YouSaid · the spoken record

Emilie Gerber

lines on the record: 104
first: 2024-03-21
most recent: 2024-03-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Ideally, some B2B experience. I think doing B2B PR is very different from doing consumer PR. If you work with startups, that's a huge plus, know how to be kind of scrappy and fast. And also people that just love to be really hands-on and doing the actual work. We're very flat, so we're not a place where there's much managing of teams. So yeah, it's really much more like a consultancy than anything else.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our website is SixEastern.com, and our email is hello at 6eastern.com. So you can find us there. And actually, I have a newsletter called On Background. It's on Substack. And really what it's intended to be is a place for people to find these tactical opportunities. So it has medium moves. It has reporters that are working on stories. It has awards that are open, like all of the stuff that basically an intern, an agency would spend their days researching and put into a newsletter. And so its main audience is PR people, but I actually think it could be a great resource for people within companies that don't have PR teams to stay on top of stuff. So I guess, yeah, to be helpful, you know, feel free to subscribe. And then other than that, we're hiring. So if you happen to be a PR person that got this far in the episode, yeah, always looking for great, great people to bring on.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Strong opinions loosely held. I'm a very opinionated, trust my gut kind of person, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to change my mind on things and be wrong. I first heard it from an influencer tanks and then I Googled it and apparently, what was it? Like Jeff Bezos also said it at one point. So I have no idea the origin of the quote. But I think that's a good one. Like you can still be really opinionated in life, but that doesn't mean you always are going to be right.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then my other one, which is very self serving because they are a client, but I do use them every day, is perplexity. I find it so helpful, even just for like, you know, I'm working on an award submission. I forgot how much funding a client has raised asking them that. Marketing and PR is going to be one of the core sort of work applications for them.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was very skeptical of Apple Vision Pro, and I was like kind of making fun of it at the beginning. The first time I tried it, I completely changed my tune. I am so into it. I'm like ordering one. Very excited for actually using it for work. I think it could be a really good use case for just like my day-to-day at work after I had tried it the next day. I messaged a bunch of clients that I thought had like could have relevant applications for it. I'm like, do we have an Apple Vision Pro strategy? Are we going to talk about it publicly yet? So yeah, because sometimes, I mean, tying back to the PR conversation, I love if you're willing to push the envelope on stuff that you are building or are going to do and getting ahead of those conversations. So that's a lot of conversations I'm having right now is trying to convince clients to talk about that.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I have like a new one. We actually just revamped our interview process. I wanted to make it harder. So my new favorite question is, if a client comes to you and they're convinced they have something that's pressworthy, like an announcement that they think should be, I don't know, in the Wall Street Journal or something, and you know for a fact that it isn't like what steps do you take? What do you do next? And I like that question because it can handle it one from like the client relation standpoint. Like, how do you communicate with the client when they say something like that? But it's also like a critical thinking and like creativity question of like, how do you take a no and turn it into a yes? How do you take what they're giving you and make it into something interesting? And so, yeah, I like to kind of dig into that and they can use like a real example if they want. But I also think like a lot of our job is pushing back in a way. And so that's like also shows like if they're able and willing to push back”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I watched Last of Us and I didn't feel like it had enough survival elements to it. It was like, it was like storytelling in that environment, but it wasn't actually like a survival post-apocalyptic show in the way that I was looking for”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nice. Yeah, I discovered it a little late. I think the second season finished and they're working on the third. But yeah, it has like plane crash. It has just shocking moment after shocking moment like cannibalism, very weird stuff. And it's like one of those shows that sticks in your mind, which I kind of like where you're thinking about it afterwards. It's like kind of creepy. So yeah, I thought you thought.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so my favorite genre is like post apocalyptic sort of end of the world survival. I need to mention my all-time favorite show because it would be bad not to. So Walking Dead is like my comfort TV show. Like I can watch it when I'm going to sleep at night. But my most recent favorite was yellow jackets. Are you familiar?”