John McDougall: Hi! I’m John McDougall. I’m here today with Dan Janal, the author of “Reporters Are Looking for YOU!” and the founder of PR Leads. We’ll be talking about how to get media mentions using prleads.com. So Dan, what is prleads.com?

Dan Janal: PR Leads is the original service that matches reporters and experts, so they can get publicity. Reporters are always writing stories. They’re always on deadline pression. They’re always looking for a couple of experts who can give them commentary, so they can write their stories.

So we really started this whole industry many years ago. We’ve been helping thousands of authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, business executives, small business owners along the way. The beauty of this is we get our leads from a company called ProfNet, which is a division of PR Newswire. They’ve been sending out press releases and have tremendous relations with the media for the last 50 years or so.

Because of the credibility that PR Newswire has established with the media, the top media really trusts and respects ProfNet. And we were fortunate enough to be able to resell the ProfNet service under our own label, so our clients get the same leads that the regular ProfNet subscribers are getting.

From the top tier media, we’re writing about anything from real estate, and life insurance, and finance to employment, and health, and psychology, as well as relationships, and parenting, and health and fitness. Just everything you’d possibly think of. We’ve been helping people for over 15 years now with prleads.com.

John McDougall: Can you give us a few tips on using your site to get more media coverage?


Dan Janal: Sure. The first thing you have to realize is that reporters don’t want a lot of information. Remember when Mark Twain said, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter. So, I wrote you a long one instead”?

The same thing holds true with leads. Most people, when they first started using a lead service — In fact, we’d have competition for many years and over the last five years with social media. There are a number of competitors that we have now. Some are vertical. Some are horizontal. They send out leads from — no compete, does not have competitions. I want to acknowledge that.

But many people, regardless of which service they use, make a fundamental mistake. They basically send in their resume and say, “Hi! I’m an expert on this topic. If you’d like some information, I’d be happy to help you.” That doesn’t say what you’re about to say. And it really doesn’t get inside the way reporters think.

I used to be a daily newspaper reporter and business newspaper editor, so I know how reporters think. And it’s like we have to quote three or four people. They get a sentence or two. And when I hit 10 inches, I’m done [laughs]. That’s the way they think.

So, they have someone who says, “This issue is good. This issue is bad.” And another person says, “It’s too soon to determine.” If you look at a newspaper article, and if you follow that frame of reference, you’ll understand how the media write stories. And if you understand how they write stories, you have a much better chance to being quoted.

John McDougall: Yes. Those are great tips. Sometimes, you want to also speak in sound bites, right? I’m learning a bit about that myself. Can you explain sound bites to people?

Dan Janal: Sure. Sound bites are — It’s a term that people use. It’s your quote. It’s your phrase. It’s the smallest amount of words you can use to get your point across, or it’s something catchy that is repeatable. So, it becomes a brand, a tagline, a catch phrase, a slogan, something like that.

There are a number of ways to create sound bites, but basically, for people on the podcast, don’t go crazy over trying to get a perfect sound bite. Just think of a sentence that has maybe seven words in it, and you’ll be okay. Be on that. You’re just dressing it up and polishing it a bit.

But I know too many people don’t do publicity because they think everything has to be perfect. If you’re looking for the perfect sound bite and you’re a small business person, then chances are, everything else going on your life, you won’t take the first step to do anything. And then, you won’t get any publicity, whatsoever.

So, I’d rather be quoted with something that just sounds like I’m a normal person as opposed to the perfect pearls of wisdom that each letter starts with the same letter or rhymes or sounds like you came out of Madison Avenue.

Don’t beat yourself up about this, because again, I’ve been in this business for over 30 years, and one of the best things I’ve ever heard from one of our business coaches was “Done is better than perfect.”

You’re making it harder than it needs to be for yourself. Just give the reporter good information, and they’ll reward you. That’s really what it’s all about. If you’re in a crisis communications situation, then I might give a slightly different answer about crafting a truly perfect message because there are legal implications involved with that. But if you want product publicity or publicity through your professional services firm or your company or your product, good is good enough.

John McDougall: Okay. What about just some practical how-tos on — What’s the regular routine? Leads come through in your email. You set some categories that you want leads to come from PR Leads. You get them in your email, and now’s the time to — How do you pick which ones are relevant for you and blast off an email to the reporter?

Dan Janal: That’s a great question. Frankly, a lot of my clients, to pick up on an earlier theme, will disqualify themselves. They will always say things like, “Oh! I could answer this, but Professor Smith of Harvard is really the expert on this. So, I’d be crazy to answer it instead of Professor Smith.”

The trouble with that thinking is that the reporter doesn’t know that Professor Smith is alive. Professor Smith is on a client call, so he didn’t see the lead. Furthermore, Professor Smith is off in Greece on vacation right now. He’s not available.

I can’t tell you how many of my clients have not responded to things because they talked themselves out of opportunities. So, that will be number one. The other thing that they talked themselves out of opportunities on is that they think the lead has been tailor-made, perfectly right for them.

That just isn’t necessarily so. When you’re in the city, sort of like the bell curve in terms of leads. And that’s for any service. We’re better than most because we actually do target our leads. So, if you’re in health, you’re only going to get health leads. You’re not going to get things about economic collapse in Greece.

