Marketing Happy Hour - Your 2024 PR Playbook | Jen Hartmann of NEAT: The Agency

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, Jen, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing? So great. We're excited to chat with you today. We were talking a little bit about what's in your glass right now, but we have to ask that before we get into the conversation. What is in your glass right now? So it's morning and I know it's national bourbon day, so I should have bourbon in this, but it's only 12 o'clock. So if I start drinking now, I will be passed out by three o'clock and I will not get anything done. And by the end of this episode, I will be slurring my words. So I have a Starbucks refresher. I love the mango dragon fruit one, but we were talking about this before we started recording. I've been switching it up and drinking the summer berry one, but it's an

Starting point is 00:00:45 interesting drinking experience because it's a bigger straw and it goes through the center of the lid and you can drink boba as you're drinking the refresher. I kind of like it. And I hope that they keep the summer berry refresher. So shout out to Starbucks, not sponsored, but like would love to be sponsored. If you're like, no, we'll just manifest that always. Yes. What are you guys drinking? Cassie, what's in your glass? Oh my gosh. I'm so boring.

Starting point is 00:01:14 I have water right now. So I have a flight later today, which is ironic that you mentioned bourbon because I'm headed to Kentucky, which is like the home of bourbon. That's where I live. Oh, no way. Where do you live? I live in Louisville. Where are you going? Okay. Oh my gosh. So I'm going to South of Lexington. I used to live in Lexington for like a little over a year. Yeah. Yeah. So my family, our family's still up that way, but my brother lived in Louisville while I was up there. So we'd go to Louisville all the time.

Starting point is 00:01:43 Oh my gosh. Okay. That's so funny. Oh, off record, but funny. You mentioned bourbon. So pretty much every time we go up there now to visit, since we live in Florida now, we go to Woodford reserve and do like the tasting tour. So that's a good one. I love that one. Oh my gosh. my gosh so funny but yeah I'm boring right now I'm trying to hydrate before my flight so just water uh Erica what about you I honestly think Cassie over the past like five or six episodes in a row all you've had was water so we need to get her some fun drinks over here I know I know I may listen. Okay. Another, another small plug. Sorry to go off on a tangent, everyone listening, but, um, we, so I'm flying Delta and we did an episode Jen with a tip top proper cocktails several months ago and they have their drinks on Delta. So I'm like very much

Starting point is 00:02:38 looking forward to having a tip top later today. So, okay. Maybe that'll be my fun drink. I love it. What do you have Erica? I just have, so I think on one of our recent episodes, I was talking about how I'm not a energy drink girly and never have been. And I was like trying the gorgy energy drink that Haley sent over to us. And I was like, I'll report back and tell you if it's good or not. Well, the report is it is really good. I liked how I felt and everything I felt, you know, I didn't have those like jitters or anything. So I have another one today. It's the mango tango. I don't think I will be an energy drink girly to my core from here on out. But if I ever am in like a pinch, I feel like Gorgie is the way to go. So high praise from someone who doesn't like energy drinks. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Well, let's get into it, Jen. Again, thank you so

Starting point is 00:03:34 much for being here. We're so excited to learn from you today. Do you mind sharing a little bit about your background and how neat the agency came to be? Absolutely. So NEAT started back in 2019 as a corporate escape. I went to business school thinking, oh, I'll just climb my way up the corporate ladder because that's what I saw growing up. I didn't see entrepreneurs in my hometown. The entrepreneur that I saw was like a 60 year old white male. And so I never thought of myself as one. didn't think that was in my future, but I thought climbing the corporate ladder definitely was. So started to do that and very quickly realized that it wasn't my journey. I unfortunately dealt with sexual

Starting point is 00:04:16 harassment from an executive, dealt with bullying. And I remember bringing it to HR. And that's when I realized HR was there for the company and not the employees. And so I had to come up with a game plan to get out of myself or out of that. I had to come up with a game plan to get myself out of that situation. And I thought, how hard could it be to just, I don't know, start my own business. And at the time I was 24 or 25. So very naive. And I'm also the type of person who I feel like I can do anything. I'm like, oh, I can Google it. I can ask people questions. I'll just figure it out. And so I did, I figured it out. And so it started as a sign hustle. And then going into 2020, January 1st, I decided to cut the corporate umbilical cord and I went full-time into need. I was doing a lot of consulting, marketing,