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not a big book recommender. I have like ADHD, and reading full books is very hard for me. And so, yeah, so I'm just going to leave you with that one. I do the occasional beach read or like really focused, but it's not my main format of content consumption. Amazing. All right.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, totally. I was actually, you know, I was like, I was like nervous. I'm like, it's actually really great that this is happening. And then I can completely unplug after it. And so, yeah, I think it's actually good timing.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know. I would have had much more philosophical maybe. Yeah. So very excited. I'm going to Jamaica. And I just ever since kind of like researching that field, like there's the whole concept of changing your neural pathways is just very fascinating to me and like just like opening up and like shifting perspectives is something that I think will actually help me a lot just like even in like running a company, like being a better leader. You know, I think we're at a stage in our growth right now where we're hiring a lot and there's like a lot of pressure. And I just want to make sure I'm like bringing my best self forward every day. And so yeah, I'm just, I'm really excited about it.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I have one that's very top of mind right now. So it's How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen. I'm actually, I leave tonight for a week-long psilocybin retreat.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say the lowest end would probably be about $10K a month for an agency. You can find consultants. I think the best ones would be at least $8K a month. But for a small boutique agency, it starts at $10. Our rates actually start. I'll just be like transparent. I'm very open about our pricing. Our rates start at $15K a month for our retainers. And actually, that's for like a Series A company's generally what they're at. And then I mean, I would say unless you are a global business that needs basically different teams for different product lines, like which happens when you're a Microsoft of the world, that's another story. But if you're just, you know, like a Series C startup that's getting a lot of attention, I wouldn't go beyond 30K probably. There are plenty of agencies that go into the 50s and 60s a month, but that's just like a whole nother world. And I'm not like an expert.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Start times can vary from agency to agency. I think we can get started the week that a client needs us to. So maybe I'm not best equipped to answer this. But I would say before an announcement happens, you probably want to kick off six weeks in advance. So when we start with the company, it's like we're working on the blog. We're doing a media training. We're doing the media outreach. We're getting quotes from investors. We're coordinating with all the parties, making sure images are being created. So it's not just pitching and securing the article. So I would say buffer with time to pitch, you know, make sure that the reporter is actually able to cover it.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stories they're getting, but that's a little more obvious. A lot of people have already talked about this, so I'll just mention briefly it's important to meet with the actual team you're working on, not just the founder of the agency. So asking who's our day-to-day going to be? Can we chat with them really quick? One thing I would say don't do is an extensive RFP process. We actually as an agency don't participate in RFPs. The two times I've done it, I kind of had regret it just because of the amount of work going in versus the value that's there. It's just you're asking a team to do a lot of free work for you. And generally, I think the best players are not going to do that. So you're not going to get the, you're going to weed out some of the best players if you're asking them to do a lot of free upfront work. So yeah, those are a few considerations.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What they start doing, like, find out what month one looks like with them. If month one is them just doing intake calls and learning about the company and you're a startup, you know, that's still like, you know, really paying close attention to how much money you're spending, you're not going to necessarily want to partner with an agency that needs like a three-month ramp-up cycle. And so really tactically understand what those first few months look like. I think that's something that I've noticed is a lot of agencies take a while before they get their hands dirty and start doing things. My third piece of advice would be writing recent writing samples, like to the point of like all those press release excerpts I shared. Like, is that how they write? If it is, maybe they're not the right agency. And that's so easy. It's so easy to do. Just like ask them for a couple recent blogs or releases, whatever they tend to go for and read those. And of course, like wins too. Like you want to see what kind of.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's an assumption that bigger, more well known agencies are going to do a better job. I think a lot of those bigger well-known agencies are used to working with a lot of household brands. And so their strategies tend to be very reactive, you know, focus in the messaging, you know, maybe have to turn down a bunch of opportunities, control what people say. That is like the polar opposite in my opinion of doing startup PR. Startup PR you got to experiment, you got to try new things, you got to be scappy, you got to be fast. Like we actually personally like love like, you know, diving into pitching right away rather than spending several months on messaging, just kind of testing and market right away. And so don't assume just because they have the huge logos to your point, you're like, oh, well, you work with ramp and perplexity. Does that mean you know how to work with all these tiny companies? That's not necessarily a good thing. So don't just go by like the big logos. I would say that's my first piece of advice. My second piece of advice is find out.