We do a triage and target our leads to save our client’s time. That’s one way we distinguish ourselves from a number of our competitors who just send anything and everything to everyone. So, you have to wait through a lot of garbage to get something relevant.

But for our clients, we’re getting things that are relevant. They just may not see it as being relevant. For example, we might get a lead that says, “How can businesses increase our profitability during these difficult economic times?”

I might respond by saying, “Use publicity because it’s the least expensive and most effective form of marketing.” And the reporter could say, “Sounds good to me.” And another client of mine could say, “Hey! Hire a forensic accountant because she might be out to see where you’re wasting money. And if you could stop that waste, you go translate to profits on the bottom line.” The reporter could say, “Gee! That’s a pretty good idea.”

Another client could say, “Look at your customer service department because an upset customer who’s converted to a happy customer, becomes an evangelist for your company and converts more people to become clients and customers.”

And the reporter could say, “Gee! I didn’t know that.” Now, think back to the original lead. How can businesses improve their profitability during these difficult economic times? They didn’t ask for publicity. They didn’t ask for an accountant. They didn’t ask for customer service.

My clients are probably saying, “Well, gee! I’m a leadership expert.” I could have answered by saying, “Gee! If they train their leaders to be more responsive and better managers, then their lower level people or the middle level people won’t leave. So they won’t waste time on turnover and hiring and training new people. And that would translate into profits. And they’d be right.”

The reporter could say, “Perfect! This is great for me.” So, I invented this theory. I call it “the magic hammer theory of publicity.” I call it that because Abraham Maslow – the famous psychologist said, “If you are a hammer, then the whole world is a nail.”

I take that to mean, no matter what the question is, the answer is my topic. So, if you were to get that lead, John, you would probably say something about the advertising or Google ads, and you’d be totally correct.

So, if the answer is going to be anything from leadership and management, to publicity and advertising, to customer service, to the color of the paint on the walls.

John McDougall: [Laughs] Yes. You can make it work for you as long as you’re truly being helpful and making a good, meaningful comment.


Dan Janal: Exactly. If it’s totally off base and totally off the topic, then get rid of it. But I just want to use this as an example and as an exercise of saying that there are a lot more opportunities out there. Frankly, my clients who are more successful are the ones who use their intuition and see this kind of opportunity.

So, it’s the same thing as saying, if you got a phone call from a prospect and he said, “Gee! I have this $100,000 contract that I have to give to someone, but they have to help me do X, Y, and Z.” Is your first look going to be “We do Google AdWords. We don’t do X, Y, and Z,” or you’re going to say, “Oh, gee! We can use Google AdWords to accomplish X, Y, and Z”?

And if you make that link – that bridge, then you’re going to get the client. So it works in publicity. It works in new business relationships. It works in a lot of things. And I’m sort of an expert [chuckles] more of this gift for finding links and connections between thoughts and ideas. That’s probably off the wall. So I just see all these opportunities for people. It just pains me when they call me up and say, “Gee, I think you’re the trouble I’ve been informed of.”

I’m saying, “Are you crazy?” I had one person who said, “I wouldn’t want to answer this question because it’s in Hartford. I don’t know any business. It’s in Hartford. I’m located in Texas,” and whatever. And I said, “Do you realize that most of the insurance companies in America are located within 20 miles of Hartford? And you’re in the insurance business?” And suddenly, a light bulb went off in her head. She’s like, “Oh, okay. Now, I get it.”

So, that’s the other fallacy that a lot of people make is that they say, “Oh, this publication is too far away,” or “They’re too small,” or “They’re in a different industry.” Well, any publicity is good publicity. We’ve all heard that, except if you happen to be like a movie star who’s caught with their pants down, that’s not good publicity.

But for people like you and me, small business people, professional services firms, banks, whatever, doing something good and getting quoted for it, in any size publication is going to reap benefits for you because it will be indexed on Google.

So, when someone who’s checking out your bank, or your real estate company, or your law firm, and they see that you’re quoted somewhere doing something nice, or being an expert on — being quoted, that will pay dividends for you.

John McDougall: So the moral of the story there is respond to leads regularly, think outside the box, create bridges and connections in a meaningful way to get yourself out there for things that might, on first glance, not seem perfectly relevant to you. But if you are creative, you just might find that you add something really interesting with the story.

Dan Janal: Yes. That’s very true. To take it one step further, your responses are going to be so far different than what most people are saying that your answer will stand out. And the reporter will probably quote you because you’re doing something different.

So if we go back to our first question, “What can companies do to increase their profits?” 80% of the people are going to say, “Get more clients. Sell more stuff. Raise your prices [laughs].”

John McDougall: [Laughs] Right, right.


Dan Janal: Those are preferred best answers. We didn’t go there at all. So, 80% are going to be thrown out because they’re duplicates. My clients are going to get quoted because they’re just being unique, and they’re being on target. They’re not wasting the reporter’s time. And they’re giving information that’s truly interesting. That’s what news is all about. It’s about being interesting.

John McDougall: Yes. That’s a good way to put it. So you might just be pleasantly surprised if you respond to things that are outside the box. You get more responses than you would expect. How often do you suggest that your clients — Maybe they’re busy entrepreneurs, marketing directors that are very busy. Do you tell them to spend 15 minutes to half hour a day responding to inquiries or any kind of tips on routine?

