4 Signs 2022 Is the Year You Should Hire a Publicist

written by Vicky Lynch

It’s a brand new year and even if you’re someone who hates New Year’s resolutions, you have to admit that January is a great time for new beginnings. If you’ve been thinking about how to grow your thought leadership, further legitimize your business or promote a book or course launch, 2022 could be your year.

Here’s 4 signs it’s time to make the investment in a publicist:

You have specific PR goals.

No matter how you look at it, hiring a publicist is an investment both in time and money. Being ready to go all in means you have specific goals you’d like to achieve through a PR campaign. This might center around promoting a specific product, business feature, or a new book. And while it’s important to have specific goals and a media wish-list, it’s also going to be important that your goals are realistic. 

We have clients come to us all the time looking for podcast and online interviews, guest blog and article writing opportunities and TV coverage. Every client has a different mix of what is going to be most valuable to them. And while we love to hear about our clients’ wishlists, when it comes to specific outlets, it’s important to keep an open mind. 

Rome was not built in a day, so the first time out of the gate, you’re probably not going to land an article in Forbes or get interviewed by Oprah (yes, people STILL ask years after her show ended.) 

Your publicist’s job is to secure coverage that will elevate your online presence and build to bigger opportunities over time. 

You have a great story and/or really innovative ideas.

Your publicist is only going to be as good as your content is. For instance, at Guide My Brand, we spend a lot of time checking out our client’s social platforms, websites, online content and reading their books cover to cover, mining them for unique expertise that can be used as pitch angles. But the actual ideas need to come from you, the expert. We are always happy to put together new pitches and ghostwrite articles for our clients, but we always need our clients to provide talking points and expertise to help us draft our materials. 

We hear from clients all the time who want to be featured in huge outlets. And we love to help get our clients placed there. But the idea of publicity is that your publicist needs to offer the media a reason to have you on. Whether they are attracted by your number of social media followers or your unique area of expertise, there has to be something in it for them. 

Your expertise has to be something that is going to entice their audience to click through to your coverage. Or sharing through your platforms has to have potential for them to reach new audiences.  Otherwise, it’s pointless and your publicist won’t be able to land coverage.

You have time for a PR campaign.

Would you be shocked to hear that we’ve had clients who make the investment in a publicity campaign and then ghost us for weeks at a time? And while we like to do things like brainstorm topics for our clients and ghostwrite articles for them to save on our clients’ time, we also need those things approved before we can pitch or submit them. 

Usually we ask clients to respond to our emails within 24-hours when possible (and we understand that life gets busy and things come up.) But knowing that you either can’t provide an interview at that time or that you can get us talking points by the end of the week, allows us to update our media contacts and deal with them in a professional and timely manner. Chances are, if we leave an editor or podcaster on the hook for too long, the opportunity will pass which makes us and you look bad. 

You’ll also need to make time for interviews if that’s a goal in your campaign. We’re always happy to work around our client’s work, family and travel schedules to find the best times to fit in interviews. 

You’re ready to make a commitment.

At Guide My Brand, we ask that clients commit to an initial 4-month commitment with us. Why? Our best chance at success is to really take the time upfront to understand your business, your expertise, your background and any new products, courses, or books that you’re launching. This takes some time. But if we didn’t spend that time up front, we could be missing opportunities or spinning our wheels sending out incomplete pitches that likely become unanswered pitches. 

We’ve done shorter commitments with clients and we’ve had some success, but four months is really the amount of time it takes to reach a tipping point, where media hits start snowballing. There will also be media hits that have a longer tail. We may book a podcast interview or place an article for you in the first month of our campaign, that doesn’t even go live for several months. Some media outlets have a long tail. It’s going to take time to build traction to reach the outlets on your wishlist. 

Lastly, there are outlets that we will pitch over and over with different angles before we hit the right one. It may sound tedious, but it’s’ the nature of the business. And it’s a big reason why you hire a publicist. 

Are you ready to hire a publicist in 2022? Schedule a call with us here to discuss your goals.