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've had, I would say, 50% success rate with getting execs featured that way. And so all you have to do is submit through a Google form. And it's just one of my favorite media opportunities right now. Doesn't need to be CEO. Actually, probably shouldn't be a CEO in a lot of instances, but they just, it's basically intended to help readers understand what the day-to-day looks in certain jobs and just get a little insight into the people that are in these jobs. And so I, yeah, I guess I just wanted to share that as like something that you could do today at over 10 minutes and potentially get a story. Although maybe not after you post this, so we'll see if they get like an influx.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can leave with one very tactical media opportunity that I love. Amazing. And okay, so here it is. It's a way to get a morning brew feature pretty somewhat easily. So they have this series called Morning Brew Coworking Series, and they have it for emerging tech brew. They have it for HR Brew. All their verticals, I think there's like a CFO one, marketing one. And essentially, if you go to the series, the co-working series, either at the top or the bottom, there's something where it's like, if you want to be featured, click on this link and fill out this form. And it's about 10 questions. If you keep your answers interesting and fun and not too self-promotional,”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How he speaks over and over again was like really helpful. And then on Twitter, I think it's just, I mean, it clearly just comes naturally to him. And so it wasn't necessarily something that needed to, you know, like I mentioned how some execs will spend all this time thinking through to the point where it could get in the way of other things. Like, I think that's not the case there. And if anything, it just helped the business. And actually with his Twitter presence, I would say it's a good example too of stuff getting included in articles like I mentioned in that Microsoft article, you know, so it helps the PR strategy as well.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I actually think I just learned so much. So it was my first in-house job. So I had worked at an agency. I hadn't worked internally at a company before. And I think I just learned so much about comms best practices from him in general, like just even beyond social, like he was so good at figuring out how to comment on things happening in the news, having just the right kind of like stance that was both interesting to the reporter, but like not necessarily threatening to the business. And just like capitalizing on all those moments. And I just like watched how that worked. And I was like, this is how good PR is. And it's like the company that the space that they're in is not necessarily one that, you know, reporters are all like writing about, but he was able to insert himself in those conversations really well. And I think also like at the time that I was there, at least really valued press and like was willing to put the time in and do the briefings. And so just like getting to hear how.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it can work to some extent. Maybe you're not going to necessarily be going viral or getting hundreds or tens of thousands of followers. But, I mean, like for me personally, I push myself to post on LinkedIn at least once a month because every time I post, we get at least one client and pound and like maybe a candidate and bound. And so if you test it and you start to see value, like, yeah, push yourself to do it, even if it doesn't come naturally. And that's, I guess, the nice thing about social is it's easy to test out. You can try doing it. You can post for a while, even for a month or two, see how it's going, and then adjust your strategy accordingly. But yes, I think for a lot of execs that we work with, it does feel like it's something that's really hard. Like there's a lot of overthinking, making sure it's right. Like you can get really in your head about it. And I totally understand that because I feel the same way. And so, yeah, if it's taking up so much of your time and bandwidth, just thinking about your social strategy, then I guess you can weigh if it makes sense.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. It's just like this, yeah. And so it's like things change quickly. So, yes, that was a good strategy. But like, yeah, you just kind of have to stay on top of it.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting though, if we're getting to the point where even brands having a personality on social is becoming its own meme, like people are kind of making fun of how all the fast food brands all are like these Gen ZikT.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, yeah, I think that it can be like a little industry specific as well for where it makes sense to be investing in the corporate channels, and you certainly can do that sort of thing. But I also think if you're going to do that, have an exec that you're also trying a social strategy with. Don't just do the plain corporate channels.