Surviving (and thriving) In The Music Industry

February 22, 2012 Leave a comment

The music industry has made such a complete 180 in the past few years, that it’s enough to make you dizzy.  The days of A&R reps finding a new band, recording them and putting them through the star making machine is pretty much a thing of the past. The mid to late ‘80s was one of the heydays in the music industry.  From The Police and Motley Crue to the GoGo’s and the Chili Peppers (originally Tony Flow and the Majestic Masters of Mayhem) bands were signed and snatched up out of the local rock scenes.  Those were the days of powerful large labels and upstart independent labels.  Most bands sparked for a minute or two and faded away, some are still on top today.  But the difference is that back then there were labels that were willing to take a chance on an artist or a band, produce, market and distribute their product.  That was also the heyday of MTV.  A video in strong rotation could launch a band.  Touring was still important, but bands could do so more sparingly.  Radio and video exposure could help keep an act in the spotlight.  CDs were sold directly to the consumer.  Artists actually made money by selling their music.

Fast forward to 2012.  The world I just described is as anachronistic as that of the era of the horse and buggy.  Everything has changed.  It is now a true struggle to make money by selling music.  Touring and merchandising is a must.  The days of musicians and record labels spinning gold by selling music are over.  Not long ago there were bands who wouldn’t consider selling their music to an advertiser or TV show.  They could make their revenue off of an album and then CD sales.  With product placement now becoming the name of the game, recording artists are having to rethink their approach and their career paths.

The upside is that there is more of a level playing field.  More singers, bands and musicians now have an opportunity to get known and develop a career.  But, it has become more of a do-it-yourself world; musicians, who know how to work social media, blog, and launch traditional media campaigns, can still establish a presence, create a fan base and build a buzz.   There is still a way to launch a music career and make money while making music, but musicians now have to be savvy marketers.  They need to understand PR, media relations, publicity and the basics of marketing.  It’s a bit daunting, that goes without saying, but for those who learn the ropes, it also puts the power squarely in their hands.  It’s true that labels launch many a band, but there are also myriad stories of bands who were taken advantage of and ripped off.  Musicians now have to be more savvy about marketing and business, but they also command more control.  In the long run it could be a decent trade off.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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Why Your Clients’ Stories Define Your PR

February 13, 2012 Leave a comment

Your best stories are those that show how your product or service helps your clients.  For example, if you’re a physician, your best stories are patient success stories.  A doctor is the expert who can explain how to treat a disease or how a particular procedure works, but it’s his or her patient stories that are going to connect with the media and the public.

It’s the same in any business.  Regardless what your profession is, you have an impact on the lives of others.  And the impact you have on your clients can make for your most compelling stories.  Those are the stories that, in essence, tell your story.  Perhaps you made someone’s life easier by saving her time, money, or stress.  Maybe you helped someone lose weight, feel better, look better.  What are your success stories?  Whether you’re an attorney, a plumber, a life coach or an artist, you have an impact on the lives of others. And the impact you have on your clients can make for your most compelling stories.  Those are the stories that, in essence, tell your story.

Before launching a marketing or public relations campaign, take some time to work on the anecdotal stories which you feel best illustrate what you do, those which most effectively tell your story.   Now match the various anecdotal stories to the appropriate media outlets.  For example, using a medical story again, a story about a ten year old struggling with Autism, would be pitched differently than a story about the latest in bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.  If you’re an author of a how-to book, the stories you’d pick to pitch to Redbook or Ladies Home Journal, would differ from those you’d pitch to Forbes or the Wall Street Journal.

Make a list of clients you have worked with who have interesting, impactful or inspiring stories they can tell.  You want these stories to illustrate how by working with you, their lives were changed or transformed.  Keep in mind; these transformations don’t have to be huge.  You don’t have to save someone’s life for your stories to resonate; your stories could be serious, fun, lighthearted, or practical.  Perhaps you made someone’s life easier by saving her time, money, or stress.  Maybe you helped someone lose weight, feel better, look better.  All of these make for good anecdotes, which in turn can lead to great PR pitches, which can land you media coverage – which in turn can help you land more clients, build your business and grow your business.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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Making The Right PR and Marketing Choices

February 7, 2012 Leave a comment

You need to market, that’s a given.  The question should not be if, but how.   Your best choice is to hire a firm or a professional consultant.  If you’re on s shoestring budget, that makes it tougher, but there are still myriad ways to approach it.  Going the do-it-yourself route is one choice, but if you do chose to go this way, you have a big learning curve ahead of you.  For example, let’s say you decide to handle, create and launch your own media relations campaign; to start, you need to learn the hows and whys of putting together a successful campaign.  And you need to know how to define a campaign.

