Hi guys, welcome to my weekly Facebook live show. I'm Jen Berson. I'm the founder of generation PR. We are a full service PR social media marketing agency based in Los Angeles. I've been running it for the last 17 years, 17 years. God sounds crazy. Um, before that I was a civil litigation attorney. Totally. Self-taught on PR. And, um, now, uh, see that there's so many resources available for PR pros that did not exist when I was learning how to do this. And so, um, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to create generation academy, which is the other side of our business that focuses on teaching PR professionals, everything. Um, they need to know to have a successful profitable career on their terms, um, and high to, and hi guys. Okay, good. Lots of your here. I, this is interesting. A lot of people wanted to check into this content.
Um, I guess in honor, of Beyonce's new album, I have my own wind machine here. Now I have a fan, like just sitting on my desk cause it's so hot where I am. So a sorry, if my hair blowing is a little distracting, I wonder if I could like tuck it back. Um, but welcome to this discussion. We actually put this content together a couple weeks ago and I wanted to add something to it. So, um, hold on. I know people are talking to me. Hi Nelson. We just had our pitch lab call yesterday, which I thought was wonderful. So many people just weighing in and supporting each other, sharing their expertise, Elaine. Um, oh yeah. It's so hot. Chelsea, are you in Sacramento? Where are you? Um, Elaine, we answered your question yesterday, um, on the pitch lab call. So just if you wanna see how we responded it's um, on the replay, which will go out soon, but welcome guys.
I'm so glad you're here. Um, let's dive in because let's see where my notes are starting Corona. Oh, oh yeah. It's cooking. It's cooking here. Um, yay. Okay, cool. So obviously, I mean we're two and a half years into this pandemic and we know it's had a huge impact on our lives in so many ways, but you know, with PR us as PR pros and how the media landscape has been sort of changing, especially I've been doing this 17 years, many of you that are here have been doing it even longer. Um, you know, it seems like the changes to the media landscape have just accelerated. So we've always been really adaptable. We've always tried to stay on top of the changing rules in PR so that we can help navigate, um, and land features for our clients. And if you kind of get stuck in the way that things have been, or you mourn the loss of things that aren't as they used to be, you kind of get left in the dust and we've always had this proactive feeling of trying to figure out where trends are going so that we can stay ahead of 'em.
And of course now with the responsibility of, um, keeping our community members on top of everything, especially through our programs and through the pitch lab, especially we have to stay on top of what we think is happening. So we can tell you guys in advance so we can all be ahead of the curve. I don't wanna teach you something that's old, that's stale. That's like, oh, you know, everybody's doing that. Now we have to kind of see what's happening, you know, forward looking. So I know that even when things are great, everything's humming along. Normally it's really hard to secure top tier media coverage for clients. It just, it's more competitive. There's a lot more noise out there. Um, the fundamentals, yeah, it says for me Facebook user, just tell me who that is for some reason. You're the only one I can't see. I don't know why, but, um, the fundamentals are always going to be important.
So great storytelling, um, ideal timing, like aligning your story angle with the timing that it's completely relevant and timely to be featured in the media. What is your creative idea, your angle, um, and then obviously valuable relationships with media and that all combined will help you get a leg up and be successful. And one of the keys to having great relationships with media is mastering all of those other things. So they know that you're pitching them timely, relevant, targeted ideas that are, um, oh, hi Morgan. Um, well now I can see you, so might have been you, but I'm so glad to see you here. Um, the, uh, you know, having the right, the right pitch aligned with the right editor is going to help you build those relationships. So again, those fundamentals are always going to matter, but now the pandemic has all of us as PR professionals rethinking our strategies and having to adapt to a media landscape that looks different and maybe even drastically different than it has before.
And so, um, we want to really establish the importance and kind of remind us of the importance of media relations. Um, so you, we stay on top of it, stay successful. How, um, and teach you and remind you how to navigate the changes that have been brought about by this unprecedented time. It's all unprecedented. Well, two and a half years, I guess now precedent , but we hope that we're sort of coming out on the other side of it, but, um, this topic is about the importance of media relations and PR. And how has that changed during the pandemic? Um, PR is hard. A lot of time we've had even members yesterday on our call were like, help me explain it in a very basic way to my clients, because it's hard for me to even just say fundamentally the value of PR. So many people don't understand the value of PR.
Um, but during this time, things have changed and PR is even more important and more valuable because, um, we are, uh, you know, trying to keep our clients top of mind, we're trying to help our clients stay connected to their consumers. We're trying to help get their message out there. People have been, you know, the economy's crazy people have been a little skittish to spend. Um, I'm gonna talk about this reality, um, for how it's affecting the media in, in a second, just kind of my little overview of this it's, um, PRS, not just media relations. It is corporate communications, internal coms, um, crisis messaging, social media management events. If you have something you're doing to gain visibility through events, whether they're virtual or in person could be reputation management for a client, investor relations, community relations, influencer partnerships, there's so much more to it than just media, um, relations and earned media.