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're not necessarily fully siloed, but I would say if you're considering investing in social to just do corporate channels and not think about executives, you're really leaving like a lot on the table. Corporate channels, it's very hard to build a following to get someone to follow a brand and care about a brand. You have to be bringing something new to the table because they don't want to read your latest blog post. They don't want to read like a relevant article that you're a social person just decided to put out there. When you have an executive, you're following a personality, you're following a person. Ideally, there's more flexibility with tone, all of that sort of stuff. And so I think, yeah, I think it's important to think about it from the people perspective and not just the brand perspective.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An agency, and I've seen many companies try doing that and not necessarily see as much success as they'd hoped for. So it's like this like, you know, if a founder is naturally good at that stuff, lean into it as much as humanly possible. Go for it. If they're not and you're trying to outsource it, it can be done to some success, but I don't necessarily think it's as easy as, you know, just posting three times a week on relevant topics. There has to be more going on there. I think that if the spokesperson or the executive that you're trying to build the presence of is willing to, going back to what I said earlier, kind of push the limit on opinions that they have, be bold, be controversial, then it could be worth potentially investing in. And I have seen it play out where reporters have seen those posts and used and quoted things in their articles as a result. So it can tie to your traditional media strategy a little bit.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think of newsletters and podcasts actually in the camp of if we're pitching traditional press, we're 100% pitching those. Social is its own ballgame, but I would not leave out newsletters and podcasts from any core PR strategy. To me, it's now, you know, just a part of any PR program that we're going to run because that's just where it's just part of media now. And to me, it's just like a very important part of media. In terms of social, I think doing social well is very hard. So, you know, you gave Aaron from Box as an example. That was all 100% him. I think I helped with one tweet once about a Microsoft partnership that we did. And it was like my, I was so excited. Actually, really good publication ended up writing a story on the tweet about Microsoft and Box Partnership because of it. So yeah, so that was fun. But generally, it's not always something that you can just turn on by hiring.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, and we love doing that. It's so fun when you do have multiple companies that you can connect. Actually, that's kind of a good macro point as well. It doesn't always need to just be about you. If you have an idea for a conference session, reaching out to colleagues that you've worked with at other companies, peers, people that are building other things that maybe don't compete better in a similar space and packaging that up as like, hey, this could be a really strong panel. It's actually way more successful than just pitching yourself.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably won't. Yeah, and but we've also been, we got her, she spoke at Money 2020, so it's like useful for speaking abstracts too. Actually, it was on a panel with column tax. We got them on together at Money 2020.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, some of the examples I gave, so clockwise and column tax aren't big as some of the other brands I mentioned. So that's certainly actually the bulk of our business. I would say 80% of the companies we work with are out of stage where they haven't reached that kind of mass awareness yet. Another really great company that we work with is Entropy. And so essentially they work with transaction data. They're an API. It's a very technical tool. It's not something that necessarily every reporter is going to instantly understand. But for them, we've actually really leaned into the founder story. She's an incredible woman.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, totally. And it doesn't need to be huge, especially if you're doing your first story. They're not expecting that you're necessarily going to have massive revenue. And so I think founders might sometimes be concerned that it's not going to seem like big enough or significant enough. Whereas, you know, from working with a lot of companies, it's kind of the case across the board”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But if you can make it a little more specific, I'm not against doing percentages, but I think there's a way to balance that with something that seems a little more realistic.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One sentence I found in a press release that a lot of companies want to include that I always try to remove is, well, here, I'll give you the sentence. Since exiting stealth in May, we've witnessed a 700% increase in organizations using our product. You're saying that since you were in stealth to now, you saw 700% increase. So you could have had one customer, now you have seven, and it's like every company wants to do these percentage growth stats when they just launched. And I've never seen reporters include that in their stories. And so there are ways to give signals of how fast you're growing without being that kind of disingenuous, like one way that you could put something similar is our revenue hit six figures at the end of last year and has been growing about 30% each quarter, with 40% of adoption coming from the enterprise sector. So you're giving color to the growth. And there's like, you can kind of play with that. It doesn't need to be exactly something like that.