Starting point is 00:05:11 coaching, because I was a team of one. And so I really built up my client base from there. And I had clients who were asking for me to implement the ideas that I was bringing to the table. And so I eventually hired out a team and we started offering done for you services in marketing and PR. And we have since started to expand into creative services as well. So really becoming a one-stop shop for our clients, regardless of where they're at in their business journeys, our team has expanded to, oh gosh, I think we're a team of 13 or 14 at this point. We're all women and we're all millennial and Gen Z. So it's a really fun work environment. We've worked with

Starting point is 00:05:51 almost 300 clients since 2019 in some capacity, and we've gotten our clients featured in every major publication from Forbes to New York Times to Buzzfeed and beyond. So that's a bit about neat. Personally, I have such a hard time talking about myself because so much of what I do is connected to my business as I feel like, I mean, I feel like that's how it is for a lot of founders, especially in the first couple of years. But outside of business, I really enjoy running marathons. I love exploring my city with my husband and my Bernie's mountain dog. And I of course love drinking bourbon. Oh my gosh.

Starting point is 00:06:33 I love that. I love that personal look into your life too. I feel like we need to pull more of that out of guests. So thank you for sharing that. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about, you know, thinking about your experience in agencies, kind of what you pulled out of that to be able to inspire what you're doing now with your own business. And as you were speaking, I was like, I feel so related to what you experienced.

Starting point is 00:06:59 Same thing. I kind of ventured out around the time of COVID to start my own thing. Erica was kind of in that boat too. And so I know there's a whole nother discussion about shared experiences there navigating that time, but specifically kind of what did you learn in an agency setting previously that maybe inspired changes or similar practices within your own business? Kind of how has that translated for you into what you've built? Oh, that is such a great question. And I feel like I could talk about this for the next 60 minutes.

Starting point is 00:07:31 How much time do we have? I'm joking. Okay. So yes, before I jumped into corporate America, I worked for a couple of different agencies and I saw the good and the bad and the ugly. And I really got to see this firsthand experience, especially because I worked on two different sides of the agency. I worked on the sales and business development side where I was actually talking to prospects and customers

Starting point is 00:07:55 and bringing them in the door. And then I eventually switched over to more that actual fulfillment side where I was running campaigns and actually executing on the packages that salespeople were selling. So that was a really great experience for me, but I learned a lot from the, I would say management side of things. I learned what it takes to be a really good manager because I had really terrible, I'm so sorry to my former managers. If you're listening, I had some really terrible managers. And I think what I've learned throughout the years is anybody can manage people, right? Like anyone can call themselves a manager. And typically if you are going to move up in the world, you have to manage people, whether you want to manage people or not, that's how you make more money. It's how you get

Starting point is 00:08:38 a bigger title. And that's, that's what happens, right? And nobody teaches you how to lead people. No one teaches you how to manage really effectively. And so I really got to learn through different managers I had throughout my time at agencies and both in corporate America. And as I went through different situations, I would say, ooh, I will not do this to one of my employees in the future. If I ever have employees, I will not make them feel this way. And so because of that, myself and my COO, Lauren, we manage very, very differently. We manage from a place of empathy and kindness and understanding. And we don't have that ego that I think a lot of managers and founders have, because we recognize that one that doesn't work

Starting point is 00:09:26 because we've seen it not work and it makes people feel really crappy and it makes people feel like they can't come to you when they need something. And so we're very careful in how we manage and lead our team. So I would say management styles is something I learned from that. The other thing that I would say was a really positive experience for my time in agencies was how to structure different packages and pricing. Because I think that when you're getting started down the agency path as a new agency owner, it's really difficult to figure out how to price yourself, right? Because if you price yourself too low, you're not making any money and you have to work with a bunch of clients to pay the bills. If you price yourself too high, you price yourself out of the market and then you don't sign clients. So there's a happy medium between the two.

