Welcome to Become a Media Maven. This is Christina Nicholson. I am your host, a former TV reporter and anchor turned owner and CEO of a public relations agency, media maven. 

Before we get started, I want to read a review from Derek Doak. I hope I’m saying that right with CCIM. He said this podcast is a must-listen. It’s for anyone looking to control their messaging and find ways to promote themselves their solutions. Christina’s step-by-step process in each of her podcasts is great. Along with her recap at the end of each episode, I have implemented a few of her tactics and already I am having success, especially the seven-step system that gets me booked on top podcasts. Awesome. Thank you, Christina, for sharing real solutions and insights. 

Thank you so much. If you have not yet already, please leave a review on Apple podcasts and I will read it here on the air. One of my goals is to get to 100 reviews. I know I have more than 100 listeners. I see the stats on the back end of my podcast.

So I would like for you to leave me a rating and a review if you are listening. Thank you so much. And then if you’re not already on my newsletter, make sure you sign up for my newsletter at mediamavenmore.com/newsletter and you can hear how others are earning media coverage. 

I share some strategies on the podcast and I share completely different strategies in my newsletter. So it’s just another form to get more content that will help you in your marketing journey. I will link to that in the show notes for this episode so you can check it out there. 

Now let’s get to the reason for the podcast. I am going to share five reasons why you should not work with a pay-for-placement PR agency. And I have to tell you, something wild that just happened is I agreed to do pay for placement PR for somebody before recording this episode. And I’m turning around and coming here and telling you not to do that. But let me tell you why this is different.

One, this is somebody who I had a relationship with before she reached out. We’ve connected on social media for years and have gone back and forth a little bit. 

Number two, she was a regular paying client for a couple of months before we had this conversation today. And the problem we had was that she represented a med spa and like all new businesses, you think they’re going to open at a certain time and things get delayed. 

This happened with many of my restaurant clients. It happens with many of my other brick-and-mortar clients. This is just the nature of opening a business. And this business in particular, this med spa, is going to be like over the top in visuals. So it makes sense it’s taking a little longer to open. 

So we did some of that upfront work, and a lot of it was put on hold, like, oh, call me when the place is open. Let me know when I can visit. Yada yada. So it came to the point where she’s like, look, we spent a lot of money. You did a lot of pitching, and we have a lot of hurry up and wait situations going. And I’m kind of at a loss because we’re out of money and we can’t move forward unless we’re like guaranteed coverage. And obviously we can’t guarantee coverage because we’re earning media. This isn’t advertising. 

So I said, Listen, I have to pay my team, and I rely on clients paying me to pay the team. So let me take the team out of the equation. Let me just do this one-on-one with you, okay? We will make a list of outlets. You approve the outlets, take ones out that you don’t want to be featured in, add some that you do. If I get any coverage in any of these outlets, then you have to pay me. 

And we’re doing this for just one month, starting the day the Med Spa opens. So when I say you should not work with a pay-for-placement PR agency, I’m not necessarily talking about this. This is more me doing somebody a favor. It is not how I operate my PR agency. 

And if anybody reaches out and asks for this, I tell them, Hell no. So I just wanted to be honest about that because I found it very interesting that right before I scheduled to record this episode, that conversation happened with a colleague of mine. So I don’t operate a pay-for-placement PR agency. Don’t email me and ask me to do this for even just a month. It doesn’t work like that, okay? 

This issue has been plaguing the media and the public relations industries for years now. There’s paying for editorial placement that’s pay-to-play PR. I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about sliding a contributor money under the table to be included in something. I’m talking about hiring a PR agency who will only charge you after they get certain media hits on a regular basis, okay? So by doing this, a PR agency is essentially guaranteeing results. And right off the bat, this is a red flag.

First of all, the Federal Trade Commission requires anything that is sponsored to be disclosed that this is a third-party review or endorsement. And you violate fair trade practices when you do this. And when you pay for specific coverage through a PR agency, that is what you are doing. So sometimes PR agencies who do this, they’ll pitch. They’ll only charge you again when they land something, and then they’ll call it a day. They’ll be like, okay, I landed it. It’s done. And I’ll get into the problems with this today.

But sometimes this also leads to that slippery slope where they will pay people who they know who contribute to places to land coverage. And that’s, again, a whole different, darker story. I’ve done many episodes about this before, so check those out on the podcast. But the lines get blurred when you hire a publicist, and you only pay them if and when they land you coverage. So here is why. Here are five reasons why. 