Keep in mind that landing an interview on TV program, or in a magazine, is not media relations.  That is simply one small step.  I’ve had potential clients tell me that they tried PR and it simply didn’t work.  When I asked them to define exactly what they did, they usually explained that they were featured in a magazine or newspaper or TV segment and nothing happened.  When I then asked them how they utilized or maximized that one media placement, I’d generally be met with blank stairs.  In their mind, that one media placement was a PR campaign; it didn’t change their life, so PR didn’t work.  The trouble was, they never really tried a public relations campaign, they simply appeared in a story or two.  Being featured in the media a few times is not a media relations campaign.  It’s a start.  It’s nice.  It can help, but it’s not a campaign, and that’s what public relations firms focus on creating, launching and implementing effective PR campaigns.

This is not to say that you can’t do some initial PR work on your own.  You can, but your goal should be to shift from doing your own marketing to brining on a professional as soon as possible.  Your job is running your business.  Your marketing team should be marketing your business.

Effective media relations is an art and a full-time job. It takes skill, know-how, experience persistence, and contacts. The art of effective PR entails more than writing releases, posting releases on paid wire services, putting together press kits – and praying. If a campaign is launched haphazardly or incorrectly, it’s often best not having been launched at all. The last thing you want to do is alienate the press, which is often what happens when well-meaning but inexperienced individuals try their hands at running their own media campaigns.

So until you can bring a team or a consultant on board, do what you can on your own.  But be selective.  Keep your efforts targeted and focused.  Once you’re ready to hire a PR firm or marketing company, choose wisely.  Choose a firm or individual you’re comparable with.  You need to be able to communicate with you representatives. You also need trusted advisors who will tell you when they feel you’re steering off- base or making a wrong move. If you pick wisely, do your part and work with your PR firm, (to paraphrase Bogie in Casablanca) this could be the start of a successful and profitable relationship.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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The Oscar Race is On & Hollywood’s Media Machines Rev Up

January 28, 2012 Leave a comment

Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” came away with eleven Academy Award nominations, and “The Artist,” which won the Golden Globes received ten.  The two films, which are both about the bygone days of film making, head the list of best picture Oscar contenders announced Tuesday.  Ironically there is a belief in Hollywood that films about films, particularly films about film making are doomed to die at the box-office.  If true, at least this year they’d do so in style.

It’s interesting to sense the difference between the Golden Globes and the Oscars.  As one well known film critic recently put it, the Golden Globes are so much fun, because they really don’t matter.  The sense is that people go to the Globes to see and be seen, party, have fun, say things you’d never say at the Academy Awards and possibly help create a bit of a media buzz for your film.   The Golden Globes is a PR vehicle.  A feel good party where the winners hope to influence the Oscar voters.

The Academy Awards remain the main event.  This will always remain the award the public views as the golden ring in the film business and it’s hard to tell the influence that the other awards have on the Oscars.

The best picture category is an interesting one with heavy hitter Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse,” going against, among others, Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”  Allen’s film hit a chord this year, and could result in an (all is truly forgiven) embrace from the Academy.  Perhaps the most interesting inclusion is Terrence Malick’s (either love it or hate it) “The Tree of Life;” but it’s good to know mystics can climb the Hollywood heights.

Superstars Brad Pitt and George Clooney go head to head in the best actor category with Pitts’s “Moneyball” and Clooney’s “The Descendants” garnering a number of awards.  Those two are where the glitz and glamour is, but that’s not always where the awards go.

The best actress category includes Meryl Streep’s performance as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” and Michelle Williams’ role as movie legend Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn.”  It’s always a gamble bringing an icon to the screen, but in both cases the gamble paid off.

Now that the nominees have been named, the Hollywood movie machine media relations blitz goes into high gear.  From here to the awards date the publicity and media campaigns run 24/7.  Public relations, and some subtle and often not so subtle arm twisting are the staples of race to the Oscar.  As long as Harvey Weinstein is involved in the race, it will be interesting.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Seib, Al. “Plaster Oscar statuettes used for rehearsals.” Photo. The Envelope. Jan. 2012. 27, Jan. 2012.                                                  <http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/la-env-oscars-winners-nominees-scorecard-2012,0,2535525.htmlstory>

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Daily Tips On Using PR To Establish Yourself As An Expert In Your Field- Strategies D & E

January 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Strategy D:  You want to present yourself as an expert in a particular field.  You can address a number of topics in your field, but you want to remain specific.  If you try to present yourself as an expert on everything, chances are you’ll be perceived as an expert on nothing.   The trick is to keep your focus, but broaden your scope.  Can you present new ways of looking at or approaching your field?  For example, if you run a company that produces skin care products, your main pitch is obviously going to be on how effective your product is, but can you develop a pitch about how your company is going green, or how the industry has changed in the past decade?