Starting point is 00:10:09 And unless you've worked for other agencies, it's really difficult to come up with that starting price for your packages. So I learned that. And because I worked on the sales side at agencies, I learned how to sell. So though I didn't really know what I was doing when I started a business, I knew that I could sell myself really, really well. So I think people believed in me. They didn't really know what I was doing, maybe, but they believed in me and they saw potential. And so they thankfully gave me money

Starting point is 00:10:37 and trusted me to do a good job with that. And so, yeah, again, management style, packaging and pricing, and then learned a lot throughout my time at agencies. And I know in various jobs, I remember thinking like, oh, I really am not happy here. I need to move on. But I've learned so many lessons throughout my time.

Starting point is 00:10:57 And now looking back, I'm very grateful for my time at different agencies and in corporate. Yeah. So you've kind of teased the answer to this question a little bit, but tell us a little bit more about the types of clients that you serve as well as what are those primary functions that you're offering to those clients? So we are really industry agnostic. I love when I get on sales calls and people were like, so are you like a CPG specific PR agency? And I'm like, no, we have CPG clients. We are not that niche down. I think that when you do niche, you end up missing out on a lot of opportunities. So we decided very early on and by we, I mean me five years ago, I decided that I

Starting point is 00:11:40 would not niche myself super far down. And so we've worked with clients from probably over a dozen industries at this point. We've served clients who are in the FinTech and FemTech space, fashion, beauty, hospitality, food and bev. I feel like I'm missing quite a lot, but yeah, quite a wide array of clients. And in terms of revenue, we've worked with brands that are making around a million and are very much in that startup phase. But then we also have multi-billion dollar clients on our roster as well. And I love it, right? Because no two clients are the same. There's different challenges. It's very, very fun. The projects are really interesting. So I would say at this time, a majority of our clients fall into a PR retainer. So PR meaning digital print, TV, radio, influencer marketing, event marketing, things like that,

Starting point is 00:12:36 where we're really helping them get in front of the right customers at the right time with the right message. And so yeah, high percentage are in that PR retainer. And then other than that, we have some clients who are doing paid ads with us, direct mail, which is really interesting. The fact that direct mail is still alive and well in 2024, social media marketing, content production, and then we're doing some design work as well. Oh my gosh, that is so cool. And I'm curious to just hear from

Starting point is 00:13:06 your perspective, what have been some of your favorite projects that you can speak to just in terms of like working with clients and getting press or doing events or influencer or anything like that would have been some of your favorites? Ooh, okay. So we have a client who runs an emergency management company, meaning she creates plans for wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, things like that, school shootings, right? Anything you can think of that might come back to being an emergency for a large group of people. That's what she deals with. And I'm going to connect these two because you guys are going to be like, where's this girl going? But last year, there was a fan who died at a Taylor Swift concert, I believe in Brazil. It was November, December of last year. And so we pitched our client for different stories about concert safety.

Starting point is 00:13:58 And she got picked up by a couple of top tier media outlets. And so her name is now connected to Taylor Swift and concert safety, which I think is really interesting. Yeah. So I would say my favorite clients are the ones who we secure these really interesting newsjacking opportunities for. And I would say like, if you are going to be doing PR press releases, just don't cut it in 2024, unless you're out there saving millions of babies or something crazy like that. Journalists just don't cut it in 2024 unless you're out there saving millions of babies or something crazy like that. Journalists just don't care. And so if you want to get featured, watch the news and figure out what's already being talked about or keep up with trends on TikTok. How can you pitch

Starting point is 00:14:36 yourself and fit yourself into the conversation? Because when you do that, you're going to get picked up in the news that much more quickly. And you're going to be seen as a thought leader in your industry and gain that instant credibility. So we do a lot of news tracking versus like pushing up press releases. Such good advice. And we're going to get into a little more like PR strategy and things like that for brands listening in just a moment. But I want to focus first on like, say somebody out there works at a startup, you know, they have no prior experience in PR. What do you recommend for like a clean slate of just like, I want to get my name out there? How the heck do I do it? What would you recommend that they do first? And how can they kind of make sure that their first splash in the media is like a positive one? How can they start to build some of those relationships? I know you mentioned like, you know, hacking your, your way to like being part of the news cycle and things like that.