And like we've said, and we always say it's ever evolving. And it's one of the most, I think, adaptable fields, we are always learning. We're evolving our strategies based on what's happening and what's relevant now. And I think that because of all of these new media ways and the overlap of paid media earned media, that's traditional, um, media features you land as a PR professional along with your own channels, tho and you know, like partnerships where you can align with other brands, more companies are thinking about how an investment in PR, especially through the pandemic could help them stay ahead of their competition because there's all of those different overlapping areas. Um, we are seeing in our clients more of a, of a, um, hybrid strategy with earned media, being like bread and butter, the foundation of what we do, but overlapping with influencer engagement and then now paid media opportunities.
Um, and that's a paid service that we are charging extra for because we now have a client we're managing like a $300,000 budget for, I mean, it's kind of like a quarter. We, you know, maybe for the end of the year, we're still waiting to find out if there's more budget, but that's a major investment. And there's a lot that goes into securing those partnerships and managing them. So I feel like in my agency for the first time ever, we're offering paid strategies as equal to earned media, like earned media is our core. That's like our bread and butter for us. That's where the most margin is. But I used to feel like those paid opportunities were, um, it was like shameful to present them to clients. They're like, well, why am I paying you if I could just go to the publications and pay to play, um, not crappy pay to play where it's like, I only charge you if I get a placement, but truly advertorial through the publication.
We're negotiating those packages. What does the social amplification look like? What do those emails going out look like? What's the timing of all of this, those paid opportunities. There's a lot more control. And if that is the ideal aligned target audience, our clients are like, let's do it. You know, we wanna reach their audience. We know we'll get some genuine editorial, but we wanna control the timing and the messaging, the frequency let's pay. So we're managing that for clients and that is a different approach than I've ever had before. Um, and it's another revenue stream for us guys. I mean, bottom line, it's like we're going back to our clients. And if it's a limited budget per quarter, we'll do a project. This new client is so much more involved. We're coming back to them as we renew the contract another six months for an additional fee, a monthly retainer fee for the paid media budget, because it's massive.
I mean, it's not just, you know, like one, one partnership it's ongoing and there's a lot that goes into it. Um, Nelson says, I find it way easier from the point of view of booking interviews for clients. For instance, I had the CEO of a company do a TV interview this morning. And because zoom is so accepted now, the client didn't have to go to the studio for an on camera interview prior to the pandemic. This was absolutely not an option. Yeah, that's been fantastic because there's, you know, ways people can connect from, we were just talking about this. Um, and it was on the call too Nelson where, um, somebody was pitching the today show and it just so happened. Their client was in New York. So if she wanted to be in studio, she could easily get there without them having to pay for her travel.
But back in the day, it was really challenging to get somebody out of state on the today show for like a lifestyle segment, which is more my area because they'd have to pay for the travel pay for the lodging, pay to ship all of their items that would be displayed on the table. Sorry, I bumped the mic. Um, it was way more challenging. And now we see people doing satellite through zoom and there are more opportunities. So I agree with that. That's a positive change and I think it's here to stay, which is great. Um, uh, okay. So we are, um, the other thing, the great resignation, we talked about that a few weeks ago, more and more people are leaving this traditional. Um, let's call it nine to five, but it's never nine to five. Um, they're leaving a lot of people have loved being home and they're comfortable with a hybrid of part-time back at work.
And part-time from home. Some companies are requiring their employees to come back all the way back in, and they're not happy about that. They realize that they can be extremely productive. It's like I've known this for 17 years. I've been working from home. I've been really productive, um, really focused when I need to work. I love the flexibility and freedom. If I have to run an errand or be at my kid's school, it's like the best possible way to work because you can be really efficient. You cut down on unnecessary meetings, you're just really laser focused. There's not a lot of people obviously popping in to talk to you. You can communicate over slack or, you know, some other way, but this is really a great way to work. You know, if you don't mind, um, long stretches of time being alone, I mean, I have long conversations with my cat and now my puppy.
Um, but it's a nice way to work well, companies that are requiring employees to come in, they are not going back because they don't want to be back in the office. So, um, if all of these people in different fields are leaving their companies, their traditional jobs, and they're going out on their own to start their own businesses. There's more opportunity. Uh, PR is going to help them have clients discover these new businesses, um, that they're gonna come to you with more, you know, need for your services. There's power in PR helping people successfully launch their new endeavors. Um, and it's up to us. It's up to you. It's up to me to navigate the impacts of the pandemic. Stay up to date with how they'll meet a date with how the media landscape is changing and be successful for our clients. So we put together, Morgan says she agrees, had a good morning.
America hit that happened last minute, did it from Nashville with no issue. That's awesome. So those opportunities are there and it's just easier now than ever, because you don't have to have your client travel in and all of the planning that goes into it. So, um, uh, Morgan, when you say last minute, tell us how far in advance last minute really was. Was it like a week? Was it day before? Was it, you know, the week up? Like, tell me what last minute looks like. So we put together these notes and I have four ways that we have seen trends working in the new direction, post pandemic, but, um, more recently, something pretty big has come up and I can't not address it. Um, and so he was booked for January and the two days before the producer called and said, they want him in two days.