Dan Janal: That’s a great question. I think it really goes down to personal preferences. I have some lawyers who love multitasking. And one person in particular, she said, “Send me leads as often as you like.”

And again, this is the way we differentiate from our competitors. We can send leads every half hour. And our competitors send leads once or twice or three times a day. So everyone’s getting the same leads at the same time with our competitors.

They are like jumping on board at the same time. That’s rough. It’s like 100 or there are 1,000 people with the starting line at a marathon. It’s hard to standout, where my clients can get the leads every half hour if they want, if that fits into their lifestyle. There are some people who can handle that.

I have another client who says, “I’ll just do it once a day when I have coffee in the morning or when I have lunch. I don’t care if I miss some opportunities because I miss deadlines. It just works for me.” So, I think it really fits into a person’s lifestyle. But in a perfect world, I would read the leads as they come in, say every hour or so. That way, it doesn’t feel you’re being bombarded.

But again, some people have low tolerances. We all get spam. We all get emails we have absolutely no interest in. We all get pitched by lots of people, by our co-workers who are sending us messages. So, email can seem to be a bit overwhelming at times. Then you have the PR Leads come through, and that just adds to the mix.

So, I think it really does depend on people’s personalities and their ability to handle information. But I think it comes down to a key point. If they really honor publicity, if they really believe what publicity can do for them and they realize the benefits of publicity and how effective it can be, and how low cost it is, especially for the bank, for the book that you get for it, then it becomes a priority. If it’s a priority, then you deal with it. If it’s not a priority, then you push it off and you push it off me. I created a folder on my computer that says, “PDFs I will never read [laughs].”

John McDougall: [Laughs] Nice.


Dan Janal: Because I just sense like, “Hey! This sounds interesting.” I’ll read it. I download it. It’s in my inbox for a couple of days and a couple of weeks. It’s like I’ll just put it in this file here for stuff to be read in the future.

I feel like, “Nah!” Everyone has a stuff to be read in the future filed. Well, I’m going to be honest. This is just the stuff I’m never going to read. And then one day a year, I can just go in there and just delete everything and feel good about it.

John McDougall: That’s awesome. How fast do you need to respond to leads? I’ve had some nice hits from using PR Leads. I know there’s a deadline listed in the leads, but is it better that it’s just as fast as possible or just by the deadline?

Dan Janal: You’re right. Every lead does have a deadline. But I’m a firm believer in the, “Early bird catches the worm” theory. So, I like to respond as quickly as possible. And a lot of them are for daily deadline – kind of the breaking news story, they need someone to comment about a certain thing, and they have a 5:00 deadline. And tomorrow, they just don’t care. They’re on to a different story.

But for some magazines that have a longer lead time, I’d still respond as quickly as possible for a couple of reasons. Number one, it’s done, and you could move on. You don’t have to worry about it or think about it.

Two, they’re not asking for a lot of information. Remember, we’re talking about one or two sentences. We’re talking about one or two or three tips that are one or two sentences long. This is easy stuff. This is stuff that you can do off the top of your head.

So, imagine if a client called you and said, “Hey! Should I take money out of my IRA or should I take money out of my KEYO?” You’ll just probably say, “Oh! If you want it taxable, do this. If you don’t want it taxable, do that.” Bingo! You’re done. So, it’s off your plate. That’s good.

The second reason you might want to respond early is because, let’s say, it’s three in the morning. The reporter can’t sleep. She wakes up and says, “I think I’m going to write that story because I just can’t fall asleep.” So, who is she going to quote? The people who have already submitted information.

John McDougall: Yes, absolutely. I think they’re formulating their ideas. I know with one piece, I was working on, where I got quoted several times about eBooks, I gave a bunch of ideas to the writer.

It shaped the piece a little bit. We also gave a custom graphic. We made an illustration about eBooks and fishing for eBooks with a little fishing lure. They didn’t have any images yet. So, you just try and be helpful. You never know. You just might shape the whole story.

Dan Janal: Exactly. And you very well may start a relationship with that reporter, so they contact you directly in the future and bypass me. And that does happen [laughs]. I can’t say I’m happy when it happens. Actually, I am pretty happy when it happens because it means that everything works. The reporter has a new source. My client has a new best friend. And that’s cool. So, you really can develop long term relationships with reporters by using PR Leads.

John McDougall: Yes. And then, of course, that’s just a handful of people that you have deep relationships with. But you need PR Leads to keep that flow coming off new stuff. We’re very interested in PR also as a link-building thing, not in a spammy way, but in a healthy way.

If the media is frequently talking about you, then that should be a good back link. But if you just keep getting excited in the same two or three publications, then that’s not growing your link profile.

So, I think it’s healthy to get in front of different people, different audiences. And then, technically Google should like that. Even if Google didn’t like that, that’s just a good thing. You’re connecting to different groups of people. So, it’s great if you can get regularly quoted by the same people, but variety is good for a couple of different reasons.

Dan Janal: Yes. Let me expand on that for just a second, if I may. There are a lot of freelancers, who use PR Leads. That means that they write for several different publications. So, you may get quoted in the Wall Street Journal by one woman, but she also writes for Money Magazine and Kiplinger’s, or Personal Finance, or TheStreet, or [chuckles] whatever. So, by becoming a good resource for this reporter, you could find yourself in three or four or five different publications as well.

