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

“Yeah, yeah. I think it's reporters are used to getting the same thing all the time. And so, you know, this one obviously worked well for the format. But I think, you know, we try to always think of like, what can we do that's slightly different for this one? Or can we make this a little more fun? I guess the one exception, if the product is very technical and you have a very technical audience and you're probably going to work with a very technical reporter, it's totally fine to, you know, talk to your audience in those cases. And you don't need to necessarily dumb it down so everyone can understand. But that doesn't mean, I mean, you can do that while still using clear and concise language.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After they had agreed that they were potentially interested. Because again, like if I had shared it right off the bat, it would be their prerogative to just publish it essentially or share it publicly. And I guess one important note is everything you say to a reporter in an email is on the record. And so that's why I make the point on not sharing the entire story right off the bat”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I actually had to, for some reason, do some digging to get it, but I can, yeah, I have it now, so I can give it to you. Okay, great.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's better than the existing solutions. And so, yeah, I think it's, I guess, the piece of advice there is feel free to get kind of fun and creative with it and don't just follow the typical issuing press release format.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Metrics that we wanted to share, so we tried to make it a little bit more personal and focus on actual users and what they're saying while also showing the product capability here. And then, you know, instead of doing a long thing on each investor, we just bulleted who the investors are, which is like very to the point, easy for a reporter to repurpose. And then the fun part that I really loved is we did a video from the lead investor talking about why she invested instead of including an investor quote. So it's like a little bit different than what you kind of expect and their videos are fun because they have like all these interactive elements. And yeah, Team Photo, make it a little more personal. And that was about it. But anyways, it was very, it was a very successful story. And I believe the title of the TechCrunch article that we got as a result was Gamma Brings PowerPoint into the 21st century. Exactly. That's like exactly what we're talking, you know. If maybe they are creating a new category, we weren't talking about it then. We're talking about.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bringing PowerPoint into something that's much more modern and interactive and usable. So when we did their launch, they were Seed Stage Company. We tried to get really creative with how we could display or talk about the company. And so instead of doing your standard company blog post, we actually made a gamma presentation and we kind of included all these fun elements that made it really interesting to reporters. So firstly, it's a visual platform. So we created, or actually, I don't want to take credit for this. The Gamma team created this great visual. And we kept it like very to the point. Every year, half a billion people create presentations in Google Slides and PowerPoint. We're not using marketing language here. We're talking in a very direct way. We're including fun visuals. We talk about like, you know, Gamma's mission pretty short. Like this is not like a long essay on why the company exists. And then we include some customer love. So they're early stage. So we didn't really have necessarily like grow.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do want to share one more because it's my favorite. I want to share my favorite funding story. Let's do it that I worked on. And so I'm actually going to pull it up because this one is very graphic in terms of how we want to show the product. So we worked with a company called Gamma, which is essentially like”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The IRS is building a free filing system, but it's in its very early days. So the fact that they were having this offering that was supporting a lot of low-income families, and I believe 40% of the people that filed their taxes with Columb hadn't filed taxes in the previous year, so hadn't gotten a return. It's like identifying the piece of the story that's most interesting and then like doubling down on that. So we were able to get like a great fast company piece instead of pitching this like macro like here are column taxes, latest growth metrics and they're announcing a partnership with propeller. And so it's like figuring out how to tie it to these like things that people actually care about and like not just like the company's messaging, I think, is our job.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, okay, another example we work with a company called Column Tax, which is embedded tax filing software. So essentially they work with other fintechs to allow people to file their taxes within the tools that they already use. And last year they partnered with a company called Propel that offers SNAP benefits. So essentially for low income families to receive government benefits to offer tax filing directly within the app that they've created. That was kind of one thing that they were doing amidst many other customers that they had lots of different threads we could pull on with them, but we decided to really just focus our press strategy on that one initiative because it allowed us to tell kind of like macro story about turbo tax had to pay all these fines for like practices that many considered unsavory around calling themselves free, but not really being free.