Show Notes

Ann Gynn is the Principal Consultant at G Force Communication and Editorial Consultant for Content Marketing Institute. Get to know her through these resources:

Connect with Ann Gynn on LinkedIn

Visit the G Force Communication website

Explore Marketing By One

Check out Ann’s latest articles for the Content Marketing Institute

 

Mariah Tang: Did I say that out loud? Welcome to “Did I Say that Out Loud?”, a podcast where Stu Eddins and Mariah Tang reflect on agency life and answer questions from our higher ed and healthcare clients about the latest in digital marketing, content and SEO.

Mariah: Hey, thanks for joining us on the “Did I Say that Out Loud?” podcast. Stu is not here today, but that’s okay, because we have a really awesome guest, Ann Gynn, she is our fantastic content marketing guru slash amazing human being, and she has decided to join us today and give us a good 20 minutes of chatting about omnichannel marketing and how journalism in general has sort of evolved. So thanks for joining us. Ann.

Ann: Thank you. Hey, with an introduction like that, I’ll join every week.

Mariah: Hey, hey. All right, sorry, Stu you’ve got a little competition here. Just kidding. All right, I think one of the cool things about you, Ann, is that you have such a unique background. So you’ve been in public relations, you’ve been in content marketing, you’ve been in journalism, editing, all of the things. So maybe before we jump in, will you just give the listeners a high level overview of you and your fabulous background?

Ann: Yes, yeah, sure. So I started out as a journalist, newspaper, reporter. Newspapers did exist that I meddled and hired people. So went into reporting for a community newspaper, daily newspaper, but then moved into marketing and public relations using my content skills from journalism, it worked out really well to be entering the era of content in marketing for that, spent a couple years. I worked for an international law firm, I worked for a trade publication, and then went out on my own handling, you know, when you start out in your own you’ll do not whatever anybody will pay you, but you get into a lot of different things. So I got into public relations. I did promotions and media relations for air shows for 10 years.

Then also add the Content Marketing Institute is one of my clients, so I edit its blog and do original writing for them and recently have been working with businesses that have just one person to handle marketing, and they may handle other things too, called Marketing by one, and have focused on helping, training and educating them too. So that’s the quick version.

Mariah: Yeah. Love it. You have been all over the board with content, and you’ve seen everything from the old fashioned press release, back when people were still doing that more often. I mean, a lot of groups still are, but now you’re seeing this kind of resurgence of of the traditional journalism and why that matters. And people, I think, are starting to get a new appreciation for that just kind of looks different than when you and I both were, you know, starting in our careers. So maybe let’s, let’s start there. So thinking about press releases and, you know, sending out that PDF over the wire and all that good stuff, it still has its place, but for a lot of groups, it’s not really the approach that works anymore. What are you seeing on your end? Why? How do you feel about that bold statement?

Ann: Yeah, I think, I think it, it is a bold statement, but it shouldn’t be a bold statement, if that makes sense, right? The traditional press release of sending it out, hitting the wire, paying for one of the services to send it out to every, everybody and that possibly has a website now or a PDF media publication, it’s not as effective, right? And I’ve said before, it looks impressive, but if you’re looking to do a press release that delivers results and gets media com, meaningful media coverage, not just a link on a website that runs everything, then that’s what’s changing and what should change it. Frankly, it should have changed a long time ago. It’s just now we’re more forced into it if we want coverage from that. So I think that’s the big change, is that it has changed, and that traditional mode, even what you send out over the wires, should be looking different than it did 10 years ago. The words for immediate release are wasted on the page from it, and yet I still see it from it, because, yeah, I still see all that kind of good stuff.

Mariah: See a lot of embargoed until X date. And it’s like, I wonder how many people actually pay attention to that? Maybe in the biosciences world.