John McDougall: Yes. That’s a really good point. What about conversion rate in terms of — If you send 10 little tips to different reporters, do you get one? Does it take 100 to get one? Is that different for everyone?

Dan Janal: It’s different for everyone. But I tell my clients that. My average client gets quoted one time for every 10 messages they respond to. Some people think, “Hoo-hoo, this is great, 10%!” Other people say, “How come I’m not getting quoted every single time? I’m giving them good information.”

That’s because there’s competition. In fact, there is competition in everything in life, you didn’t get in to every college you applied for. You didn’t get accepted on every date you ask someone out on. Why should publicity be any different?

Of course, metrics are all different. So, 10% response rate is off the chart for someone doing direct mail or other forms of marketing. So, you have to put in perspective. I think as a service provider, it’s incumbent upon me to manage my client’s expectations right off the bat, so they know that they’re going to get quoted, say, 1 out of 10, as opposed to 8 or 9 out of 10. So, if they are quoted 3 or 4 or 5 times out of 10, and maybe my clients are, frankly, then they’re delightfully surprised as opposed to “I was expecting to get 10 out of 10.”

So, it’s important to manage those expectations and put things in perspective. And also, one article in the Wall Street Journal may be worth your entire subscription for the entire year. So, it’s not just a numbers game. It’s also a quality game as well that one of my clients responded to a lead, and he got a book contract – major money for his work as he responded to a lead, and the acquisition there liked it. That was really cool.

Other clients have sold products, sold services, got new business, or use the publicity as part of their portfolio, their sales presentations in their websites. That’s another key point I think we should talk about in terms of expectations.

No one sees every page of every article and every newspaper – we talked about that before, so you have to send it to your clients. That’s really key. Now, publicity is that kind of tool that helps you build stronger marketing materials to tell your story to the world.

So, getting the quote is the first thing, putting that on your website, putting it in your sales kit, putting it in your presentations, using it as part of your introduction. That’s all how you leverage your publicities, so you can turn it into sales and convert more clients.

John McDougall: What if you want to get a little deeper even getting quoted and mentioned, where multiple other people are mentioned is great? What if you want to get on TV and you don’t have any media experience?

Is it helpful to have say, a YouTube channel? So, that they can see you, that you can speak well, and be a good person to interview on their show. So for TV coverage, are there any tips to start to get into that area?

Dan Janal: TV is a lot different than print for a couple of reasons. Print reporting is a lot more entrepreneurial. So everyday reporter goes into the newspaper office or magazine office and says, “What am I going to write about today? Oh! Someone cut me off on the way to work. I’m going to write about road rage.”

Okay. Now, you have to find some road rage experts. I need a psychologist. I need a victim of road rage. I need a law enforcement officer. I need a judge. That’s where PR Leads is so helpful.

TV knew they’re pretty much a rip off of your front page of a daily newspaper [laughs]. Let’s be honest. They do very little entrepreneurial reporting, except during sweeps month when they seem to become investigative reporters. But otherwise, they really just look into front page of the newspaper and say, “Okay. Let’s see. Housing starts to increase. Let’s see if we can find a local housing person and get a quote from them.”

So, if you look at your local newspaper, you see, “Oh! There’s a housing story. There’s an unemployment story.” You’re a career coach, or you’re an HR person. Call up the local TV station and say, “Hey, I noticed you’re writing your story about the unemployment figures. I can give you the local perspective on how unemployment is in Boston.” They’ll say, “Oh, cool! This is great!” So, you want a piggyback on an existing story.

Some of these stories come out every single month – unemployment figures, housing starts. Any kind of government statistic usually comes out on a monthly basis. If you’re fortunate enough to be in an industry or an area that relates to that – unemployment, so let’s say, you’re an unemployment lawyer, you can probably comment on statistics or trends, or think about how you can.

That’s an easy way to get into the news. But to just pitch them on a story, probably not going to work for a business unless you’re employing handicapped people, or there’s some human interest part to it because local news just doesn’t care.

The second part of TV, or the Oprahs, and the talk shows, and the Ellens, and places like that — And for business people, there aren’t a lot of opportunities there. Everyone says, “Oh, gee! If I got an Oprah, I’d be rich.”

A lot of people got on Oprah and they haven’t been rich [chuckles]. It’s not really your audience. It doesn’t really work for small business per se. There might be exceptions, of course. But those shows are about entertainment. So if you have a cookbook, or if you’re doing some theater, if you have the women’s products – clothing, fashion, whatever, that’s really what those daytime talk shows are all about.

There are a couple of daytime health shows, like The Doctors, and Dr. Oz, and stuff like that. So, if you have something of interest that relates to them, watch the show. I think that’s number one. Watch the show and see what it’s all about because you may say that, “I would never be on that show. They don’t reach my audience. They don’t talk and cover the stories that I’d be related to. So, why am I wasting my time?”

Unfortunately, a lot of people spend a lot of money with PR firms who are only too happy to take their money and say, “Oh! We’ll get you on Ellen,” but there’s not a chance in hell they’ll ever get on there.

The Today Show, it does take more business-oriented things. That’s true. If that were the case, if you want to get on The Today Show, or you want a Good Morning America, I would work with a PR firm that has an established track record on getting people – their clients, onto those shows because if the PR firm can open doors for you, then they are worth their weight in gold.