Um, can you zoom? Oh, that's what they said. And we were like, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Oh for sure. You're like, boom. Yep. We're your guy. We got you. We're we're set. Yeah. That's awesome. You just need like a really good internet connection. You have to be hardwired otherwise it's a little dicey, but did it, um, in December. That's great. Congratulations. I love that you secured that and thanks for sharing it. Um, so I just recently taught a, uh, media, um, or a, uh, holiday gift guide masterclass. So it was included if you're a member of the pitch lab, all of our master classes for that program or included as your membership, but we had some people join us that, you know, aren't in the program. And so we had, it was really a successful masterclass. We had a lot of people on and we were ready to go.
We had our slides going. And then the night before I got an email, um, I am on, uh, Bryce groupers sharing ops subs stack. So for any of you that dunno what subst is so many of your favorite writers and authors and personalities have a subst stack, and it's basically you subscribe to their newsletter and they have the opportunity to give you free content and then paid gated content. So Bryce's gated content is great. She is, uh, media insider and she has known, um, she has been working in the affiliate world for at least a decade. And her sub stack newsletter came out last week and it was like a code read situation. Essentially the trigger was the fed, um, increasing, uh, the, um, interest rate by point 75 BA basis points essentially higher than we were anticipating. There were some bad earnings from major retailers like Walmart target, um, other major retailers, basically, they stocked up on all of these items that were really popular in the pandemic things that people wanted when they were home, like appliances for cooking and air fryers, patio furniture, bicycles, um, a leisure, um, things that are kind of like luxuries.
And, um, their warehouses are full, their earnings were down and, um, they are slashing, slashing, slashing prices beyond what any small retailer could ever compete with. They're selling at a loss because they need to clear out warehouses because warehousing is very expensive and they wanna show cost cutting, which will show more profits and that'll make their stock. So hopefully go up because of better earnings for the next quarter. So it's happening really fast and it's going to start happening this summer. We're already seeing some of it happen. Um, yesterday Bryce posted about a patio set that, um, was, uh, discounted, um, like 50% off where it was just last week and it's like a best seller. Um, you know, so it was like $300 off, you know, $600. And it was now $300. It's just happening across the board. Like nobody's buying pelotons right now.
Um, you know, a leisure is no longer like the uniform people wanna kind of get dressed and go out into society, not in their, not in their loungewear anymore. So a lot of these things are just sitting on the shelf and the biggest change in how it affects media is that media are all writing with the purpose of generating revenue through their affiliate links. Okay, you need to understand this. If you represent brands with products, you are pitching something that they need to consider, whether it can convert in sales quickly. So they are thinking, will this earn at least 1500 to $2,000 for this publication through the affiliate link in the next week, because they are now, um, trying to earn, um, money and revenue through this model. Plus all of these freelancers have fees associated with what they're doing. So story editors, um, you know, print like people that are, um, layout, uh, editors, people that are kind of tinkering with the story, they all have their sort of hourly salaries.
And if they're messing with it for two hours, there's a thousand dollars from the publication sunk into each feature. So at a minimum, they have to cover the cost to produce these features, but more importantly, they wanna keep their jobs and they are doing data driven stories where they're looking at analytics, they're looking at search volume, what are people searching for? What do they wanna learn about what topics are sort of relevant and timely from a data perspective? You know, it's not just like, oh, it's summer. So people are searching for sunscreen. Well, now there's data. They can look at the search volume on Google and see something people are searching for, with a search volume of 50,000 to a hundred thousand searches per week, I think is what their sort of the sweet spot. And then they know they have a winner. They have something that people will land on if they have enough keyword and the story, and when they land on it, if there is an item that links to an affiliate program and you all know what affiliate means, it's basically a commissionable link.
So hi, you can come up. My cat normally sleeping come. Um, it has a commissionable link, so they will earn money if they link to it, someone clicks through, it adds that item to their cart, transacts, they're earning money. So they want that link to earn a minimum of 1500 to $2,000. The first week, those editors that can consistently do that will be able to keep their jobs because if they are not earning for their publications, they're gone. Um, there were massive media layoffs last week, over 400, um, you know, media professionals were either not, you know, if they had like a, like an entry level position and were promised an, uh, like raise or like a title increase, they didn't get it. Or they were laid off in general. Wow. That's loud. Um, so they are really struggling. They were told you can come back and be a freelancer and, you know, what's the cuddle.
Um, they are not, um, having access to that data. So freelancers don't have the same insight, get outta my face cat that, uh, writers internally will be able to access the analytics, but publications are now completely data driven in what they're looking to talk about. So you can look in that sense too. You can look at search volume for something that would relate to your topic, your client's product. Oh my God. Now I have cap for on my nose and it's like, itchy, come on, go right here. Sorry guys we're live. Anything can happen. Um, does this make sense? It's a little bit different rather than something that's compelling and interesting and new and different that they think their readers will like, they are data driven. They are truly looking at what is converting, what search terms are people looking for? Which editors are driving the most traffic in the shortest amount of time. And it is no longer like tongue and cheek to say, oh, you know, like available on Amazon, the, the, the, uh, commissions have to be straightforward now. And what Bryce was recommending is in order to compete and secure media features, you need to go to your clients and tell them they have to really significantly bump up their commissions. Not everybody has the ability to do that, and you
Don't have to do it for every publisher. It doesn't have to be like influencers and anybody that comes across your Sara sale gets that bumped up commission, but for traditional media or like digital media, um, you know, refinery 29 and birdie, if you're a beauty company or like a Laura Cosmo in style, um, home and gardens, um, you know, all of that good housekeeping, they come to us and they say, they want at least 25% commission, which is like, that's bold, but this is what it takes some time. So, um, one of the other things I recommend you do is subscribe to Bryce's sub stack because she will talk about trending commissions and what those commissions are like from an internal, she's a publisher. She's looking on the dashboard of share a sale or commission junction or CJ, whatever it's called now and say, these products are offering 15% commission.