Starting point is 00:15:31 Are there any other strategies that you can kind of start out with? Yeah, that's a great question. So my response to this is where's your ideal customer spending time? What are they reading? What are they listening to? What are they watching? Who's influencing their decisions? I think a lot of people start at the end goal and they go, I want to be in Forbes. Like I want to be on the cover of Forbes tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:15:54 And while that, I think that's great, right? Like I want to be on the cover of Forbes. Is your customer reading Forbes? Do they know Forbes really exists, right? And if the answer is no, then that isn't going to help you reach your end goal. Right. So really think about, again, what are your customers reading, watching, listening to what conversations are they having and start from there. And how would they even be discovering a product like mine? Maybe they're going to Google and they're typing in, say for instance, maybe somebody is looking for a healthy soda. Maybe they're going

Starting point is 00:16:32 to Google and typing in best healthy soda. Okay. So go and do that, right? Go to Google, type those keywords in and see what's popping up on page one. Once you get past the ads at the top, it's probably going to be a lot of wisticles like top 10 best healthy sodas in 2024. You should be pitching accordingly, right? Like this is where you should be getting your inspiration from. 75% of people don't scroll past page one of Google. So you really want to focus on what is on page one of Google.

Starting point is 00:17:03 Again, probably going to be a lot of listicles like that. And you want to check out the outlets first, like what media outlets are writing about this? Who are the journalists that are writing about these topics? And how can you maybe pitch a follow-up story? Or how can you add yourself to these listicles in a way that could be really interesting and refreshing? And so maybe it's

Starting point is 00:17:25 that, right? Maybe people are going to Google and they're typing that in. Maybe they are going to TikTok and maybe they're discovering products through different influencers, but you really want to reverse engineer it and go back to the customer first and build out your strategy from there. Yeah, that's a really good answer and really good point. And I'm curious too, you know, there's been a lot of talk about the traditional ways of PR where you were delivering your product to press in person in their office and doing those drops. And then it shifted into more of like a PR box or a PR send or things like that. Are journalists still into those or is it more of just like, you know, pitching yourself and making sure that you present a story that's actually, you know,

Starting point is 00:18:13 interesting, relevant and providing all the information that they would possibly need in order to know how to feature you. It's funny how much PR has changed in the last 20 or 30 years, isn't it? Yeah, for real. Like I can't even imagine dropping a box off anywhere at this point. No. But that was the thing that happened and it wasn't that many years ago that that was happening. So I would say that it's going to depend. So if you have a physical product and you're pitching to commerce writers, they're probably going to want to test out you have a physical product and you're pitching to commerce writers, they're probably going to want to test out your product, whether it's a beverage, food, a candle, when you pitch yourself, whether it's like a story or a listicle idea,

Starting point is 00:18:59 likely the journalist is going to respond and ask for samples because they don't want to write about a really crappy product because they have an audience that trusts them. And if they write about a product that sucks, then they're going to lose trust in their audience and they're going to lose credibility. So they're going to want to sample the product. So that is something that you should keep in mind as well. If you are going to be pitching yourself to the media, you're going to be sending samples. And so you're going to want to set aside some of your product when you are sending out samples and also make sure your product is like good to go to. The packaging is great. The product itself tastes good or works really well because if you're sending it out to journalists and it's not a great product, they're probably not going to write about you. And you're likely not going to get feedback from the journalist either. They're

Starting point is 00:19:39 just not going to respond to you at all. So again, make sure your product is good to go when you're doing that. But yes, journalists are still asking for samples, but like specifically commerce journalists. Now, if you provide a service and you're pitching different journalists, they're not going to be like, Hey, let me get that $50,000 service for free to like test it out first. That's not a thing that's happening. So let's talk about too, you mentioned already that the PR space has changed quite a bit over the years which looking back to kind of the start of PR it's completely different nowadays so thinking about these brands who maybe have a strong media presence or who have been around and established for many years how can those brands refresh their PR strategy? What are some like set in

Starting point is 00:20:26 their ways, things that they're still doing that need to be updated and optimized? You'd say. Yes. Okay. So I would say if a brand has been around for a long time, they've been doing PR for say 20 or 30 years, something that they're probably still doing is pushing out a press release about company news. Maybe they hired a new executive or maybe they refined the recipe in one of their products. Journalists just don't care. They might still be sending a press release out on the wire. Just stop. I think it's such a waste of money because what's happening with the wire is you're sending out a press release, you're putting it out on the wire, you're paying money for it. And it's kind of like a spray and pray approach

