know? Love it. And I always tell people, I said, “Have a buy button on your website.” That’s kinda [00:21:00] like the point.
Paula: Love it, Love it. I need to change mine. I just have my name, so. Look to self, Note to self. And for those of you who are listening online or those who’ve joined us, if you’d like to be a guest on my show just like pamperrypr.com, and that’s how I found her actually.
I was on LinkedIn and I saw her, and I was like pamperrypr.com.
Dr Pam: Pr.com. Mm-hmm.
Paula: Yeah, reached out to her and I asked her, and she said, “Yep.” So if you’d like to be a guest on my show without me having to go to LinkedIn, reach out to me on my website which is chattingwiththeexperts.com. I’m also on LinkedIn, and my business page there is Chatting With the Experts.
On Instagram you can find me, and my handle is @chat_experts_podcast.
I am also on Facebook, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com, and on YouTube please subscribe to our channel, which is [00:22:00] chattingwiththeexperts.com, and there you’ll be able to listen to this interview if you missed it, that is if you’re not in the audience, and all of the other phenomenal women who have shared their expertise just like she did with you.
And now for those of you who are in the audience, join us and ask her all the questions that I have not remembered to ask her or totally skipped my mind. Thank you, Pam, for being a guest on Chatting With the Experts. Thank you so much.
Dr Pam: Thank you. Thank you so much, Paula, really appreciate it.
Paula: Absolutely.