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Essentially, the way that we framed the story was how Ramp was now able to take on bill.com, which at the time, I'm not sure if it still is, was one of the best performing fintech IPOs public company that really had still only captured 2% of this market overall. And so by positioning it as allowing them to Ramp brings simple, seamless, dreamlined ability to do vendor payments and new finance offering first of its kind, like all these things, like that might be how you would talk in your customer emails. But if I had pitched it that way, like probably wouldn't have been a story. So if we had pitched it as them, you know, creating a new category of this all-in-one software, which, I mean, yeah, it could be argued that's another way to tell the story. I don't think CNBC would have been interested.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. Sounds good. I guess since we're on the topic of category creating versus not category creating, I'll start with an example that's very relevant to that. So we worked with RAMP in their very early days. And one of their first product announcements that we did together was the launch of their bill pay offering. And so at the time, I think there were like a $3 billion company, something along those lines. Big but not as big as they are today. Product news rarely gets big feature coverage, especially for something along the lines of a bill pay offering for B2B companies. And so”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love it. For PR, yeah, simply for PR. And other areas of the business, I can't comment on, but for PR, it's just not a useful tactic.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, really? There's a lot of compassion on both sides. I mean, sure. You can point to examples of the two companies that have done categoric creation well, but it's two out of what, like thousands?”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They love the idea of category creating, you know, creating these little marketing phrases that they use for the new category. And that's fine if perhaps that works on the sales side. But on the PR side, I would never put that in a pitch.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, one topic maybe this would be covered elsewhere, but one topic I think is talking about incumbents that this company is taking on. So a lot of companies want to position themselves as category creators. And I actually hate that. It doesn't work. It doesn't land with process. And most of the time it's not totally true. And so instead, it's actually really great when you can talk about how you are doing what ex household name does, but better for X reasons. And that works so well. I'll put that in subject lines. I'll put company taking on, you know, whatever Salesforce with X approach. It's so successful because instantly it gives the reporter a frame of reference. And so it gives the reporter, oh, I know what Salesforce does. So I can understand how this solution would be better. And a lot of companies really want to position themselves as the first to do anything in the state in a certain space.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and a caveat on that is if a competing publication just wrote us like a bigger, similar feature on that, they're not going to want to see that. And so I would use that strategically if it's an older, if it's a piece from a while ago on a different topic that does share a lot of info, I'll include it, but I'm not necessarily going to include something that might seem like, why would I cover this when this was just written about?”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wouldn't say I'm looking for it. I don't know. I would say if it was a DM, I would say. Reaching out from X company would love to offer you the launch story alongside their funding if you're open to it. And usually I'd either say the amount and the investors or the company name is you give them both. You're kind of just giving them the story and they could run with it right away. That's actually an important distinction. And so you could either say reaching out with this Martech company that's raised 8 million from ex-investors. Really interesting approach they're taking on ex-incumbent. Do you want the exclusive? That's kind of how I would phrase 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 we work with a company called Clockwise, which essentially manages your calendar and allows time for focus time within your workday. They move things around for you. And a couple months ago, Shopify got tons of positive press for essentially like canceling all their recurring meetings. And everyone was, you know, very intrigued by this strategy. Press was generally quite positive towards it. And so we knew that if we just wrote another piece saying, oh, this is great. No one would want to publish that. That just isn't, you know, it had been said in a million different ways. So we looked at the topic a little more critically and we're like, okay, is this actually”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They need that opposing view. And so we really push our clients to have something unique and different and bold to say. It obviously has to be a strategic decision for the business. Like you don't want to go commenting on regulatory things if that's not. It's only you don't want to necessarily be a part of that conversation. There are, I think, instances where it can make a lot of sense to say something that's a little bit bold and controversial.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About, like, hey, my clients noticing this trend. I know you've covered it from this point of view, but no one's talking about it from this point of view. That can be really helpful because it shows that you are actually paying attention to what they are writing, but in a way that you're like kind of demonstrating that you have some critical thinking going on, not just I liked your article on X, which is a common practice that PR people kind of use. I liked this and then jumped to your pitch. So yeah, giving it a little more thoughtful, pointing out gaps in coverage. And then the last piece is, especially if you don't have hard news that you're pitching, having something like pretty controversial to say. So we work with a lot of AI companies. If nine of them, you know, have one stance on something happening in the field and one has the other stance, chances are that one is going to be the one that a reporter wants to talk to because they are getting so many pitches on this topic, but they want to write a balanced article.