Starting point is 00:21:09 to PR because you can't really control who's picking it up. So you might have a really great, I'm going to go back to the soda example because we were talking about beverages. So you might have a healthy soda and you're putting out a press release that maybe you hired a new executive on your team and you're putting it out and the people who might be picking it up are like girlboss101.com or like financialbrosinnewyorkcity.com like just some random outlets are going to be picking it up and while it might feel really good for your ego to see that people are picking up your press release is that really going to help you achieve your goals probably not at the end of the day, unless your goal is to just like make your ego feel good. So I would say drop the press releases unless you're saving babies. I don't know why I keep

Starting point is 00:21:54 going back to saving babies. I just can't think of a better example at the moment. So unless you're saving babies, drop the press release. Stop just putting things out on the wire because it's not a super effective way of doing PR. If you want to create something that's a little bit more refreshing and new and exciting, I would say one thing that I'm really liking, especially in the past one to two years is when brands collaborate with other brands. So for example, I just saw that Scrub Daddy collaborated with Duncan and that was really fun and exciting, right? Like it's new, it's unexpected. And so I love to see that those like cross brand collaborations. And the other thing I would say

Starting point is 00:22:33 is influencer marketing is still alive and well in 2024. So if you're not already working with influencers in some capacity, you should definitely add that into your mix. I don't care if you have a service or a product, there is a way to work with influencers. If you have a service, it might be working with say LinkedIn influencers. If you have a product, it's probably gonna be Instagram or it's probably gonna be TikTok

Starting point is 00:22:55 and get really fun and creative with it, right? Like I think that the influencer landscape is changing in 2024 and even into 2025, the stereotypical 20 year old white girl is probably not going to be the best influencer for you anymore. I think what I've seen, not, I think what I have seen recently is this girl, there are many of them online. They're doing a whole like PR boxing event where there's like 50 boxes behind them. And they're just like unboxing them, showing them off, unboxing, showing them off. And they're not a fan of the product, right? Or what they're doing even worse

Starting point is 00:23:36 is they're using the product. They've never used it before. And they're like, Oh my God, this is the best lipstick I've ever used. And you know that they're just tossing it in the trash after the video is done. Consumers are so smart. So I don't think the people who once had a lot of influence, I don't think are going to continue to have that type of influence. And so I think we should work with regular people, right? Like who is really influential in your life? Think about that for a second. Your mom, probably your dad, your grandparents, your best friends, and they are everyday people. Why are we not sending out product to everyday people? Because word of mouth marketing is still so powerful, right? Like, yeah, your mom might not be on Instagram creating high quality content, but when she

Starting point is 00:24:23 gets a PR box and she uses the product, she's going to go tell everybody in book club. She's going to tell everybody at work. She's going to give you a product. You might post it online. You're going to tell your friends about it. I read a stat recently that said, um, it was like some crazy statistic. I'm going to get the number wrong, but it was like 70% or 80% of word of mouth marketing is happening in real life. It's not happening online. It's such a small percentage that's happening online. Like you're still heavily influenced by conversations that are happening around you.

Starting point is 00:24:53 So with that being said, I think that we're going to see influencer marketing shift in 2024 and beyond. I'm so sorry about, I'm sure the tons of influencers who are listening, who fit into the category that I had just described. You guys are great. I promise. And you're not all the same, but that was a big generalization of just what I've seen on TikTok recently. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And this is why I tell businesses all the time. There's so many brands out there who go to marketing or PR to fix some of the issues they're having internally. Let's say, for example, your customer service sucks or like your brand experience sucks or whatever. And they turn to PR

Starting point is 00:25:30 to try to fix that where it's just, if you can make some small shifts and updates to how you operate your business first, increasing word of mouth, because if a customer has a fantastic experience with you, they're going to start telling people like that is a simple internal small shift you can make first and then sure, add on some of the other things, but you got to get like the everyday people to your point, talking about your business. And the way to do that is to provide a fantastic experience for people. Well, Jen, we want to hear what working with a PR agency looks like, you know, how can a brand determine whether or not they're ready to start working with a PR agency? Is there a sweet spot of when somebody should be looking to work with a PR agency?