So like, are you in this space? Think about competing because they're gonna write about the product. That's gonna earn them more revenue. So that's a major, major change that it was kind of, you know, last year we taught our masterclass on gift guides and we were like, it's really nice to have an affiliate program. Now it is a non-negotiable that is their directive, earn us revenue by linking out to something where we will earn commissions by selling it to our readers. And they don't hide the ball on it. You know, most things you read now, most of those lists are commissionable links. And the other thing to keep in mind is they want a minimum cart transaction to be $50. So either that's the item they're suggesting, or maybe your client has free shipping at $50 or $75. So people are inspired to put, or they're compelled to put more items in their cart.
Those editors are gonna get the full cart transaction. Um, if you set it up that way, so they want the average cart transaction to be at least $50 for it to make a difference. Um, what else could I tell you about that? Um, they have to have good reviews. So this is, this is what is going to inspire them to want to write about your client's product, because the reviews are really high. So imagine you're reading this story, you're like, oh, this, um, you know, coffee, um, frother or whatever. It's $12. People love it. It's like 4.7 stars. And there's 20,000 reviews. You're like, yeah, I'm gonna throw that in my cart because it's like a no brainer. So you do that. And then you transact, or you're at least like cooked for 30 days. So if anybody goes back and buys it, when they clicked on your link, the first time you're still gonna, they're still gonna earn that commission.
So having a really affordable product with amazing reviews, um, and something they can talk about in a way where it's like, you know, it's sort of life changing, or what did you do before this kind of thing. People are like add to cart. So those factors move the needle. And I will say right now I uni no, I run an agency. So I always talk about what's going on in my agency. We just had a client with a wonderful, beautiful, fantastic, well performing product line skincare collection, so many great talking points, amazing founder story. We really struggled to land media for this client. And we, uh, we offered her the opportunity to end her contract early because I don't wanna take someone's money if it's just not happening. And the reason why it wasn't happening is because they're barely on Amazon. They are barely on any, um, sites with any affiliate commission opportunities and their own affiliate program through their website.
Isn't really being managed and it's not really built out. So we were struggling because they couldn't really offer the media a way to earn revenue by featuring their products. They had like two key products on Amazon and for those products, I mean, we, there was like a full page feature in, or like a full dedicated, um, written up, uh, article on, in style about this like transformational product, one of the two products on Amazon, but otherwise anything else on the collection, we were not getting any traction and I'm 99% sure it's because the affiliate opportunities were very weak and we sort of brought it up. And the owner of the company super savvy, amazing woman, um, doesn't like Amazon and I get it, you know, kind of is also counter to their corporate values. Um, you know, just like how they treat their employees and, you know, just the, just the like, um, waste and the earth and, you know, all the packaging and whatever, just wasn't aligning with their corporate values.
So she doesn't wanna be on Amazon and I get it, but it did have an impact on our ability to earn them media. So it's no longer a nice to have. It is a must have that. You can offer commissions and you should lead with it too. Um, you know, whatever feels comfortable, but you no longer have to hide the eight wall or like make it subtle. You know, now it's like available on share sale. Um, you know, we can offer an increased commission for media, like get the discussion going, like let them know I get the rules of the game and I'm here to play. So let's talk about it so that I can help you win the game too. That's a factor. So that was something we recently added. We talked about it in terms of holiday gift guide. If you're in the pitch lab and you represent products, absolutely watch that masterclass.
If you're not, you should join the pitch lab, cuz there's so much good stuff in there, especially that one. It's just like a, how to step by step. Um, anyway, so are other ways that the pandemic has changed PR and um, really like proven that the importance of media relations is really here to stay. Um, we see media requiring longer lead times aside from, um, you know, Morgan's success with landing a client on, um, GMA within like two days or something. Um, really the media is taking more time to, uh, have all of these things kind of come to fruition. So historically when you were working on a big announcement, maybe you were under embargo two weeks of pitching lead time from start to finish was actually a pretty good rule to follow, you know, for like newspapers or online features that allowed enough time for pitching to kind of field the media interest, set up interviews, coordinate those schedules, handle any last minute, follow up questions and any, any additional requests.
So that was then, um, and unless you're representing like a huge, huge company like Tesla, let's say in the current news landscape, um, we have learned that media pros will not have to drop everything they're doing and they're already hectic date to cover your news. They just don't have to, you know, it's not like urgent. Um, COVID 19, it's stretched out the media pitching timeline. It's kind of created more like a three to four week window at a minimum, um, depending on the outlet or the reporter you're working with. And I know there's situations that are kind of completely out of our control as it relates to timing and other outside factors, but with competition for media's attention, it's like at a fever pitch, right? An all time high. The more time you can give before an announcement goes live the better for our all parties involved.