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This column, and they're suggesting a guest for this column. It's so direct, it's so clear. I think just yeah, saying what your intentions are right away, like, are you trying to get a Q&A? Are you trying to get a story? Are you trying to get a funding story? Like I mentioned before, is very crucial. And keeping it short, I would say my most successful pitches are three sentences and anytime it needs, sometimes it needs to be longer than that. And generally, I feel like my pitch is weaker for that reason. You know, attention spans are short. And so the more concise you can make it, the better. And then just, you know, if one platform, sometimes I'll start with one platform, like I'll start with an email and that doesn't work. So I'll go somewhere else. But I try to make it very human and respectful. So using language like, hey, I know your inbox is poly slam, you know. Sorry to annoy trying you one more time here. Another thing that actually can work really well is pointing out gaps in their coverage too and talking about things that they should be talking about.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'm pro all platform approach. So sometimes Will tweet that they're working on a story about something, and rather than you sending them an email with my pitch, I'll say, hey, 10 words on why this person's the first thing you should talk to and then send a link to an article on them. And that's my entire pitch. Honestly, sometimes more effective than when I write, you know, spend 30 minutes writing a really thoughtful email. So I'm a fan of that. I'm a fan of Dianne's short, you know, concise direct DMs. Sometimes LinkedIn, although for whatever reason, I feel like that works better with the podcast side with hosts. And then, of course, email. Like, we totally email. When I email a reporter, I love to make the subject line just like as clear as possible, like as what the goal is and why I'm emailing them. And so let's say it's for a recurring column that they have. I'll put the name of that column and like the person that I think should be included in the subject line. And even that for a reporter, it's like, oh, they actually know I write.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can help could be helpful. And then once you have worked with a reporter on a story, it's true that maybe they'll be more likely to come back when they're working on something related, you know, use you as a source, use quote you in articles that are relevant. So once there's something there, that's great and you should totally nurture it. But it's not all about calling in favors.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On who their friends are, that's just not the nature. It shouldn't be the nature of the industry. And it's not maybe it'll get you an intro coffee. But that's about it. It's not going to get you coverage. They're not going to cover your news because there's a relationship there. I think the much harder and more important part is being good at writing really thoughtful notes to the right people. And in a way, now we do have a relationship. And so it can come from a cold email, but now it's easier for me to pitch you because you know my name and we've spoken and we've worked together. And so for me, I'm a big fan of being like helpful to reporters and tend to like, you know, just keep it professional and pitch them on stories. I don't necessarily feel like going to drinks or having coffee all the time is like crucial to like building those relationships. A lot of the reporters that I work with regularly, I've never met in person. And that's okay. But, you know, it can be great for getting answers, I would say. That's where the relationships can.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Who are your relationships question comes up on a lot of our calls with founders as well? I'd like to pose the question to you. Did we have a relationship before this? Exactly. I must have the belief that it does not matter as much as many people think it does. And I explained this on calls where they ask, oh, where, like, tell me about your Rolodex or who are your relationships with? First of all, media is changing so fast. So sure, maybe there is a reporter that we worked with recently. They might have a completely different beat in six months. They might be at a very different publication. So it's not sustainable to build an entire career on having relationships with certain public publications. And media's changing too. Like now podcasts and substack and newsletters, like it's just changing too fast. And so I think cold outreach done well is just as effective. The only thing that a relationship will get you is, you know, an open and an answer. And so, you know, like any good reporter is not going to be making their editorial decisions based.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This very long email introducing themselves or going really deep, and you don't have to do that. And especially because maybe only one out of every ten replies, it'll also save you a lot of time if you just start with something really lightweight.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yourself with. And then just looking at who the past guests are the kind of peers that you want to associate yourself with. And then one other thing that you can do is just in conversations with customers find out what they're listening to, find out what they're watching, find out their media diet. And it doesn't have to be a big crazy survey that you send to your entire customer base. It can be casual. If you're farther along, it's great if you can make that a more formal sort of process, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. And then in terms of reaching out, I highly recommend figuring out who the hoe, like doing the research, figuring out who the host is, and then just sending them like a casual note. Like, I'm a big fan of just reaching out on LinkedIn and saying, hey, love the show. Are you open to guest ideas? I don't even mention the client or anything, just like kind of opening the door. I just feel like that's so much more approachable and friendly than starting with a big pitch. And I think, you know, so many people start with.