Strategy E :  Work on presenting yourself as someone who not only understands your product or service, but as a resource who can explain your field to others.  Are there new trends or new approaches that you can discuss and explain to the media and the general public?  For example if you’re a musician or are launching a new record label, can you address how the music industry is shifting and explain how the various new trends in music are impacting the culture at large?  Every industry has trends and shifts, position yourself as the expert who can explain them and discuss how they impact the public at large.

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Daily Tips On Using PR To Establish Yourself As An Expert In Your Field- Strategy C

January 20, 2012 Leave a comment

One of the main values of a public relations campaign is that it helps establish you as an expert in your field.  But you need to help the media help you.  Your job is to let them know why you’re an expert and make it as easy as possible for them to use you as a resource.  With that in mind, this week, I’m going to focus on daily tips you can use to use PR and media relations to establish you as an expert in your field.

Strategy C:  Breakdown the various ways you can present a topic.   Review how the topic you’re discussing impacts women, men, children, seniors, etc.  You can pitch the same basic story to a large number of media outlets, but you can’t use the same pitch or angle.  For example, there’s a chance that you can pitch yourself to Redbook, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, but you’re not going to do so successfully unless you modify the pitch to meet each media outlet’s specific needs.   If you can present yourself and the topic in different ways and to different audiences, you’ll have a much greater opportunity to garner media coverage as an expert in your field.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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Daily Tips On Using PR To Establish Yourself As An Expert In Your Field -Strategy A

January 17, 2012 Leave a comment

One of the main values of a public relations campaign is that it helps establish you as an expert in your field.  But you need to help the media help you.  Your job is to let them know why you’re an expert and make it as easy as possible for them to use you as a resource.  With that in mind, this week, I’m going to focus on daily tips on how to use PR and media relations to establish you as an expert in your field.

PR Strategy A: You can’t expect the media to see you as a resource, unless you’ve positioned yourself as one.  With that in mind, job #1 is to present yourself as a resource who will resonate with the media’s readers, listeners and/or viewers.  Begin by making a list of the topics that you can address.  You have a specialty; a topic or area that you’re expert in.  That’s the main area you want to address, but if you move a little right or left of center, chances are you can come up with a much wider list of topics you can discuss.  For example, if you’re a cardiologist, can you discuss the various ways that social media and the internet are changing the practice of medicine?  That’s not exactly a cardiology story, but it does deal with medicine, the culture at large and can help establish yourself as an expert.  Remember the bigger the media bull’s-eye, the greater your chances of success.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012


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How To Approach Your PR and Marketing Campaign

January 13, 2012 Leave a comment

Marketing, whether it be in the form of public relations, advertising, email marketing, social media or direct marketing, has to be a part of your business plan.  Which mean it has to be a part of your budget.  It’s important to view marketing as a part of your hard costs, as opposed to a luxury. Promoting your business is not an option, it’s a necessity.  Cut out your marketing budget and chances are you’ll end up with a great business that stalls at the starting line.  Either budget for some form of marketing campaign, or prepare to have your business stall, sputter and ultimately fail.

Regardless of the type of marketing campaign you choose to launch, keep in mind chances are you’re not going to hit a home run your first time at bat.  There are those situations where you score big right off the bat, but don’t count on it.  The most effective campaigns are long term, cumulative approaches.  They need to be refined, adjusted, and modified.  As you go, you learn.

If you choose to bring on an agency or public relations company, work with them.  It’s a collaborative process.  It’s important you work as a team to develop story ideas, media pitches and create a campaign that meets your needs but also allows your PR firm to meet the media’s needs.  Don’t look to your friends and acquaintances to give you marketing and PR advice.  Advice is cheap and easy to give.  Everyone believes they’re marketing mavens, but few actually have a clue.  If you start listening to everyone’s advice you’ll continually be in reactive mode.  Your marketing campaign will function like an old fashion pinball machine, shooting to the right and then to the left with no focus, no point of view and no concrete direction

I read recently that, if a marketing approach makes you nervous, you’re probably on the right road.  There is truth to that.  Keep that in mind.  If you need to invest a bit more than you planned, or you’re feeling uncomfortable about having to expose yourself a bit more than you’re used to, take a deep breath and move forward.

Before you take and action, define your target market.  Initially focusing on one niche and one market is generally more effective than trying to cast a huge net.  Focusing on satisfying everyone can be a problematic approach.