Ann: Well, do they? And embargoed? I think it’s funny of using that I get embargoed stuff, where they’ve sent me everything. Well, I have no agreement with you to not use the data. I mean, most of the time it’s useless, but if they were really, you know, I have worked with people who I can send you over this new report we’ve got coming out if you promise not to write anything until we this official release date, that’s an embargo when you’re reaching out. But so many times I get stuff that says embargoed and we have no agreement. It’s like they don’t understand what embargo means in that way, just because you want to be embargoed doesn’t mean I want it.

Mariah: Right? And it’s been blasted out to, you know, 50 other Anns out in the world, like, how, how are you going to control that? How are you going to control that message? You know, I don’t know it’s interesting, because we do have a few groups that we, we send out, you know, mass alerts for, you know, basic science stories. You know, somebody in the in the institution, won an award that’s notable, and they just really want to get coverage for it. And it’s not necessarily like a story, they just want to be mentioned somewhere, which is, you know, fine. It’s on its own strategy.

But I do try to encourage groups, when we work with them, to really pull out what is the story? Can we throw some bullets in here? Can we put some subheadings in? Can we make this like a web page or a web story, as opposed to just, you know, a standard page? And I think we’re seeing a lot of groups kind of get excited about that prospect and see how it makes a difference. Maybe you don’t get the mass, you know, mentions in the Alaska times, you know, whatever, if you’re out in, you know, California or something, but you do get more relevant engagement with those pieces when you make it a little bit more of a story. Have you seen kind of groups taking that route? Or, I guess, what are some alternatives to the press release that you’re seeing out in the wild?

Ann: It’s even redefining what a press release is from it, and I refer to them as media releases now a lot because we’re looking for media, not press, even press is an old word of why they’re called press releases, right? We don’t talk about the press a lot in the context of today, of what we mean really by media. And I think I always say, your press release, your media release. I’m going to now, I’m going to say, I say media release, and then I’m going to go back and use press but your releases should always be interesting to read. So even if you make the Alaska Times that’s just running it, why not make it a story that, if public. Pushed in total, right? And I know we’ve talked about this in the past, it breaks my journalistic heart when I see a press release, a news release, go verbatim, right? When the publication I’ve gotten over that as a marketing and PR person, that’s great, but it also amps up the way I need to tell the story better.

If I’m sending out a release, if a client’s sending out a release, they’ve got to tell a story that’s worth reading, and that’s for hey, if it gets linked to from a site that’s valuable to you, it’s important to tell a story, but it’s also important from if there’s a gatekeeper, if there’s a media person looking at it, I’m much more intrigued by a story than I am by saying so and so got promoted. What’s the story behind that? If I have a listing service, then, yes, I need to know the basics from it. But I also, if I you can give me a little more depth and pick on stuff that may be the article idea for me.

So I should pause here. It may get confusing for people. I both receive pitches and releases as a writer for the Content Marketing Institute, and as for other clients, as well as I send out releases and pitches for my clients. So I kind of still am in the middle between. I get pitched, I get pitched. I get releases a lot, but then I’m also trying to communicate out there. So I’ll clarify that to begin with, it sounds odd.

Mariah: Book ending this whole interesting topic. I like it.

Ann: Literally Yes, yes.

Mariah: So it wouldn’t be a 2025, conversation if we didn’t slide AI into here. And I know this. You know, for our groups, some of our clients in the higher ed space and healthcare space are so excited about AI, and I think that’s awesome. It’s got some really cool utility. I think some groups are excited about it for the wrong reasons. And we’re seeing this happen, you know, marketing teams getting laid off, or reduced newsrooms shrinking, you know, people pulling away from their creative resources, as opposed to that were, you know, operational resources and efficiency. And so we’re seeing kind of this influx of groups using AI to make, like, really sloppy content. You can spot it on social. You can spot it everywhere. When you’re looking through your inbox, when you’re receiving pitches, or you’re talking with your clients about pitches. What are some of like, the super tells that you’re seeing? Like, this is going to be garbage?