Starting point is 00:26:13 And then once somebody makes that decision and says, oh, my gosh, I want to work with Jen and Neat, what does that kind of process look like? So when it comes to working with a PR agency, I always recommend that you have a refined product or service first, because all PR does is it amplifies what you have going on. So if you have a really bad product, all you're doing is putting that really bad product in front of millions of people. So make sure that your product is on lock and you're ready to go with that. I would say number two, make sure you have a website and make sure everything is working on the website and that it's a great representation of your brand and make sure you have a social media presence too. Because when we start doing PR, we are linking back to something. We're saying, Hey, journalists,

Starting point is 00:26:59 come check out the website, come check out their Instagram or their TikTok to learn a bit more. And so you just have to think about where we're driving traffic back to. So I would say those two things are really important. Other than that, budget is also very important because working with a PR agency is not cheap at all. Our rates start at $6,000 per month. There are other agencies out there who start at 15K or 20K per month. It's really, really crazy. And I know some people will pick up that pricing and go, oh my gosh, that's insane. They must be rolling in the dough. And I will tell you that we are not rolling in the dough when it comes to profit margins. And the reason for that is because PR is so time consuming. To do it right, you need to

Starting point is 00:27:40 spend 10 to 15 hours a week doing outreach, refining your strategy, following up with influencers. And yes, there's some automations involved, but to do it right, you can't automate the whole thing because things have to constantly be updated. And the other thing too is as a PR agency, we have to continue watching the news and we have to be on TikTok to figure out what is trending and what's relevant so we can jump on different opportunities for you very quickly. So PR is really time consuming and that is why PR agencies are so expensive. And when it comes to PR, it's really important to do your due diligence when you're looking at different agencies because there are agencies out there that I will say have really damaged the industry's reputation. So for example, there are agencies out there that I will say have really damaged the industry's reputation. So for example,

Starting point is 00:28:26 there are agencies out there that are guaranteeing earned media coverage and they're saying, oh, if you pay me 20K, I can get you into Forbes. And that is a huge no-no. If you have anybody guaranteeing earned media coverage, run, in fact, sprint in the opposite direction because that's not a thing that happens. What is happening behind the scenes if somebody's saying that is they're turning around, they're paying a journalist, which you can't do. Journalists can't receive compensation or gifts or anything like that from sources. A journalist will write about you, it'll go live. And then when the journalist gets caught, they'll be fired. The article will get taken down.

Starting point is 00:29:09 No tier one media outlet is charging for features. Now, if you need guaranteed placements, sure, you can buy ad space in different publications. That is definitely a thing you can do, right? We see ads everywhere. But I always recommend a more organic approach where you are actually being quoted and used as a source or there's a story being written about you. That's going to go so much further just because we're kind of trained at this point to ignore ads. I don't know about you guys, but if I have an ad pop up on my screen, I'm like, oh my God, no, click, click, click, like get out of it so fast. I hate when I see ads. And so earned coverage is the way to go. But as a peer agency, we can never guarantee

Starting point is 00:29:46 coverage. Unfortunately, I would love to be able to guarantee you a quote in Forbes or Fast or whatever it may be, but I can't. We can pitch you a thousand different ways. In fact, we do a ton of pitching for our clients. We do up to three initiatives for a client every single month. So it might be three unique media pitches that get sent out to hundreds of journalists. It might be a combination of media pitches and influencer outreach or even podcast outreach, but we can never guarantee that interview. So be really mindful when you're starting to do due diligence. That's one. Number two is just going to be pricing. If you come across a PR agency that's charging a thousand000 a month, I would say be very careful

Starting point is 00:30:26 only because, again, PR is very time consuming. So if they're charging that, what could be happening is they're working with a ton of clients to be able to make ends meet and you're not going to get the time and attention your account deserves. Or they are outsourcing to maybe workers in a third world country who maybe aren't as familiar with what's going on in the States and what's happening in the media. And then they're paying them a very low rate. I could go on and on about that one. But anyways, just be really mindful of pricing. Like I would say if an agency is charging one or two K per month, I would be very careful to

Starting point is 00:30:59 move forward with them. I would also ask about what is happening in terms of pitching. Are they just sending a press release? Are they doing some newsjacking? Are they writing listicles for you? What's going on with that? Because you probably in 2024 don't want to work with an agency that's just pushing out a press release for you once a month, and they're waiting for you to bring company news to the agency. A good agency will create buzz and excitement, whether or not you have internal news going on to share. If somebody is interested in exploring working with Nate, you can find us at Nate underscore the agency on Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn, Jen Hartman, or we have a beautiful website, natetheagency.com.