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“referring to but this is this could be for cfos so let's say you have um let's say you sell it into cfos don't pitch your ceo for that podcast get a cfo and then pitch your cfo for that podcast i'm very for companies hiring um spokespeople or hiring for the roles that they sell into it helps us a lot so if your audience is a cfo it really helps if you have a cfo if your audience is a cmo it really helps if you have a cmo and that actually you know when your earlier stage isn't always the case and so it's a lot harder to pitch so i think that's the second part of the like qualitative analysis the third is like podcasts really come and go make sure like it's it sounds obvious but make sure it's one that's like actively producing like you know when you google ones you're gonna half of them are not going to be active podcasts and then the third is like actually you know listening to at least part of one episode making sure the quality is high making sure it's the kind of thing you'd even want to associate”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We use Google, we just use search engines basically for finding everything. And the way that we go about it is first figuring out who their customers are and what vertical they're in, and then just doing searches for podcasts that are within that vertical. But not, it's not as easy as just reaching out to the ones that pop up first. Like the next step is a qualitative analysis. First of all, do they have vendor CEOs or vendor executives on their show? Let's say your product is sold to product managers. Maybe they only have product managers on the show. So instead, you don't put the CEO forward and you put the right spokesperson.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just really ensuring that the spokesperson before talking to the reporter is going to nail the messages that they want, the more that you can reiterate over and over again how you want the article to be, I think the more likely that it'll land in the reporter's head and make sure that the reporter really understands what you're building and what your goals are. And all you can do is really use the briefing and the materials that you provide to kind of sway and influence. But there's not much beyond that.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Generally, if it's something where you're being briefed in advance, unless it is around something negative that's going on, that's not their intention. It's just not going to happen. But what is a bigger issue is it not being the angle or the messaging that the company wants. And so part of that, there's absolutely nothing that we can do. Reporters are not our employees, but we're not paying them to write these pieces. They have to maintain their editorial integrity. And so, you know, I consider it my job to educate the founders and spokespeople that we work with that we cannot change anything the story says. What we can do is correct any factual inaccuracies. And so, and we do that all the time if something is factually wrong, we can get it replaced. But if they don't like that they were called put in a category of software that they don't identify with, that's not something that we can fix. Another thing that you can do though to prevent that from happening is”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On behalf of the clients, or they can reach out directly with those kinds of reporters, but they're just not going to write a feature on your company, if anything. You're going to be one or two sentences in a larger story of something that they're writing about. And yeah, that's just the nature of their coverage. And then when you look at something like CMVC, like their whole, they're targeting people that want to learn about public markets. And so if you're not a public company, like they have their CMDC Disruptor 50 list, which is focused on companies that will soon be at that stage, but it's not going to be a place for early stage companies.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I can show some examples there. When you look at earlier stage companies that are getting coverage in those publications, that's what's happening. Now let's say you're a tiny bit further along in your series B, Series C, you know, maybe even Series C, and you're looking for coverage in those publications. There's a couple criteria that they're always going to want if it's to write a feature on your company. One is your valuation, so that needs to be something that you're sharing on the record. Two is your hard business metrics, like usually revenue, sometimes something else. And so oftentimes they'll tell founders that and immediately they're like, oh, well, we're not sharing that. So I'm like, okay, well, that's kind of the end of the conversation. Sometimes it can be shared on background, but as a general rule, you're expected to share that sort of thing. So that's kind of a non-starter a lot of times. I totally think it makes sense to build relationships with the relevant beat reporters and ideally shoot for when I say build relationships, I just mean shoot for an intro.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we do get those questions all the time. I would say it comes up on calls with founders, one out of every five. And really, when you look at, I kind of make a joke sometimes like, oh, if you want those, just have a crisis and they'll write about it. Fire your CEO or do like really intense layoffs and yeah, have some regulatory issue. Uber got a lot of stories.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, they're the most realistic for most startups. There are ones like The Verge, and they're a little more like gadget focused and just areas that we don't necessarily touch, but could be good for some companies as well”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obscure different categories like top sports marketing professionals helping TikTok stars. I don't know. It's always like a very niche sort of ask, but those can be really great. Then a couple more venture B is huge for AI news. We pitch them all the time for any client that we work with that is building AI capabilities, has a new offering related to AI, perfect publication for that. Fast company is perfect for anything related to future of work, how people work, really great for design, media, like I would say perfect for any company that fits in those categories. They're also really open to op-eds, especially like with leadership advice in them. And last but not least on the list of ones that we work with most often, I would say is Forbes, especially on the award side. They have the FinTech 50, AI 50, Forbes under 30, all of that. And like you're not going to get a feature with one of their main reporters until you're a bit.