There’s a lot of stuff you can do on your own in PR. But creating contacts is a long, slow process. PR Leads is a fast way of doing that. But to get on Today Show or Good Morning America or those kinds of shows, you want to deal with PR firms that have long relationships with these people because they can get you in the door.

Because the one thing that these people do not want to do is find someone who has no experience, who’s afraid of the camera, or who will burn them. So, that’s why they trust the PR people to act as a screening service for them. It’s true. PR people do serve as a good purpose there.

The third point you mentioned, should you be on YouTube, should you — whatever. I think you show some form of media training before you go on a major TV show. I think for a lot of people that means starting off small.

So, get on your local TV. Get on anything in front of the camera because believe me you do not want your first media appearance to be on Oprah. You walk into the studio. Suddenly, there are 200 people looking at you. And you go, “Go!”

Suddenly, there are these hot, bright lights staring at you. Then, “I’m squinting. I don’t want any of these lights.” But then, you look like you’re avoiding Oprah. And then, you’re sweating because it’s so hot, because you wore something that was really, really hot, because you didn’t realize there were a lot bright lights. You want to get your colors done. You want to wear the right thing, so you look good. so you don’t bleed on TV. Your shirt doesn’t like vibrate [laughs]. You’ve seen it happen from time to time.

So, there are a number of rules there. There are a number of great media trainers in every city, who know all the basic rules there. They’re usually former TV people. So, they know what they’re doing. A lot of PR people can give advice as well.

So if you’re going to be on TV, definitely do some mock interviews before you go live because the funny thing about TV is that they may talk to you for 30 minutes. And then, they’ll edit it down and use one sentence.

So, 60 minutes was famous for this. They just keep on asking the question over and over and over and over again until the guy finally broke [laughs]. That was the quote they use. And I’ve seen the guy was saying, “I don’t believe it. For 30 minutes, I told these wonderful stories about how good our company was and how we’re helping people. And they used one quote at the end that made us look like idiots.”

John McDougall: Oh, man!


Dan Janal: Yes. That can happen. It won’t happen to people listening on this podcast unless you work for an oil company. They want to get good information out there. They definitely want to make you look good unless you’re a slum lord, in which case, they want to make you look bad.

John McDougall: And so, last question, Dan. Getting featured as opposed to getting quoted, do you buy lists? I know you guys have a service for that. So, I thought I just ask what that’s all about. So people can hear the process of getting targeted media list.

Dan Janal: Okay. Sure. There’s nothing wrong with getting quoted and they round up the stories with you and three or four other people. You can always send that out to your clients and say, “Look, we’re in the paper.” That’s good to build your credibility.

But if you’re the only person in the story, then you have no competition [laughs]. So, to do that, you could buy lists of reporters and contact the reporters. You could do research online and say, “Hey! I’m a firm believer that there are only five or ten publications that are going to make a difference in anyone’s lives.”

And I’m about to do a trading session on that as well. So, if you could figure out what those five publications are. For some, it may be Business Week, and Fortune, and Forbes. For others, it may be AARP (Modern Maturity) and Personal Finance, whatever.

The key is to find out what those publications are, find out who covers that area that you are involved in. You’ve saved your time in planning or divorce planning, divorce financial planning, whatever. I plan to do that.

So, you find the reporters who are likely to cover that. Then, you pitch them with story ideas. That’s something I’m very creative about as you can tell, only find out what’s interesting, what’s top, what’s trending, what’s going to catch the reporter’s attention.

Those are the people who have more time and energy and space to write about those kinds of features, where they can really profile you as the expert, who can answer 10 financial questions you must answer before you plan your divorce, or your funeral, or your estate, or your inheritance, or whatever.

That way, you have a better chance to getting quoted and being featured with a big picture, and really using that and using that in your marketing materials to promote yourself as an authority.

John McDougall: Yes. All of the above are good. That’s what I feel anyway. That it’s great to get regularly quoted amongst many other people, work on — like you said, I think that’s an interesting point – pick five really meaningful publications that relate to your space, try to get featured in those. Work it up from YouTube, the local TV to national TV, eventually, for a TV coverage.

There are all different things – press releases, all different ways that you can use publicity. And then, just wear it on your sleeve and put it out there on your site and share it with your customers. So, any other final thoughts on building your authority levels up?

Dan Janal: A final word about those media lists, they are a great place to start as you may not know. You may not be a media savvy. You may not know who the reporters are in the different city or in a vertical market that you’re trying to reach your trade publications. That’s where media listing comes in very handy.

There might be 50 people or 500 people or 5,000 people on that list. You would want to mail to all 5,000 of them. That’s where the triage then comes and say, “Oh! I didn’t realize there was a magazine that reach lawyers in this city, or a magazine that reach lawyers who cover this vertical market on, say, intellectual property.”

The list gives you more information and expands the world in a way that you may not have thought of. Of course, it includes the reporters’ name and their phone number and their email address, which is all information they’ve given to us willingly.

So, they want to be contacted. That’s their key point there. So, final thoughts about PR, PR is a great way to build your authority, to build your visibility, to build your credibility. It’s the first step in building trust.