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“However, I've read a few articles that have said that Google no longer does prioritize its press releases in SEO. So I don't know how much that holds up. And that it signals to the market that the company is more serious. So that's a perception thing. I personally think that blogs actually signal a more modern kind of cool company than a press release. But at a certain stage in your growth, like public companies, they do press releases for earnings makes 100% sense. There are certain rules around when companies do need to issue press releases. So there's still a use case for them. I just think your average early to mid stage startup doesn't need them.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The standard press release format, it's so formulaic. And I think it actually encourages that more marketing speak. The benefit is that you're getting all the nice details in one place. So it's relevant from a reporter. However, you can do the exact same thing in a blog post. And the blog post can be this first person piece of content that's written by either the founder or the product lead or whatever executive that has a lot more flexibility in the style. You can kind of write it however you want. It can still include all the same news elements and it's much more shareable on social. Like you're not going to share a link to a press release on your Twitter or on your LinkedIn, but a blog for sure. You can add your own graphics. It's great. And you're also encouraging people to go to something that lives on your website versus this black hole of a newsletter. I should be fair. So I think that the reason that people say that they still do them is that it helps with SEO.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Press releases came about because reporters would be checking news wires for ideas of what stories they want to write. No reporters do that anymore or a very small percentage. I don't know any reporters that do that anymore. So now it's this thing where you go to one of the PR distribution services, you pay them anywhere between $300 to $2,000. That's literally what it costs. And they put it on the wire. And for the more expensive services, it does get syndicated to this press release section of some business websites. No one, in my opinion, goes there for their news. I've personally never read an article like a Yahoo Finance article that was a press release syndication. So in that sense, they are not helpful for getting eyeballs. They also require, going back to that more marketing form of writing, they require that you write like that.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, if you're talking about what goes into what makes this business interesting, like why should people care and not overindexing on that? I think that's just one part of the overall story is why people should care about this business. Yeah. And then, you know, like what's new? Is it growth metrics? Is it the customer piece? Is it product? What makes this timely and relevant right now?”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's talking through the basic questions what does this product do? Who is it for? Who are your customers? Like if you can answer each of those in one sentence, like what product launch are we talking about here? Like if you can just answer each of those verbally, chances are you're not going to be far away from what you're looking for. Because when I talk to marketers and founders and teams, generally like in the conversations, I have no trouble understanding what they're talking about. They can articulate it just fine. It's only in the writing that it gets that way. So I actually don't, I think it's like kind of easier to solve than many might realize. And then also I think there is some skill involved in removing words not over-explaining. Like you can make things more concise, but at the bare minimum, just like strip out all the jargon. That's like the first step.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just think there's it's just like a culture within marketing and comms that this is how we're supposed to write. And I just think that's a majority of how people do it. And they think it sounds smart or they think it sounds like more professional. I just think it's just how people are trained. And so even when like, I don't know, like when we bring on someone new, like part of my job is stripping away at a lot of that and getting people. Everyone's capable of talking like a human being. We do it every day. But it's stripping away that like thing that goes off in your head that you're supposed to be writing in a very marketing-y way. I would say at least 50% of releases are like that. It's not a small, it's not a small problem.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you wouldn't necessarily need to do that in your press release, but I think, you know, they could have been a lot clearer and not use because, I mean, terms like robust multiplayer experience, like that makes it sound like a game. Are we talking about just collaborative multiple users? Human in the loop collaboration isn't all collaboration between humans and we're all in the loop. Like AI assistance, that just means they use AI. So yeah, it's like sometimes I push my clients to like, okay, let's talk through what each of these phrases actually means. Because if you can't articulate it, and if you can't articulate it, then let's change it to the way that you just articulated it. And it might be more successful. So yeah, that's a good way to do it. And just like read it out loud. Like read it out loud and see if someone understands it.