And we are seeing the embargo ha not really using it at all anymore. Let me know if you guys are using anything under embargo. Um, Morgan said they lost a guess, which is why it happened so quickly as a caveat for GMA, but we had initially pitched him six months prior. Yeah. So that's a great, that's a great reminder too, is, you know, pitched him six months prior and you maybe don't hear anything or you hear like, oh, we'll keep them in mind. And then when they have the need, then the opportunity arose and they thought of him and he was able to get on super last minute. So just cuz you pitch and you maybe don't land a feature, then there's still opportunities. There's still seeds planted. We look at it like seeds planted. Yeah. I don't see anybody really replying to the embargo thing.
We just haven't done it in a long time. So it's a little different now, you know, rather than giving somebody like information and an exclusive it's like media me, it's moving so fast. They're just gonna write about it. And if you tell them like, wait, unless you're a major player, they're just gonna be like moving on. You know? So think about that longer, a little bit longer, um, window, which is nice, you know, it's a little bit more, uh, it's a less compressed timeline for major news. Um, we, okay. So we are seeing also that exclusives are more important than ever. Yeah. We rarely do embargoes unless it's an A-list celebrity. Yeah. Um, and I don't represent celebrities at all. We don't really do anything under embargo. Um, this is nothing my clients are doing. That's like so important. I have to tell you, we can't talk about it.
It's not like that. So, um, before, okay, so exclusives, let's talk about exclusives. We feel, and we've seen that they're kind of more important than ever because um, pre pandemic, we notice that big launches would often be covered in dozens of publications simultaneously. Now we're seeing that the exclusives are more prevalent than ever before. Yeah. And Nelson saying, I think embargo frustrates the media. It's never a tool that's valuable for them. It's to, you know, appease the client and it's, we have not that ability to really call the shot so much anymore. So it's not, um, really used. So if your client's like, let's announce it under embargo, it's like, it sounds like it's not really happening anymore. Um, we are now seeing that exclusives media exclusives are a really valuable asset because they are giving your clients and us as PR pros, the opportunity to have a really unique in depth, richer story that they can tell.
And on the media side of the equation, since the reporter knows, they're the only one getting the news to start, they can spend more time, more resources fleshing out a richer narrative. It gives them more, um, online clout because if something is really newsworthy and they're sort of the only ones that are offering that up, they have something online that will drive traffic that nobody else is talking about. And it'll also help you, um, build better relationships with key outlets or a reporter that is critical for your business. It could be in your niche. So it's gonna help you establish these great relationships for your other clients or that will benefit your other clients. So it's kind of a win-win situation all around for everyone. Um, so I, I like the idea of pitching exclusives, finding the exact right fit. And um, you know, somebody, you kind of have a relationship with that will listen to you and want to create a robust story and understand that it's valuable for them to have something new newsworthy that nobody else is talking about.
Cuz right now you see it's like people are all kind of talking about the same things and at the same time and you know, linking out to the same products it's like once they see that something's a mover and shaker and the commission's high, everyone starts talking about it. You're about to see everyone talking about prime day and then everyone's gonna talk about Nordstrom their anniversary sale. It's like wherever the money is, that's what people are gonna be talking about. So I like the idea of an exclusive go in depth. If you can tie it into some kind of, you know, that like any sort of affiliate revenue, like if it's a launch or something that's even better. Um, the third thing is the value of trade media we think has increased a lot. So obviously we love New York times Forbes. That's like so exciting and something clients love to see.
Um, and a lot of times they expect it. So set those expectations. Your client's not gonna be in Forbes if they've never been really written up anywhere, but okay. Um, but the bar to secure those features during the pandemic has been set higher and it's a lot more competitive. So depending on what you're pitching tier one coverage is not always realistic or even the best area to focus on from your strategic perspective. Um, it might not always be the best, the best way to go. There is a whole media world outside of traditional mainstream publications and your client's target audience. The, the people that they want to connect with is likely reading other outlets to, um, you know, things that are more interest focused, um, something that has kind of more of a more narrow scope of what they're talking about. And that can mean that trade media is a really great way to hone in on important demogra on an important demographic.
That's hard to reach and sometimes it's a little bit fragmented. Um, so if you have something that you wanna share and it's a more detailed complex topic, trade outlets will provide a really great tool for telling those nuanced stories, going a little bit deeper than other outlets because they might find it challenging or they don't have the time to dive into it. So if it's something that's technical, there's some technical expertise, um, or it's like, uh, you know, cutting edge innovation and, you know, the like science behind, it might be a little bit, um, you know, over the heads of like a traditional consumer trade publications will go there. They will get into that nitty gritty because their reader is going to be more inclined to understand it. So reporters will, um, reporters at these trade publications are really truly subject matter experts themselves in the topic they're covering and they're ready to get into the weeds.
