You Can Do Your Own PR!
By Isaac French
A few days ago in the private Experiential Hospitality community, a great question came up about PR for unique stays.
It got me to thinking—I never spent a dime on this while building or owning Live Oak Lake. And yet, we received some great press. About 20M+ impressions, actually!
National TV appearance on a tiny home show
Feature in Business Insider, republished by The Independent and Entrepreneur)
YouTube features by Shelby Church (1.6M views) and Codie Sanchez (1.2M views)
Multiple appearances on local and regional TV, magazines/newspapers
Earned media is so valuable, and it’s free. But most people pay thousands of dollars a month to a PR agency to try to try to earn it for them, instead of just earning it themselves.
Just as coming from a non-hospitality background was an advantage for me in creating a new hospitality concept in Live Oak Lake, the same is true of my approach to PR. I didn’t even know there were agencies and professionals specializing in getting press.
So what did I do?
First, of course, I built a truly one-of-a-kind, stunning property; something I could truly be passionate about! Being able to authentically communicate excitement about a project is paramount.
For several months after we launched, I spent almost an hour daily googling journalists and news anchors in my local area. I knew local TV coverage would go a long ways, as the target guests were in our backyard.
Learning to use Instagram helped too (this was shortly after our suspension on Airbnb), and the Suggested for you feature made it easy to find relevant channels and personalities. This allowed me to map out a thorough media list, divided into categories and location/coverage
I crafted concise pitches and cold DM’d all of them. This approach evolved and improved over time, but starting was the key.
When pitching, it’s important to:
Be concise: There’s nothing worse for a busy producer, anchor, or journalist to get a book about your life… They have a thousand other stories and things to think about. Respect their time. A few, well-crafted sentences will do.
Introduce yourself: Share who you are, what your property or brand is, and (this is the important part) what makes it unique. Again, they have a ton of other opportunities that are similar to you, and you need to think about this in advance. Share your personal journey and the inspiration behind your project. Authentic, human stories resonate well with the media (just as with social media).
Be personal: Be human! (This is hospitality after all:) Compliment their work genuinely. It means a lot, and can help set you apart from a more commercialized approach. It also can be the beginning of a relationship, extending beyond the current piece. Building a Rolodex of media people is extremely valuable (future projects, future milestones of the current project, etc).
Who should you message?
Bloggers? Editors? Writers? Producers? Directors? Hosts? Assistants?
Yes.
All of them! Yes I’m sure there are official processes, but you can play dumb! It worked for me.
I mentioned Instagram DM’s, which still are incredibly effective I find, but of course you can (and should) also send emails when you can track them down.
Once communication is established, present a refined press kit with facts, stories, professional photos and videos. Do as much work for them as possible to highlight what makes your story unique.
And again: be personable and grateful!!
About 3-5% of all outbound media messages I sent actually resulted in coverage of some kind, but they were so worth it.
Remember, this is free for you!
And here’s the best part: this process snowballs! As soon as you’ve had one appearance somewhere, your publicity has exponentially increased (assuming you don’t already have a large social media presence), which will lead to more people (including members of the press and influencers) seeing you and potentially covering the story as well.
Each of the 3 local and regional TV pieces done on Live Oak Lake generated substantial web traffic, and direct bookings. One resulted in over $10,000 of bookings, the others not far behind.
And the YouTube videos and BI article were huge as well.
So give it a shot. You can do it!
I’m sure this is a fairly truncated and maybe even imbalanced take on getting press, but it’s my experience. Just like approaching banks for your first project, you’ve got to get used to hearing, “no, not a good fit,” or even better (and more common), hearing nothing at all!
If you persist, you’ll break through. And it’ll be worth it.
Of course, none of this should be a substitute for your social media strategy (including organic content creation and influencer collaborations), which is the anchor of any hospitality marketing effort. Earned media PR will simply augment your reach and speed up the snowball, turning the “I had no idea this existed in my backyard!” folks into loyal lifetime guests and friends.
It works!