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, to me, yeah, it's like a better version of Zapier where they aren't just doing triggers and actions and there's like a little more substance and depth to it. If you know what Zapier is, you can kind of start to figure out what they do based on that.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like you kind of gain something from workflow automation, and then after that, it's like, wait, what. Okay, now let me read to you the TechCrunch title that they are an excerpt from the TechCrunch article, and this is how TechCrunch positioned it. A new automation startup is setting out to eat Zapier's lunch. It helps people tackle mundane repetitive tasks and goes beyond the triggers and actions popularized by similar platforms like Zapier.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I have some excerpts that I pulled from press releases where I think there's room for improvement. So Lenny, I want to read one to you and then I want to see if you can tell me what this company does. Okay. Today, X announced their workflow automation product, which combines AI assistance human in the loop collaboration, and a robust multiplayer experience to help team save time.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And like not have it be targeted to the right audience. And so that's kind of a way to play the numbers game while still being respectful. But yeah, I mean, you know, with some clients, maybe they get one opportunity for every 20 or 30 things that we send. And so, yeah, we try not to do like blasting. We don't do blasting media. It's not about sending the same person or the same pitch to a single list of people. It's figuring out, you know, which ones do I want to really double down on because they're the perfect target and you'll keep trying. You'll be really custom, which deserve maybe a slightly higher level note, which deserve like a DM, and just kind of like figuring out your strategy from that.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say for hard news, like funding startup launch, those sort of things, less. And I try to really stagger it because we're offering exclusives and I highly recommend offering exclusives. So the worst thing that can happen is two reporters reply and they're both interested and you have to go back to one and say never mind. And sometimes that's okay if they left you. It's been a week or something, they hadn't gotten back and they'll understand. So, you know, it's fine to move on without getting an answer. So I would say, yeah, with the funding story, it could be anywhere from one to six reporters on average, sometimes more, with stuff like, you know, like general disreaching, trying to get on podcasts, it kind of is a numbers game. And you really have to balance quality and quantity. And that's why I love starting with the first note and not saying much and just saying, hey, you opened a guest ideas because it allows you to kind of do more. I'd rather do that than send a back.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I had known via acts. There's obviously some exceptions, but I had known the subject matter you were looking for, but I did not spot the trend that you never had CEOs on. So I think my pitch was actually okay, but the spokesperson was not the kind of person that you would want on. So, you know, maybe you won't get it right 100% of the time, but you can tell a lot just by doing some searches.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, listening certainly helps, but I do think just figuring out if you even just scrolled the names of all the episodes that you've done, it would be pretty easy to spot a trend there. And so, you know, you're not talking about product launches. You are not talking about entrepreneurial journeys. You're talking about tactical lessons. And so pitching people based on those sort of things, like I don't even think you necessarily need to listen to a whole bunch of episodes most of the time, maybe occasionally you want to gut check something before you reach out. But yeah, you can tell a lot just by doing like a little bit of research. And then we did have a little back and forth because I will take responsibility. I did try pitching you on a CEO at one point, which I know you don't have on guests. Once in a while, I had rarely.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think with pitching you, like speaking to the audience is, you know, it's not just about having, you don't want the most well-known CEOs all the time. You're not looking just for the biggest companies and the most well-known people. You're looking for the things that they can talk about and how the things that they can talk about are relevant to your audience. And so I try to index on, like with the first bullet, it was indexing on that. The second bullet was more so like, hey, you might not know about this company. And it's a little bit of a unique one. I wouldn't necessarily always include that. But yeah, to me, the first bullet was really what mattered because it wasn't just about the fact that they were a huge company. It's that they grew in a unique way. And I knew that was like the kind of thing that you'd be interested in.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source