7 REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO BECOME YOUR OWN PUBLICIST

by Simone Sauter

You’ve set up your business and you’re ready to start on your PR. You’re searching the web, trying to find the best way to start your PR campaign. You might wonder if you need a publicist or PR agency to manage your PR for you.

Truth is, if you want a successful PR campaign, you need to become your own publicist. This will save you time, effort, money, and so much more. In this article, I want to explain to you seven reasons why you need to become your own publicist.

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REASON #1 – PR AGENCIES AND PUBLICISTS ARE EXPENSIVE

Now, the first reason you should become your own publicist is perhaps the most obvious: publicists and agencies are very, very expensive to hire. Depending on the experience of the publicist or the agency, they will cost you between 5 to 10K per month.

This isn’t to say that they don’t offer a good service, but if you’re a fledgling coach building up your business, hiring a publicist simply won’t be cost effective.

REASON #2 – PR AGENCIES AND PUBLICISTS HAVE LIMITED TIME

Publicists work with multiple clients at a time, and that means they won’t have time to bring all their attention to you and your business. Only a fraction of your publicist’s work hours will be dedicated to your business.

Valuable minutes, hours, days that could be spent on sending out pitches will be missed, simply because the publicist has to focus on another client. Many opportunities have time limitations – and you could miss out on them by relying on a publicist instead of targeting the media outlet yourself.

Think about it. You are focusing only on your own PR campaign, and that means you can complete the work more efficiently without having to rely on a time-strapped publicist.

REASON #3 – PR AGENCIES AND PUBLICISTS WORK WITH PRESS MAILING LISTS

If you’ve watched my videos or read my other articles, then you probably already know my thoughts on press releases. It’s really crucial to avoid the typical PR routine of sending press releases out to press mailing lists.

And why? You might as well be throwing spaghetti to the wall. Press releases are just not effective.

Publicists frequently work with press mailing lists. Many clients have told me PR horror stories about publicists who told them they had pitched their businesses to hundreds of journalists – but with no real outcomes.

This is because mailing lists are often outdated. Most of the journalists on these lists won’t cover your topic anymore, because they’ve changed departments or even moved to a new outlet. They might even have been put on the list by mistake. Sometimes journalists are added purely on the off chance they will be interested in the press releases.

So, this is another reason you need to become your own publicist. No more throwing spaghetti to the wall. Learn how to pitch a journalist with a unique story crafted for them, and your PR will be much, much more effective. Interested in learning more about the right way to pitch? Schedule a discovery call with me today!

REASON #4 – IF YOU LEAVE, YOU LOSE CONTACTS

Another reason to become your own publicist is that if you ever decide to stop working with a publicist or agency, you will lose all the publicist’s contacts. Let’s say you hire a publicist, get a few good media contacts, but later become unhappy with the publicist’s work. If you decide to let them go, you also have to let go of all those good media contacts you’ve made through the publicist.

Agencies and publicists are very guarded about their media contacts. They will not share any journalists’ contact details. They will not share names. They will not share email addresses, because that’s how they make their money. If you know the names of the journalists who want your stories, you wouldn’t have a need for their services. And that loses them money.

Now, again, don’t get me wrong. There are amazing publicists out there. There are amazing agencies out there. But as I said earlier, if you’re just starting out in business as a coach, then you probably don’t have 5 to 10K per month to spare.

This is why you need to know that it isn’t a necessity to hire an agency.

If you learn to be your own publicist and do your own media outreach, the relationships you build with journalists by yourself are entirely your own.

It’s also easier for you to follow journalists between media outlets. Media is a very fast driven industry, and journalists often work for a particular media outlet for a couple of years or less.

So, if you become your own publicist, another benefit is that if a contact moves to another outlet, that provides a whole new outlet for you to be featured in.

Building your own relationships with journalists is more or less a guarantee for lasting success. Feeding journalists interesting stories on a regular basis means you get featured on a regular basis. That means people see you and reach out to you on a regular basis. And ultimately, that means you make more money on a regular basis.

REASON #5 – YOU KNOW YOUR BUSINESS BEST

If a publicist reaches out to a journalist to pitch your business, they might get a lot of questions. They might be asked to go into more detail about your business. Fact is, publicists won’t be able to answer these questions as well as you can. You know your business best.

This is another reason why you need to be your own publicist. You can share all the nitty-gritty details of your business. You know why you started the business. You know the challenges you’ve overcome. You know the success stories. Nobody can tell the story of your coaching business better than you.

And if a journalist tells you what topics they are currently focusing on, you can adapt your story to fit their needs. Make a journalist’s work easy, and you’ll be much more successful with your PR.  You will be in a much better position to do this if you are in charge of your own publicity.

REASON #6 – JOURNALISTS PREFER DIRECT CONTACT

If an agency publicist reaches out to a media outlet for you, then they are working as a go-between. I’ve worked in journalism for 18 years, and in my experience, journalists often don’t like to communicate through a go-between, because it makes communication much more complicated.

If you pitch to them directly, then the journalist can talk to you and ask questions. They know the answers are coming from the source, and not from an agency who may not have all the information.

So, another reason to become your own publicist is that journalists like to have direct contact with the expert.

REASON #7 – PR IS A STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

Once you have it, PR is a lifetime skill for your business. You need to understand how to approach the media, find the right journalists, write great pitches, and leverage the media features you already have. Otherwise, you will not make money from your PR campaigns.

Understanding how to leverage is key. With it, you can reach out to journalists and get your business featured in the media over and over again. PR is a step by step process, and once you’ve understood it, it stays with you and you can replicate it. This is the advice I always give to my clients.

Want to learn more about what PR’s step-by-step process entails? Then schedule a discovery call with me.

In my discovery call, I will share with you the steps to PR stardom, and tailor my advice to your coaching business. Meanwhile, why not download my “3 Million Euro Case Study”, where I teach you the Publicity Rockstar Method that my clients and I use to get featured in the media.