And no advice anything today without trusting the person on the other side of the Web page because everyone’s anonymous. We don’t know if you’re in India or Pakistan or New Jersey. So we need that level of trust. The media is trying the fastest way to build that trust that can lead to the next stages of engagement, and then conversion. So, everything starts with PR. As I said before, PR leads.

John McDougall: Absolutely, Dan. So again, this is Dan Janal with prleads.com. I’m John McDougall. Thanks for joining us today, Dan.


Dan Janal: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.


John McDougall: Talk to you soon.

John McDougall: Hi, I’m John McDougall. I’m here today with Dan Janal, the author of “Reporters Are Looking for YOU!” and founder of prleads.com. We’ll be talking about building authority through media appearances. So Dan, how important is public relations and getting interviewed by the press in terms of building yourself and your brand as experts?

Dan Janal: Oh, PR is essential. It really is the building block. In fact, I called my company “PR Leads” because PR leads, all forms of marketing, to that follows. So you start with publicity, and you build credibility through media upon executives and business leaders, and appoint them as authorities, and experts, and celebrities.

And then, you take that credibility and you turn it into your advertising. So you leverage your publicity with advertising. Then you spend a lot more money on advertising. So publicity is generally a much lower expense than advertising in the whole scheme of things. So it all starts with publicity.

The reporters are really essential in creating that trust. And I know there’s a lot of give and take these days about the lamestream media, and all that sort of stuff. But that kind of talk is nonsense because people really do trust the media.

Newspapers are still selling and people read reviews. They read restaurant reviews. They read movie reviews. They read theater reviews. And they certainly do read business profile stories in local newspapers to see who the hot movers and shakers are.

Or if they have a topic that’s in the news like employee wages, or discrimination, or women’s rights, or such like that. If you want to be known as an expert in that field, you would talk to a reporter and get quoted in an article about that topic. And then, you can use that article in reprints as a way of building your credibility.

Of course, once you’re quoted — that’s a question a lot of my clients ask me. “Okay, I got publicity, what do I do now?” That’s really a key question because you can’t expect everyone to read every page of every newspaper that you’ve been quoted on. It just doesn’t happen. It will now by interruption marketing and PR is no different.

We have to get our publicity in front of our key prospects, our current clients, and our former clients in order to get more business, because that’s what it’s really all about. So it’s using publicity to build authority and trust, so you can get new clients and keep the clients you have.

So let me go a little bit deeper into that quickly. Number 1, you want to send the tear sheet. A tear sheet is a copy of the article, or if it’s an online, you could do a screen print. You want to send that copy to your current clients. We all know that loyalty is very rare in the market these days. So we want to stay in front of our clients and let them know that we’re still the best game in town.

We want to send the copies of these articles to our former clients because they could always get back in the game. I do a lot of publicity for authors and they’ll spend two years writing a book. Then they’ll spend six months promoting a book, and they’ll use my services. And then, they’ll stop using my services, and go back to write their next book.

And two years later, they’re coming back and working with me again. You may find the same situation with the people who have babies or are taking time off from work to take care of relatives or people then relocated. And they come back to the area as well.

So there are million reasons to reconnect with your former clients and get them back in the fold. And finally, of course, you want to send the articles to your prospects because we all know that it takes umpteen impressions in order to make a decision with prospects.

I know back in London in the 1800s. They said it was seven touches to build trust and credibility, then it became 21. I have no idea what number is today, but I’m guessing it’s pretty large. So sending an article that is useful to your prospects helps you in a couple of ways. Number 1, you’re giving them information that is useful to them and helps them lead happier, more productive, more rewarding lives, and maybe even make more money.

And also, it puts you in front of them on a non-salesy basis. You’re acting as a trusted adviser when you send them the article. And the fact that the article quotes you is icing on the cake. So you can’t go wrong. So that’s, in a nutshell, the whole idea of publicity. PR gives you the credibility you need to build the trust that builds the rapport, that makes prospects want to do business with you, and stay with you, and become customers for life.

John McDougall: Yes, absolutely. We’re in the business also of conversion rate optimization, trying to squeeze more leads out of the same amount of visitors on your site. And so, quoting those media appearances throughout your website on your homepage and in different places as awesome credibility and your trust goes up.

The media certainly are a fickle bunch in some ways. They’re busy and it’s hard to get through to them. Do you think they respond better to people who are authors, bloggers and who are active on social media versus the average company owner who may be an expert in their own right? And they really are. They really are an expert, but maybe they haven’t worked it up unto a little bit of a frenzy that’s easily recognizable when they asked the media if they’d like to interview them. How do you respond to that?

Dan Janal: I was a newspaper reporter. In fact, an award-winning newspaper reporter and business newspaper editor for a daily newspaper in New York, just outside of New York City, before I went to PR. So I know what it’s like to be in the trenches. And when you’re facing a deadline, and an angry editor says, “We got to get this story done,” you’ll go with the best available source who’s available right now. So I said available twice.

I’m not joking there. We might have edited that out in the transcript but that’s how important it really is. If you’re not available, you’re not going to get quoted. And if you pick up a newspaper and see your competitors listed there and quoted there, there are two reasons. Number 1, they raise their hand and made themselves available to the reporters. That’s it. They didn’t know that you’re alive. So what are you doing to tell the reporters that you are alive.