Ann: Yeah, and I think some of it, I’m going to take a step back and say some of it’s AI and some of it’s just bad, right? You know, so AI can amplify the bad, but I was seeing it before from that. So it’s, you know, the formulaic, whether it’s a picture off or intro, if you intro your release to try to customize it for the media outlet and say, you know, I’ve liked your stories on this, or I think this would be a good fit for fill in the name of publication here. That kind of stuff is always fascinating to me. That feels like AI, although I think in some cases, AI can do it better than some of the people who are just cutting and pasting, you know, they haven’t really read the site. They don’t know we just wrote a topic on this, or they don’t understand it. I think with AI, it’s the overuse of certain words. And I know with your clients in healthcare and higher ed, they’re going to find their own words. I do a lot of marketing writing, so playbooks, dynamic, demystify mystifying and demystifying is was a lot, and I’ve also seen those words evolve over the past couple years of the overused words from it. So I think it goes back to just good principles of whether it’s AI written or human written, if it’s relevant and customized. Frankly, I don’t care if AI, I care if it’s slop, and I hate AI slop is the current term. But whether it’s AI or human slop, if it’s irrelevant, if it’s not on target for what I need, if it shows a lack of understanding that to me, hits me as the the tells that it doesn’t matter to my publication or to what I’m going to write, that it’s irrelevant from it. Yeah.

Mariah: Yeah, maybe I’m just like a jaded editor person at this point, but nothing fills me with rage more than reading an article and being like, Why did I read that? What? What? Why have I wasted my time with this? Yeah?

Ann: Well, in part, that’s where you get into part of AI’s challenge is the input, the you can do it so that it can be your voice, it can sound to do what you need it to do, but you have to work with it. You can’t just say, write me a press release on X, Y, Z. It’s going to, you know, and have it do it and accept that it’s the back and forth that needs to happen that isn’t happening. And that’s the tell, right? That it reads like the original first draft that AI wrote.

Mariah: Oh, yeah. And, I mean, how often does that happen with people like you were mentioning, it’s just slop in general. If you’re sliding a new writer in or a new editor into a client’s work, and they haven’t been familiar with the brand, it’s going to sound, you know, off, unless there’s some kind of superstar, and if you are, call me, that would be great. Come hang out with us at Stamats. But I think one of the, one of the things that I notice about, like really good pitches, is they are kind of blocked out as a story. So we were talking about subheadings, we were talking about the, you know, the TLDR, what’s the point of this? Before you make the person receiving that pitch, really dive in and spend their time reading. Think that’s always a really nice bonus that you can give, because I remember when I was in a newsroom, and I was just a little baby journalist at the time, but I would get hundreds of emails every day, and my superiors would get, you know, five times more than that, or whatever. So what are what are some ideas that you would suggest, Ann, to folks who are really wanting to send out a pitch to really make it stand out, what’s what sticks out to you in your inbox?

Ann: I would first say, know the difference between a pitch and a release? Right? A pitch is you’re pitching an idea for me to cover, for the publication to cover from that, and you’re giving me the outline of it, and then the press releases, the full story complete, ready to go. And I know that multiple people are going to be receiving it to come through. So I’d start with that. But then the practical stuff, the subject line from that, that’s your chance. And it’s, it’s just like good marketing on newsletters, right? But the subject line, make the most of it and tailor it to you, the audience from it.

This is one that seems simple, but people don’t do it enough. Paste the content into the body of the email, right? An attachment requires me to take another step, and it has to go but aside from it, has to go through security. You know that the whole things to make sure it’s legit. If I have to take another step, like you were talking about, if you have 50 in there and I have to take another step, that’s gotta be a pretty great subject line for me to want to click and open it up to come through. So just delete it.