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Clients will put in some customer slides too. And so you can really kind of make it a little bit more like what you're looking for. So yes, if you're looking for a funding story, TechCrunch past, others passed, that's a good option. They also are huge on like the entrepreneurial journey kind of pieces, like similar to the CMBC article that you got. But they really want metrics. They really push for metrics. So how much you're making, how much you're spending, they love those kinds of stories. So it's not necessarily about how much you raised, but for people that have really built a business. And then the last thing for business insider, they do a bunch of these lists of top startups, of top professionals in the field. We love doing those. They're generally a really light list and they put out a call for submissions. Takes five minutes and it's a way to get into business insider. There's so many of them. It's kind of become a joke within my newsletter because every week there's like five more and it's the most like.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Local editions. So they're really branching into local news. And so that can actually be a really nice way to get an axio hit if you have a region specific story. So I highly recommend checking that out. Another publication that we work with a bunch is Business Insider. If you struggle to pitch your funding story but really want it out in the world, they are big on the pitch deck stories. Those are a little controversial. Some founders, you know, they're like, this is not what I want my story to be about. I do not want to share my pitch deck. But if you are in the camp of, you know, you're open to that and you can redact it. It does not need to have all the financials. It does not need to have the growth metrics. That can be a really great way to get a piece of coverage on your business. And the way that I explain it to clients is you're kind of just getting all your core messages out there in a very direct way. Like you're sharing exactly what you shared with investors. That's not necessarily a bad thing.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The clients have sent me screenshots from the day of the announcement, and they've seen a nice pickup from TechCrunch. So I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that they don't have a paywall, but their stuff tends to do really well. So it's a great spot, especially for that first piece on your company. Axios is really strong on the fintech side, on the healthcare side. some really great like beat reporters The one thing I will say about them is they are very deals focused. So 100% would need to either have funding if you're if you're announcing a partnership that has like a monetary component that they would cover that a small you know an acquisition they would consider covering but they're not going to be you should never pitch them on product announcement and I think you know that they might just get annoyed there's there's a couple exceptions a couple of the reporters might have little columns where they feature product related things but that's just not their bread and butter and actually Axios recently launched or I guess has been launching over the past year or so”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of struggled to find the right folks to cover those kinds of stories, not everything, but generally if you do your digging, you're able to find a relevant beat reporter or a couple relevant beat reporters. And it's not just about getting coverage there. They have TechCrunch Disrupt. You can apply for speaking at that conference, and that sometimes actually directly turns into coverage. They have the Found podcast, which interviews founders. And so if something, you know, if you have like a really compelling founder story or topical founder story, that can be an excellent avenue to go as well. They have the equity pod, which is like investment advice. So it's not just thinking about getting that, you know, one funding story with them. There are other ways to work with TechCrunch. And I actually have heard really great feedback from clients on TechCrunch driving website traffic the day of the announcement, especially I haven't really been able to pinpoint when that does or doesn't happen. Like, you know, I'm trying to figure out if there's trends among that, but I have, you know.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I really love this question because I feel like no one ever gets this tactical in PR. There's a lot of, there's just so much theoretical conversation and examining the big blunders and it's all so high level, but like at the end of the day, if you're a startup that wants to get coverage for your company, you need to know actually the steps to take to do it. So yeah, I really appreciate that question. I'm going to answer it, but also answer it with the caveat that media changes so much and so fast. Like for instance, just a couple weeks ago, TechCrunch decided they no longer accept op-eds, which is like, you know, it was actually huge news for us because we love doing op-eds in TechCrunch. And so things change all the time, but I will talk about it in its current state. So yes, TechCrunch, a go-to for a lot of funding announcements. A go-to for some product news too, even sometimes. I would say the areas where they don't have dedicated beat reporters where we tend to end up not working with them are like health tech related companies and even Martech too.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's the space they're in, and here are the investors. I think you can get so in the weeds with your own messaging that you want to set up this massive If it's not going anywhere, then try someone else. Do that three or four times with the most relevant reporters generally, I think it works. I think, yeah, I think if you can just be really concise and direct and say what you're looking for out of the relationship, it tends to be a pretty easy process. And yeah, TechCrunch is one publication, but this actually goes for a bunch.