Starting point is 00:31:44 Fantastic. And we are going to ask you really quickly what predictions you have for PR in the last half of 2024. I know you talked about like regular people being influencers and things like that, but anything else that you can think of just as we're looking ahead. Yeah, definitely the non-traditional influencers we're going to see, whether it's like the everyday influencer next door, like your neighbor or your mom or your grandma. I would say, you know, I don't know if this is a prediction, but I would say it's a challenge that we're going to continue facing is journalists move around very quickly or they're working with multiple publications very quickly. Like we will form a relationship with a journalist

Starting point is 00:32:25 and they'll feature our client a couple of times and then we'll send them another pitch. And then it's like, oh, Soundso no longer works here. And it's like, gosh, dang it. And so I would say like, we're gonna keep seeing that because of the pay that journalists are receiving. They have to work a couple of different jobs to make ends meet.

Starting point is 00:32:44 So I would say if you can follow journalists on LinkedIn and X and continue building a relationship that way, that would be really, really good. Probably a big trend we're going to see. And I would say I've seen a lot of journalists put out story requests on X and on LinkedIn. So if you have that connection on those platforms, you're probably going to get featured a lot more often. And some journalists even have email lists going to where they will send out requests for different sources. So I would say form a relationship with journalists outside of just pitching them once a week or once every couple of weeks, you're going to get more opportunities that win. That's going to continue, I'm sure, through 2024, 2025 and beyond. So we talked about influencers. We talked about the media. I would say another big trend is going to be getting featured in a different podcast. Podcasts are so big. And how many different places can you talk

Starting point is 00:33:36 about yourself and your story for free for 30 to 60 minutes at a time? I don't really know of any other places where you can do that. And so I think that we're going to see a huge uptick of people pitching themselves to be on different podcasts because that is how we are consuming content nowadays as consumers. So I think we're going to see an uptick there. Man, if I had alcohol, I could probably come up with a couple more, but I'm going to leave it at those three. So soon we're almost there. Um, amazing. This has been so incredibly helpful by the way. Thank you so much. I have to know too, as we close out, is there anything coming up for need or your clients that we should be on the lookout for? What are some fun things you're working on right now? Yes. Okay. So I have to promote this real quick.

Starting point is 00:34:26 We just launched a physical product that I'm so freaking excited about. This idea came from reading a lot of business books that I don't actually finish reading or implement the information. And so I was like, how can I show people all of our tips, tricks, methodologies, tactics, all of our scripts we use for pitching in a way that is going to be so easy for them to take and implement? We created an educational card deck called High Proof PR Deck. And so everything you need to become your own publicist is right in this card deck for $97.

Starting point is 00:35:00 Now, this is our first version. So there are things that I don't necessarily love from like the packaging itself, the way in which the box is constructed. I've noticed that some of the cards are switched with other cards on the backs. All the information is here, but I'm like, we're going to be making some improvements

Starting point is 00:35:17 for round number two. But if you want to become your own publicist, this is such a good thing to pick up. And it's on our website. Actually, I'll give you guys a discount code to share with your listeners for this as well, for like 10% off. So I'll send that your old way. That is happening. What else is coming up with Nate? We're looking at making different acquisitions. So we're currently going through due diligence on an event space and photography studio. And I'm really excited. I'm also looking

Starting point is 00:35:45 to acquire other agencies. So if you happen to own a creative agency and you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking about selling, hit me up. I'd love to have a conversation with you. Oh my gosh. So cool. Oh, so cool. Well, congrats on all of that. Uh, we're excited to see kind of what you all continue to do moving forward and, uh, just what you have coming up both internally and also for your clients. So thank you so much for sharing everything today and definitely go listen to Jen's podcast. Uh, we'll have all of that stuff linked below. Uh, but Jen, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. Thank you guys for having me. This is fun. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast.

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Marketing Happy Hour - Your 2024 PR Playbook | Jen Hartmann of NEAT: The Agency

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