And I would suggest that everyone figure out who their local business newspaper editor is or the reporter who’s covering your topic and start a relationship with them. You mentioned social media. That’s the best place to start. You could pick up the phone and most reporters use the phones as screening device, so you could leave a short pitch to hear that says, “Hi. Here’s who I am. Here’s what I do, and I’d love to be a resource for you anytime you’re writing a story about this, that, or the other thing,” and “give me your contact information,” and hung up and wait. So, it’s 30 seconds. That’s not long. If you talk more than that, you probably are going to bore them to death, and they’ll delete your message.

So if they need you, they’ll dial indeed. But right now, we’re just gathering. So a lot of reporters are available on social media. And a lot of reporters are available online. Many newspaper and magazine articles are printed online along with the reporter’s name and their email address.

Many of these articles have comment sections underneath them. And this is a great place to start to build rapport. Because you can say, “Hey, this is a great article. Thanks for doing it. If you ever need a follow-up article, I can help you with more information.”

Or you might have more information like statistics or quotes or anecdotes that lend more information to the story. Put that in there. The reporter will start to notice that you are alive, especially if you’re in a smaller market like a small geographic market, or a vertical market.

So that’s great. If you’re trying to get press about the secret service, that’s pretty hard because it’s a national story. But if you’re a local realtor, or a dentist, or an employment counselor, it should be pretty easy to get publicity in your local media. Because frankly, most people don’t do it. If you post information on social media, if you reach out to these reporters on social media, if you send them your media kit or call them on the phone, those are great ways to start the engagement and start a relationship.

And of course, if you happen to see a reporter at, say, a trade show or a rotary club event, go off to them. Introduce yourself. Make yourself known, because believe me, reporters are frantic when they’re writing a story. When they’re writing a story – they’re on deadline, they need you more than you need them. So don’t think that you’re bothering them at that point. You’re a resource.

So, hold your head high. Walk in there, your head held high and say, “I can help you. I can be a resource for you.” And if they quote you, that’s cool, because then, you’ll get that credibility that we talked about and that we covered.

John McDougall: That sounds perfect. What about in terms of being an author and a blogger? And say, you’re reaching out to some media, and you’re able to mention, “Oh, you might check out this article I wrote on my blog. And it also happens to say, “I’m the author of XYZ book.” The journalists take that fairly seriously.

I know you’re saying that basically, if you’re there at the right time, at the right place, that may be all it takes sometimes, but it certainly helps, I would think. I know in my case, it’s helped a little bit having that extra credibility where they can quickly say, “Hey, this person’s an author and a blogger. And they’re reaching out on social. Let’s just go for it. Use them as an expert.”

Dan Janal: Well, yes. Let me dissect that question a little bit. Reporters will go with the best available source, who has the best comments, and the reasonable amount of credibility. And I’m sure there are many people listening to this podcast who have not written books, but they have 10 years of experience selling real estate in this marketplace. Congratulations! You’re an expert.

There are many people listening who have advanced degrees in their field. Congratulations! You’re an expert. That’s what reporters would want to see at the bare minimum. If you’ve written a book, that’s great. That’s a gold standard of credibility. Of course, reporters are smart these days, because they wrote and self-published.

So if you’ve been published by a major publisher, and I had six books published by John Wiley. They’ve been translated to six languages, I am very credible. My latest book, “Reporters Are Looking for YOU!” I self-published that with CreateSpace. That’s a lot less credible, but I make more money because I’m not sure, again, with the publisher.

So that’s the decision every author makes. But as far as a reporter goes, if you say you’re the author of a book that was published by your last name press. It doesn’t have the same credibility as being with Wiley or Random House or Penguin or a major publisher like that. So it’s good that you’ve written a book. It’s better if you’ve written a book with a major publisher. So there’s a pecking order in everything, I guess.

You mentioned bloggers. There’s a pecking orders with bloggers too. There are some bloggers who have reputations and hundreds of thousands of followers, and are quoted in the media as experts in their field. And there are a lot of tech reviewers falling to that category. There are a lot of mommy bloggers, and cosmetics bloggers, and fashion bloggers. Some of them are 13 years old. And they have hundreds of thousands of followers. And they get quoted by reporters.

In fact, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal recently that one 13-year old girl has an agent and he represented her with a movie, wanting to feature her in a little blurb in the movie as a fashion blogger. And they were really quite surprised that instead of being thrilled at the opportunity, she said, “No, talk to my agent, and we’ll let them handle it.”

So, Hollywood has invaded the bloggers and the YouTubers. It’s a really, really changing world. So, again, there are some bloggers who have incredibly big reputations, that are well-known. And then, there are coots who have blogs too. Reporters are a skeptical bunch in general. So the more credibility you have, the more respect they will give you.

So to just say you’re a blogger doesn’t mean you’re in the game or you’re out of the game. And so, you’re a blogger of 100,000 readers or a blogger who’s been quoted in Time and the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, that’s going to grab their attention. In fact, when I teach people how to respond to reporters, that’s one of the first things I tell them to do.

First, of course, is who you are, what you do. And then, I invent in this line that says, I’ve been quoted in the media many times including A, B, and C. And reporters are not expecting this, but it gives them a subtle kick in the pants. If the kick in the pants could be subtle, and so it’s “Gee, if they’re good enough for The New York Times or Time Magazine or Wall Street Journal, they’re good enough for me.”