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seems when you go to Techrange, it looks like, oh, it's all funding stories, so mine should be one of these. That's like not the case at all. But I do think like if you go about it the right way, you can be one of those nine. And I'm talking about Techran specifically here only because the reality is they are the publication that's going to be most likely to write your funding story. That's just kind of the way it works. And that's not a bad thing. Like they're actually, they don't have a paywall. They tend to do a very good job. They understand it. It's a well-oiled machine. And so, you know, we know like, you know, if you've done a story with them, it's going to pretty much go how you want to plan it. So when you go to pitch a funding story, I think the first thing that founders or whoever is reaching out on behalf of the company does wrong is they kind of convolute the message. Like when we pitch a funding story, we make it very clear, hey, we're reaching out with a startup launch or funding. We're offering this to you as an exclusive, meaning we're not going to pitch anyone else if you take the story. Here's the amount that's raised. Here's the space that's...”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I also think not all PR people are going to agree with this, but I do think funding rounds, you can always get a reporter to cover if you go about it the right way. I mean, we scope out projects that are just for funding announcements. We've never had to not finish that project or we've never, you know, I wouldn't do that if it wasn't possible. So I think there's like a couple of reasons that, you know, it sometimes doesn't work out. But like, I guess just to take a step back on funding stories, a lot of founders automatically think that, you know, I raise money so tech crunch will cover this. The reality is, as someone tweeted, actually someone from another agency, I should propeller PR, they tweeted that they counted how many funding stories TechCrunch did in a week. And it was nine. So they had written nine funding stories in one week. And then they counted how many funding rounds actually happened that week by looking at Axios Parada and Fortune Term Sheet. And it was like 50.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, every, yeah, and I don't want to call out just, I mean, it's a, I would say every publication that's doing product reviews for the most part, I believe. It's a very common practice.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can, however, we actually don't do affiliate marketing, so there's probably going to be a lot of people that have a much more insightful perspective on it. Affiliate is essentially when you work with a publication to give them a percentage of any sales that come from the piece of the article. And so, you know, if you look at business insider's list of best personal finance tools, it'll say at the top that they're getting commissioned. So, you know, they track the links, they figure out a certain percentage, and then they basically get a percentage of all the sales that come in. And it's very common, I would say most consumer companies are doing this. But yes, there's entire agencies that are dedicated to that field.”
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 be. And I think this is one where, yeah, it's a little more case to case because we have some clients where they need to invest heavily in affiliate because it's like a product reviews are what they need or like, you know, they want to be on lists of like the best vacuum cleaner or whatever sort of category and it's less about getting them big features. And so there's different ways of doing it for B2C. But yeah, I do think it's like, yeah, there's like two camps affiliate or not affiliate.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the logo is a piece of it. And then also the storytelling part, you know, maybe they're not going to read eight paragraphs that you wrote about your business, but if it's in the format of an article, I think they're more likely to take the time to do it. One other, I guess, aspect of it is content. So for instance, the articles that people want to write about you are not about necessarily how great your podcast is, which it is, but more about how you created this business. And so it's more through the lens of like you're an entrepreneur, you know, have built this media empire. And so that's not necessarily the kind of story that's going to drive your core audience to sign up. And so content is part of it too. And so, you know, we work with companies where we get them great stories about their company culture and cool initiatives that they're doing because reporters are interested in that topic. That's not going to help their sales, but it might help with something like recruiting. And so, yeah, I think thinking.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's like the kind of tool where your mom could try it and instantly know how to use it. And so it's good for weird questions, like what you just shared. That's like where it comes in really handy.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's not really an area that I'm an expert on, but we do work with some consumer companies where press is a major driver of growth. So, for instance, perplexity, they have invested essentially zero in any paid marketing. They don't have a marketing person even, but they do do PR. And so essentially after their most recent announcement, they saw, you know, a massive spike in gross, a massive spike in signups, pro users, all of that. And I think in that case, the reason PR works so well is it, first of all, is something that's very easy to grasp. Google Alternative. I know how to use Google. I've used Google a million times. Go to Perplexity.com. The barrier to trying the product is very low. You can, you know, quickly type in a query.”
2024-03-21 · Lenny's Podcast · The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source