Number one, it’s the specificity of paying for a particular placement that walks a fine line. So I already touched on this, but let me go deeper. Paying for placement involves offering money, incentives, or other things to media outlets to secure favorable coverage. And you are bypassing the traditional editorial process when you do that. And that is why journalism can get a bad name like it does now. Okay? 

So brands that engage in this, they risk facing backlash and damage to their reputation if this is ever known. So it’s one thing to hire a PR agency to pitch you, and it’s a complete other thing to hire a PR agency to pitch you, but then only pay them for inclusion in Forbes, for example. Because when Forbes finds out that you were paid for that specific placement, that’s where it gets shady. Because you pay a PR agency to pitch you to a variety of media. 

You don’t pay a PR agency to pitch you to get one specific thing in one specific place. That’s very different. And for people who are not in the industry, it may sound like a sure bet. You may think it’s a safe move to make. You may think it’s a great way to save money. But just wait. I’m going to tell you why it’s not. 

Number two, this is a big one. They are incentivized to target low-hanging fruit that may not be beneficial to you. So they’ll reach out to their contacts, who they know, or who they can pay for placement. And let me talk about this. I will share the example of I’ll use Forbes again. 

There was a I don’t know if she was on staff as a writer or if she was a contributor. Either way, she had articles published in Forbes, and her niche was Shark Tank stories. And instead of just doing the job of writing Shark Tank stories and publishing them, she would charge people who appeared on Shark Tank to get in Forbes again against FTC like the Federal Trade Commission does not like this, you will be fined. Not only will you, but the outlet you write for. 

And this was found out. People started talking. And not only was she axed from writing for Forbes, but every single article she ever wrote was taken off the website. And that is because it was a pay-to-play situation that was being passed off as editorial. So you risk that happening, but again, you have that low-hanging fruit. 

I had somebody join my media mentoring program once, and I don’t know if she went through a PR agency as a middleman. And when I say PR agency, I’m using air quotes here, because these people are not PR agencies. That’s not what they have here. I don’t know what you would call it, but it’s not that.

So she wanted to be in some kind of travel fashion outlet and say the name was Travel Fashion. This person she paid got her in an outlet called Fashion Travel, like, very similar, but the person pitching had no clue what the difference was. But there was a huge difference to this person, because one was a very popular outlet, the other one was not. And she lost her money. 

She got in this outlet that was not what her ideal customer was reading. And she wasted her money. And the person she paid was like, oh, well, you paid me to get you somewhere, and I got you somewhere. It is what it is.

Number three, their work stops there. They do not talk to you about how to leverage that media. They don’t talk to you about how to turn it into profit. They get you the hit, and it’s done. And this is where you leave so much money on the table. Day three of my boot camp is all about turning publicity into profit, because that’s the whole reason for the publicity. You need to do something with it. That is not where it ends. That’s literally the middle step. 

So not only that, but when you just pay me for specific media hits, you’re not paying me for all the masterminds that I pay to be a part of. If you’re on my newsletter, I just sent an email out about this. You saw the four groups I pay to be a part of. You’re not paying me for my education. You’re not paying me to admin my business, and for all of the organization I have to do in my business, the operations. So it’s just not a smart business model on that person’s end. 

Plus, for this reason, they usually charge a hell of a lot more. So they’ll charge you, say, $10,000 for a placement in ink, and they’ll call it guaranteed, only pay me when you get in there. But if you hired another agency, maybe their monthly retainer is $3,500. They’ll get you an ink and a lot more places and tell you how to leverage it and use it to get more placements in the future. It’s just tricky. 

Which leads me to number four. It’s a very hard thing to price because of the way the media works. So here’s another story. I had a client who had a fitness app, and through pitching, I got them covered in The Washington Post. Now, somebody at the Today Show saw that coverage in The Washington Post, and they bypassed me because, I mean, they don’t know I exist, right? They just saw the story in the Washington Post. I’m not in the story my client’s in the story. So the producer at the Today Show reached out to my client directly to get them on the Today Show. 

So I essentially got them in the Today Show by the previous media that I earned. But if I was practicing this model, I would not have gotten paid for the Today Show, which is a ginormous audience. So is that good for you, the person paying to play? Yes. Is that bad for me? Yeah, because I’m not getting the credit or getting paid for that coverage. 