Listen to the market.  The marketplace continually gives us feedback.  If a particular marketing approach or media relations campaign isn’t working the way you’d hoped, it might not be the campaign itself, but the focus or the approach.  Sometimes all it takes is some minor tweaking to go from a stalled marketing approach to an amazingly successful campaign.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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How to Effectively Work with your PR Firm

January 11, 2012 Leave a comment

Media relations is about building bridges between you and the media through effective storytelling.  It’s not about selling or hawking or smoke and mirrors.  It’s about showing the media why the story you have to tell will resonate with and impact their readers, viewers or listeners. The secret is to make your story work for the media and for their audience.  Before launching a PR campaign, the job is to start thinking in terms of stories, hooks, and angles.

If you choose to hire a public relations firm, which you should if your budget permits, keep in mind that it’s still your job to help create the stories.  No PR firm or public relations consultant will know your business the way you do.  Yes, they can and should help you brainstorm ideas and angles, but you’re the one who knows your story and your business.  Their job is to effectively tell your stories and build the bridge between you and the media.  Your job is to help them find and develop the stories.   I’ve worked with some clients where six months down the line they tell me about an amazing story that makes for a perfect media pitch.  It’s great that I finally learned about it, but things could have moved much more quickly if I had known about it when the campaign started.  Remember the job of a media relations firm is to tell your story and get you in front of the media.  Your job is to give your PR company the tools, information and the stories to work with.

When looking for a PR firm, search for you that specializes in media relations and media placement.  It’s more important whether the firm you choose knows how to pitch and place stories than whether they specialize in a particular field.  Yes, you want a firm that knows and understands your field and your story, but more importantly, you want a firm that understands the media.  You can always teach them and bring them up to speed about the ins and outs of your field and your company, but you can’t teach them how to pitch or place stories.  Find a company that knows how to pitch and then work with them to develop the stories that work for you and your business.

The first thing I generally suggest is to place some stories on online media outlets to help demonstrate the relevance of your story by generating some initial coverage.  Also, look for topical news stories that you can connect your story to.  If you can tie your story to an issue that is getting coverage, you’ll have a much better shot at interesting editors and producers.

Paid wire services, like PR Wire, Business Wire and PRWeb.com, can be helpful, but you don’t want your PR firm to focus on simply placing press releases on the paid wire services.  These generally work if you have a breaking story, or if your story is tied in with some type of celebrity news.  If not, the best way to garner media coverage is to have your PR firm contacting the media via emails and phone calls directly.  By actively working with your PR firm, you can develop a campaign that interests the media, lands you interviews and builds your brand and your business.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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Crafting A Successful PR Pitch

January 7, 2012 Leave a comment

The primary focus of a public relations campaign needs to be meeting the media’s needs.  If you don’t accomplish that, you’re missing the mark.  Meet the media’s needs and you’ll meet yours.  As I’ve stated in other articles, leading with statistics can be an effective approach.  Let’s say you’re a health care worker that deals with chronic pain.  Or you produce a supplement that helps relieve pain; you can lead with the fact that chronic pain affects approximately 25 percent of the U.S. population and three-fifths of adults 65 or older.  Find some studies and statistics that you can quote that illustrate that the story you’re pitching does indeed affect a large number of people.

Numbers and statistics help give a PR pitch gravitas.  Also never forget that the media is interested in their own type of statistics; they’re interested in the number of viewers, readers or listeners that will be interested in this story.  So the more you can assure them that this is a story that not only affects, but will also interest a large target market, the better your chances of landing a story.  Once you’ve used your statistics to narrow down your specific pitch, you can then take a reverse course and broaden your pitch.  For example if you use statistics to show how pain affects older Americans, after making that point, you can then add a sentence stating that this type of pain does not only strike seniors, but a wide range of people, from professional athletes and weekend jocks to those who suffer with fibromyalgia and arthritis, who deal with bouts of acute and chronic pain.

Use statistics to give your pitches credibility.  For example, if you’re pitching a story about complementary medicine, look online for stats regarding how popular alternative and complementary medicine has become.  Then, depending on the specific angle of the story you’re pitching, you can use those statistics to illustrate why your story idea is both important and timely.  Now use those statistics in your press releases and pitches.

After making a specific pitch, close with other topics and angles that you can address.  Include a short (very short) bio listing your expertise and qualifications and that you can also address such topics as (fill in the blank).  That way if your particular pitch doesn’t work for an editor or producer, they can see that there are other topics that you can address.

Using statistics, numbers and figures can help anchor a pitch and a story, but don’t rely on stats alone; the main part of your pitch needs to be compelling and newsworthy.  So, when launching a media relations campaign, keep the media’s needs in mind; first develop your pitch and then look for stats that help give your story idea credence.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2011

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