So that’s an easy way to start to build credibility with reporters just as you mentioned, putting the logos on your Web site is an easy way or a quick way for everyone to say, “Well, they must be credible, because they appeared in these publications. So I’m willing to learn more about them and engage with them on a deeper level.

John McDougall: Those are some great tips. I can definitely use some of that myself. What about media interviews in terms of them generating backlinks? I’ve certainly got some with links, some without. Do you find there’s a way to increase the amount of times when you get quoted that you get an actual backlink or do you just kind of let it ride and just get as much press as possible and some of that will turn into good backlinks that Google will pick up on?

Dan Janal: If you want a full proof way to get it to backlink, you call your company .com, so prleads.com. If they want to print the name of the company, bring that through printer.com.

John McDougall: Right [chuckles].


Dan Janal: If it says PR leads, then you’re up to the mercies and the editor of policies of the media. Five, ten years ago, it was hard to get a live link. Now, I think more media are putting the links in there because they realize, it’s a public service to their readers. The readers want more information. Then, “Yes, let’s put a LinkedIn, so people can find the information.”

Of course, this goes back to the old theory that “Gee, if I put a link in here, people will leave our Web site.” We’ll, I don’t know anyone who has been held hostage by a Web site. People will leave your Web site sooner or later. So, I think the media has finally got around to that way of thinking ahead as well. But the “Don’t put a link in there because they’ll leave” philosophy had dominated the Web for many, many years.

Even though that sort of a direct contradiction of what Tim Berners-Lee used when he really created the Web and created hyperlinks, it was all an idea about interlinking everything and everyone. So you can find every bit of information easily. It was all about links. And I think that as time goes on, we will see more and more links that are hot linked.

But also, Google is getting smarter. Even if you don’t have links and say you press released an article, Google is smart enough to figure out that this article or press release or blog post is about this topic and they very well may come up when people type in those certain words.

John McDougall: Yes, absolutely. I think Google is getting smarter. Even if there’s not a link, the text around your name and your citations could become even more like a backlink moving forward.

Dan Janal: Right. And that also brings up another quick point. I hope I’m not off topic here.


John McDougall: Oh, yes.


Dan Janal: Google ranks Web sites. So a media Web site will have a higher rank than a professional services firm Web site. And educational Web site or a government site is also ranked pretty high. Highly traffic site is ranked pretty high. So you want to be on those sites as well. So while you’re saying you’re on your site that you’re great, and you’re wonderful, and you’re LinkedIn profile has all of your information, any prospect who’s checking you out, has taken note of the greater self in saying, well of course, they say they’re wonderful, and they have lots of wonderful testimonials on LinkedIn. But we need to find an unbiased source.

And that’s where publicity can come in and help because when they Google your name or your company name or your product, and they see an article, or media citation about this, it will show up higher probably than your own Web site. And people read it and determine whether they want to go deeper and actually interact with your company.

John McDougall: Yes, absolutely. And just the whole idea of being in that sphere of influence. The more you’re cited and the more you’re connected to influencers and other experts, whether it’s Google, or whether it’s your customers just seeing that you’re connected to all these people, you’re going to get more respect from both Google and your customers.

Dan Janal: That’s so true. In fact, one of my clients is in the business of sales and marketing. He always asks his clients to ask his clients what they think they do for him. So I said, “What do you think I do for you?” He said, you increased my digital footprint. I said, “Wow!”

John McDougall: [Laughs] Way to make me feel good.


Dan Janal: We do feasibility. We help build your credibility. We help build your authority. He said, “You increased my digital footprint” and he’s not a techy guy at all! But it’s so true. If someone is checking him out, they’re going to go on Google, look for all sorts of resources. And if it’s just him and his Web site, and his LinkedIn page, that’s not enough in today’s world.

So we write press releases for him. He gets quoted in the media, and his press release are indexed as well on Google, because Google seems to like press releases. And they can read his contents. So, it’s another interaction point.

John McDougall: Yes. That makes perfect sense. Google certainly has changed a little bit in terms of what press releases do from an SEO ranking perspective over the years, which is a good thing. I think a lot of people are just spamming it out, and doing all the free press release submission sites just because you get a backlink, but it just doesn’t work anymore like that.

Doing good press releases through a solid service – Marketwired, PR Newswire, et cetera – all very valid ways to get legitimate news out there as long as you have something decent to say. But just blasting out anything you can on a free press release site to get a link those days are gone for sure.

Dan Janal: Yes. Google is very smart and has someone who writes press releases and distributes press releases for clients. I love what Google is doing, because it’s getting rid of these low quality bottom feeder kind of places that really didn’t do much good anyway. But they were free or they were very, very low-cost.

So, people would go to them because it’s human nature, right? Now, those guys are either disappearing or people realizing that they’re not going to get any great feedback from there, so it’s helping our business in the long term.

John McDougall: I agree. That all sounds good. We have some next questions with it that are going to be a little more how-to. So what I’m thinking is we’re going to take a little break, and come back and do this as a part two.

Again, we’ve been with Dan Janal, author of “Reporters Are Looking for YOU!” and founder of PR Leads, and we’ll be right back. Thanks, Dan.

Dan Janal: Thank you.