Now, if you pay a monthly retainer, I don’t care about getting the credit, but if I’m charging you for these hits, I need to get paid for them.

Then I had another client of mine, a bracelet company, and she was on the Today Show again. I went online and I filled out a form for Jill Martin. She was hosting a segment called She Made It and whoever works with Jill bypassed me, the PR agency, and went straight to the client. 

And listen, I understand why people do this. When I was a reporter, I did this. I was very annoyed by publicists because they were very overbearing. They tried to be controlling. They tried to tell me how to do my job, and I wasn’t a fan of it for that reason. I am not that kind of publicist. And maybe this is karma that had happened to me. 

But this client was reached out to directly by Jill and her team for a two-minute segment on the Today Show. I would not have gotten paid for that because there was no way I could prove that it was my effort that led to that earned media. And this happens a lot in the industry. You would be surprised. 

So if you are somebody who’s in the industry I know a lot of people listen to this who are in PR or journalism. That’s another reason why you don’t want to work like this, because a lot of your pitches could go unrecognized by you, because whoever’s receiving them is bypassing you and going straight to your client.

Number five, this sends the wrong message to real publicists you want to work with in the future. It makes you look, for lack of a better word, it makes you look cheap. It makes you look like you want to take shortcuts. And it shows that you don’t understand how the industry works. 

So I’ve had people reach out to me and be like, listen, I want to work with you. Do you do pay for placement? And I’m like, no, I don’t, because that’s just not how the media works. It’s long form marketing. It is a marathon. It is not a sprint. 

We are building a brand. So you are always top of mind. So when people need what you offer, they think of you. It’s not like, I’m paying for one thing here. I’m doing one thing here. You’re like, piecemailing, your marketing strategy, and that’s not how it works. 

Plus, it gives me the impression not only that you don’t understand the industry, which I’m not going to get mad at you if you don’t understand the industry. Like, I get it because I’m in it. If there’s lots of industries I don’t understand because I’m not in them. 

But you need to educate yourself if you’re going to hire somebody, if you’re going to make an investment in something and it’s thousands of dollars a month, you need to educate yourself on how the industry works. That’s why I have this podcast. That’s why I have my newsletter. 

So that is it. Those are the five reasons why you should not work with a pay-for-placement agency. Number one, the specificity of paying for a particular placement walks a fine line.

Number two, they are incentivized to target low-hanging fruit that may not be beneficial to you. 

Number three, their work stops when you get that media hit. 

Number four, it’s a very hard thing to price because of the way the media works.

 And number five, it sends the wrong message to real publicists you may want to work with in the future. That is it. 

Again, I’m going to take this time to remind you to leave me a positive rating or review. I will read that on the air. And if you want to take this a little bit further, there are three ways I can help you.

One, hop in my masterclass. Just visit earnmedianow.com. It is completely free. It is less than an hour. And I will give you five simple tips to getting featured in the media. Second way I can help you is join my boot camp. I mentioned that day three or hour three, it’s an on-demand boot camp. Now, it’s not three days long. It’s 3 hours long if you’re a binger. But if you want to do an hour a day, it would be day three. Teach you how to turn that publicity into profit. It’s just $37. 

That’s it comes with a lot of great bonuses. It should really be more because people are going through that boot camp and they are earning media exposure when they implement what I teach them. You get a lot of pitches. I break down pitches that have landed in coverage – why they work. There’s a lot in there for $37. 

And finally, the biggest way I can help you if you do not have an agency budget is to get into my media mentoring program. It’s $997. You get lifetime access to the course and the private support community where you can talk to me. You’re not talking to other people in the group. Well, you are, but if you have a question, I will answer it. It’s not like a graduate from the program or anybody on my team. It’s actually me. I’m in there. I’ll go over your pitches with you. I share a lot of media opportunities. I mean, on a weekly basis, I’m sharing media opportunities that my colleagues are working on and you can get that in the support community. 

I will link to all of this in the show notes. So you can not only have the podcast, you can have the newsletter, and you can have the master class for free. If you want to spend a little bit of money, $37, hop in that boot camp.

And then if you want to bring PR in house and have a VA execute stuff or even you, I ask for 2 hours a week to execute what’s in the Media Mentoring Program and I show you how to do it. That is 997 and you can access that at mediamentoringprogram.com. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you again here next week on another episode of Become a Media Maven.