They're ready to go deeper than other, um, journalists will. So if you want to get those in depth, more technical, more nuanced stories and connect with a very niche target audience trade outlets are great to do that. Um, and the fourth one, and this kind of ties back to us talking about the power of zoom and securing, um, televised features in, um, top tier TV opportunities. Um, you know, zoom is enabling virtual events and it did enable virtual events during COVID and we feel that they are here to stay. So we are seeing now a hybrid happen. So we know in-person events are back in a lot of cases, virtual events, they're not going anywhere. Um, we see things from influencer events being held remotely to connecting with media pros in these virtual desk side settings. And we actually created an entire resource and a masterclass on hosting virtual desk sides and virtual events inside the pitch lab.
Um, so I mean, we're always, like I said, creating something that is timely and relevant and if it is not how things are working anymore, we change it, we update it. Um, it's really there to help you hone your skills on things that are happening now that you need to know about how do you optimize the strategy? Um, you know, there's also like a really supportive community that call we had yesterday, um, was really fantastic to have everybody like working through specific challenges and kind of commiserating on a lot of things. Uh, somebody texted me after the fact and said that felt like a therapy session. I'd rather talk to all of you than talk to my therapist. Um, you know, everything in there is there to help you understand what's happening now in PR hone your pitching skills. Um, and if you're interested in just learning about it, it's super, super cost effective.
Like I can't think of another resource or tool or tech stack you would use in your business. That would be as comprehensive and as reasonably priced. And it's like month to month. So no commitment. Anyway, this class was inside the pitch lab and it's, you know, remote events are here to stay, um, Nelson saying some are going hybrid. And we know that the remote events offer a lot of advantages. Being able to connect with a larger amount of people, bigger demographic, it's a money saving, um, efforts, you know, versus big in person events. It will also like help with increased accessibility. Um, and they, um, require thought to make them more engaging, which we give you so many ideas and that masterclass about ways that you can kind of people got sick of it. We, we like listened to certain editors and what they were sick of and what their sort of rules were for virtual events.
And we taught to that and we gave tons of ideas. Um, so if you have to be more creative to make your event more engaging, that's probably gonna lead to better results. And like Nelson said, there's also hybrid events. There might be an in-person component. And then for those who couldn't make it, maybe they get a media kit, sh shipped out to them. If it's a hands on or a demonstration or like a, for my industry, it's like a cosmetics lesson with the founder or a makeup artist. And they'll ship the new launch to the people who can't make it live. So they don't feel like they're missing out on like the swag and the good stuff. Sometimes they'll ship a meal, um, you know, or send you like a Postmates gift card. So you can order in and, and dine with them. Um, plus give you the media kit and the product sample.
So there are ways to make people feel included plus cool activities. You can still do remotely. And it's allowing people to, you know, I know my, my best friend and her whole family, her grandma, her dad, her husband, and her kids. And she are all sick with COVID right now. It like went through them, just like the daughter, then the son, then the dad, then the mom, then the grandma, then her father. So boom, boom, boom, boom. It is still going on. And a lot of people don't wanna go places. They don't wanna travel if they don't have to. Um, and they've kind of gotten used to not traveling for events. So they want to be virtual. They're here to stay, do a hybrid event or, um, you know, watch that masterclass inside the pitch lab and refresh, um, your ideas about the best way to put one on the time we give you a timeline, we give you like ideas for activities and activations.
So, um, that's here to stay. And I would say of all of these things, the biggest change is this affiliate need bump up your percentages. If you're running it through, um, share a sale and you're in charge of your own, um, your own commissions through that platform, let the media know you can offer a significant commission through share sale. You can get on the phone. Usually we are now dealing with commerce editors. This didn't exist years ago, but the commerce editors are there to earn money for these publications. And that is how they get to keep their jobs. When everybody was gutted in the last week, the commerce editors typically kept their jobs. So that's the biggest change. If you're gonna compete with the Walmarts and targets deep slashing your prices in order to get your client's media attention, really try to strongly convince them to cut their, um, or to cut their prices and bump up their, um, commissions.
I know it's not that appealing to them, but if it's going to convert for you media wise, or you're gonna compete media wise, that's what it's gonna take. Nelson says, um, the big morning show in Toronto that I mentioned on the call yesterday is called P D a C skipped last year and went totally remote due to COVID last week, they staged a live event again, and next week they're doing an additional online, only event. Yeah. So that's like a, um, mining show, sorry, mining. Sorry. Oh God. You know what? I think I'm starting to need my, um, close up classes, which I I've never needed before, but, um, I honestly just thought it was a typo big mining show. Yeah. That's your niche. I, I knew that. I dunno. Um, but to me it looked like morning missing a letter, but, um, yeah, that's a really good example of like a hybrid sort of remote and in person, I think it's here to stay.
So, um, this is another resource I have. It's really, I think it's really good. We talked to 10, um, you know, successful PR pros. What I call my pitching powerhouses, they're sharing their secret sauce. What are their strategies that are converting for them? And that you can use to create really great results. We wanna dazzle your clients. We want them to keep coming back for more. We want the end of your contract period, that roll over to a new contract, to be an absolute, no brainer. And also give you the opportunity to add additional services like we are for paid, um, media partnerships. So that would, you know, we've had that in our contract as a project fee, but it's for us with that client, it's gone beyond a project. It's like, I'm sorry, a $300,000 project. Uh, budget is not a project. That's like, you know, a, a, an advertising budget we are managing.
So keep that in mind. And another thing that we are working on, because it's so important, you guys know that my whole goal is to keep you, um, earning money on your terms, on your own timeline and make you indispensable to your clients. And if things are changing, the media landscape is changing. You're spinning your wheels, or it's taking longer to earn media. Um, you know, that's what the pitch lab is here to help you with, but it, it happens to, you know, the best of us, but we just keep added and the fundamentals don't change timely, relevant, targeted angles, great story ideas, great products. Now you wanna have them with great commissions, you know, a, a great interview with a really interesting story or lessons learned. All of that is, is the fundamentals and those don't change. But when it comes to services, you can provide to your clients.
It has become more and more apparent to me that empowering our PR community to learn how to set up and manage affiliate programs for their clients is another valuable service that will allow you to earn like a, a, a increase in your monthly retainer. And, um, you can even get a, a percentage of the affiliate commissions that you are helping them to earn like the sales that you're helping them to earn. Um, and there's really good reason for overlap because PR pros have connections, timely, relevant, targeted, um, you know, pitch angles, Elaine, um, you know, we, we teach you in the pitch lab, obviously you're in there to master timeliness and relevance. We want it to be targeted to the right media outlet, the right story at the right time to the right person. Um, those are the fundamentals, great storytelling. And now we see that the affiliate, uh, program management, setting it up for clients, it's really good overlap because having the relationships with the influencers that would be talking about your client's products and the publishers are going to help you to convert more for your clients, because you already have those relationships and you could be reaching out to your contacts and, you know, furthering the efforts you're making on behalf of clients' affiliate programs.
So we are working on, I wouldn't even call it a masterclass. It's a program, um, like a mini program all around how PR pros can learn everything they need to know about affiliate marketing. So you can offer it as a service. So we're working on that. And I think probably around October, um, you know, we're really working fast on it, but you guys think this stuff just like appears , um, there's a lot of work that goes into all this content we create and especially like anything that's a paid program. Oh my God, we work really, really hard on it. So I think it's gonna be a really useful training. I want you to get into your client's businesses and just spread your tentacles and become essential. They're like, well, we can't leave. You're, you know, PR because you guys are like, we can see that you're earning us money through this affiliate program.
You set up, we are increasing sales. We're, you know, getting media attention. It's all like working together. So I think it's gonna be a really important thing plus to get a little bit of the upside, you know, kind of percentage of the sales, because you helped set it up. I think that's really enticing. So, um, I posted that PR insider secrets from my expert pitching powerhouses, just really amazing members of our community that shared their secret soft strategies so that you can have great results for your clients too. Um, you know, I think there's still opportunities to land clients. I've gotten, I don't know, probably three client inquiries in the last five days. They're not all great. I'm not saying they're all like, oh my God, I have, I'm dripping, you know, dripping with clients, but they're coming. The opportunities are there. And, um, you know, members of our community are sending proposals Nelson.
I know you don't love proposals, but they're sending capabilities decks and, um, you know, landing clients still, it there's still opportunities to me. I think the hardest thing is getting, you know, clients. So as long as you can get clients, you're in business, you can figure out ways to add value to their businesses. So, um, but yeah, those are the tips I have for you of what's changed, um, or the, you know, the importance of media relations and PR for big ways, the pandemic has changed. I added a fifth, a fifth one, or I think it's probably number one most important is help them earn money through affiliate commissions, um, for their stories. So if they write up a story and your client's product is featured there, and they're one of the biggest sellers they're gonna continue writing about your client's products because they convert well, they earn the publication money.
That's majorly important. That's sort of new and here to say, um, we see longer lead times. Um, uh, definitely having a hard time getting new clients. I have some that are maybes, but I'm struggling to get them to sign. So I can't tell how that, who that is. It still says Facebook user, but I don't know, are you in the agency accelerator because we have, um, that whole first part strategy and sales, um, those are the two front pillars with strategy sales service scale. This is the path to profitability framework that I made up. It's mine, it's trademarked. Um, and the actual models, copyright protected. It is, um, how I grew my agency, um, working with billion dollar clients. It's very strategic. And so the first to, oh, hi Chrissy. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Chrissy watch it. Um, I know that you're very niche in what you're doing, so I that's part of it is nicheing down.
Um, but you're also representing artists, right? Like, um, musicians and stuff. That's hard. I mean, there, sometimes there isn't, unless they're backed by a big label, there's not a lot of budget there. I don't mean to make a generalization, but, um, you know, are there sort of industry, adjacent brands, products, services, other bigger companies that you can work with that might have budgets? Um, you know, but yeah, definitely watch the first two pill, the first, uh, two pillars, which is like six, six weeks of content. I know we just rerecorded the whole program. That was the first six weeks, but you can look and jump around and see, maybe you just want to go through the, like filling your client pipeline or, um, shifted to working with authors, podcasters entrepreneurs. So there's not a lot of budgets there, there just aren't unless the author has like a publisher, that's gonna pay for like a book launch and there's a project fee.
Those typically end up being like project fees or, you know, it's yeah. I, I like brands because they have money. That's why typically they have money, but, um, you know, anybody else that's on here? I mean, I know Elaine has worked with some of these publishers, rarely have budgets too. Yeah, you guys, um, and, and Morgan is in that space sucks. So, Morgan, where are you finding the, where like, show me the money who's in your niches, where do the biggest budgets come from? How do you get to work in that space where you can tap into the types of, um, clients that actually have budget I'll stay on. So we can see that, um, clients, um, my clients who have money and their publisher budgets.
So it's a combination you're saying independently wealthy. Well, wouldn't that be nice? well, isn't that nice? You know, who's not independently wealthy, right? Just like, um, more celebrity celebrities. So they have lots of income. Facebook's being really wonky. It keeps telling me your video has ended. I'm still here. Um, I'm still here, but, um, yeah. Interesting. That's the thing. It's, if it's a new artist, that's just starting out the budgets aren't there. So, and I know Chrissy you're really dialed into like certain niches and you have that expertise. That's so valuable. There have to be bigger client targets that would have a budget for you, um, in those niches. That could really, yeah. Good. Thank you, Morgan, for sharing or I bundle projects with publishers. That's interesting. How does that work, Morgan? So I do a bunch of their titles in each season. Oh, okay, great. Yeah. I like that. Do you, you just do a bundled pricing. You don't like tease out per, per title or per author. Um, or you let them figure out, like what of the bundle they wanna allocate for each activation or each title? Like what, how do they,
They must manage it themselves. I'll give them X number of books for fall with one price. And then I would imagine they figure out in their promotional budget. What gets more, what gets less, just from a internal perspective. Um, oh, that's interesting. That's a great strategy. So Chrissy, maybe there's something along those lines that you can do, like tying in specifically with publishers or music producers. Uh, I have one who is going to be traditionally published. So maybe I can mention that to her as an option. Yeah. They will tell you who is a priority. Awesome guys. One, I'm glad you two could connect and help each other out. And yeah. Chrissy go and rewatch some of that content even just to get you like fired up again. Cuz I can tell by your post, you're feeling a little deflated right now because they're not converting.
It sucks. I mean, it totally sucks. I had a period of time like that. Um, beginning of the pandemic, I'd say probably like eight months in where we were getting a lot of interest, like a lot of tire kicking. And that is so annoying to me. I usually can sniff those out a mile away, but this was like, they were sneaky. They were like asking good questions and saying they were ready to go and looking for strategy, which don't worry Nelson. We don't give them any strategy until they're on board. But yeah, it's interesting. It's uh, it's changed now. I feel like they're a little bit more serious. I think people were skittish in the beginning to actually spend and now they're like, okay, we probably have to spend to come back here. Um, you have to come. What do you Brianna? Tell me tire kickers.
Yeah. Um, anyway, well, I'm so glad you guys could be here. I will not be going live next week, traveling with the family back on our national park kick, going to Yellowstone, which we hope. Um, we hope that the, um, park is open by the time we get there because Yellowstone had major flooding and closed the park for like a week and our hotel is inside the park. So like fingers crossed we can get in. I think my husband has it all figured out. Um, and it should be, it should be fine. So, um, I did Elaine. I wrote you back. Did you write me back again? Because I wrote you back. Did you get the initial? I gave you my photographer recommendation and I gave you her website check your spam. Oh, I hate that my email might have gone to your spam, but I did write you back.
Um, oh, huh? I have to come back and watch this video again. Yeah. Thank you so much, Chrissy. Um, yeah, don't worry about it Brianna. I was like, what are we saying? Yeah, come back and watch. Come back and watch. We have so much good stuff here. Great information. Oh no. Yeah. Check spam, Elaine. Um, it's uh, Michelle Adams. She's awesome. She's who I use. She's she would be able to come to you. It would be, she'd be great. Um, she's wonderful. She's such a delight to work with and she's done it. Okay, good. Was it in spam? Oh my God. Elaine. Don't just don't tell me. I hate it. I hate it so much. I don't understand why that happens. It's Google. it's Google. Like it's coming through Google. That's so annoying, but um, well guys have a great rest of your week. I'm thinking about everyone.
I feel like things are crazy. Oh you . Elaine's like I read it and I forgot. Okay. Now you sound like me. Um yeah. Morgan. Thanks for being here and sharing all that great information. You guys, this community is so awesome. I can't express my gratitude enough for all of you and just, um, every single day. I'm so grateful for people in our programs for this community here. I am just like blown away that people find us. Um, uh, that's so annoying. I don't know anything about that Nelson, but how annoying that it's going to spam, but, um, I'm really grateful for all of you and I'm just sending you. sending you, uh, love every single day. And I know times are challenging. If you need to talk or you need anything, you know, to help support your business. We are here. We have so many resources.
We have so many amazing smart members of our community. Happy to play matchmaker. Kind of like what happens here with Morgan and Chrissy. Um, that's what we're here for. So don't do it alone. You never have to go it alone. You have this community, you have me, you have all of the great resources we've created from free video training, free PDFs, all the stuff, all the way up to our signature programs. Like we will help you in your business. That's what you're, we're here for. So thank you so much for being here. Hope you have a great rest of your week and I'll see you guys soon. Bye. Take care.