Just delete the idea of thinking of PDF. Never attach it and include it in there. Include the body. But I think you, as you have bullet points, an intro to TLDR, all of that is very helpful, because you want to make sure you’ve got, if you have seconds, that’s a lot of time, because I don’t think you have seconds, I think if you have a good subject line, or it’s in the preview screen, you got about a half a second, and they’ve got to see that you’ve made it easy for them, even if they don’t pick up all the details. It’s an indicator you know how to work well with what they need, and that you’re more likely to deliver what they need than somebody who completely doesn’t understand and writes a lot of text and explains everything and goes into detail that they’re never going to pay attention to. That’s just a red flag that you don’t know what their job is. So kind of that subtle, that unconscious, subconscious messaging that you go through by just making it easy for them.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah. And I know a lot of institutions, at least that we work with will have a dedicated spot on their website or out on social or something like, here’s what we want if you want to send us something, and if you don’t take the time to read, you know, those couple of paragraphs, you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot. I mean, I don’t like that phrase, but you’re really making it unnecessarily difficult for yourself and for them. Like here we’re telling you what we want, listen to what we want and give it to us.

Ann: Right? They’ve taken the time. It’s a gift to you. I love when I see that, whether it’s for releases, guest posts or hope you know, podcasts, whatever it is, if they’ve outlined it, that’s what they mean. They’re not looking to do something different from that. Now, maybe you get to know somebody, and then you can talk about that later. But if you’re cold, pitching them or warm, pitching them, follow what follow the gift they’ve been given, they’ve given to you.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think in terms of, you know, modern PR work, modern content marketing, modern journalism. We’re looking at more than not, I think this is just how it is. We’re looking at more than, you know, a media release. We’re looking at more than a blog article or a social media post. We’re looking at a story as this environment of all of the different media that’s out there. And so, you know, over the years, it’s been called a lot of things. It’s been called omnichannel. We tried to, you know, think about it now as discoverability, like your brand, discoverability, making yourself visible. So in that, in those kinds of terms. And what do you think are some of the. Ways that maybe public relations professionals and their colleagues across the island marketing, how can they really pull together a story across media making that sort of like omnichannel press kit, if you will?

Ann: I think, and I love your Word of the system the environment, right? Right? That it is an ecosystem. And I think first of all, recognizing the fact that PR and marketing need to work together. PR may have a great story that’s really worth telling, and they want earn media that would be great for marketing to be able to share and and that kind of thing. So that’s where, when we talk about omnichannel, I think it’s this idea that there isn’t, you know, there’s earned media, own media, and shared media, we talk about that, but it can all work together so easily, and it needs to work together so easily.

So if you’re sending out a release, let’s go just for a release in that. And we’ve talked about, it’s a great story. You’ve created it. Well, where does that live on the website? Okay, if it lives in the news section of it, marketing is not going to be able to take even know about it, or take advantage of it for, let’s say, the social media channel. So first of all, it’s communicating and having a plan, if at all possible. And I realized, depending on the company right of of that kind of thing, of having a system to share it as well as marketing stories. And I think PR sometimes gets irritated with marketing because they look at marketing as that they’re trying to sell the stuff, I’m trying to get quality media coverage and and get it out there. And so they don’t necessarily look at marketing as a place for stories, but the better they are at content marketing, the better it is for PR to have more stories to come through.

So thinking about the story, and then think about this, the environment, that ecosystem, okay, how does it work to is it? Is it going to be a picture release to earn media? Is it going to show up on a blog? How does it look like on social media? Are we turning it into a video? Because I know we I primarily talked about text based releases, but all of those kind of things, and if you start from the very beginning, you can plan for those.

So if you’re quoting somebody right in PR, it’s pretty easy. You make up the quote. Somebody signs off on it. If it’s simple, you may interview them and get the quote, but you don’t if you sign, if they’re signing off on a quote, you haven’t, don’t have any video of them, if they’re talking about it and you’re going to use video, great, you can get the quotes from that to come through. So that’s how it all kind of informs the process, but I am all for using one thing in multiple ways, for productivity sake, but also from a messaging and branding. It’s consistent. It may be told differently, but it’s consistent. And so I may see media cover it, and then I may see it show up in my social feed, and you’re getting those multiple touch points that you need for it to sink in of whatever your goal is.

Mariah: Yeah, I think you are spot on, as per the usual. I think the hardest part for a lot of groups is that pre planning we you know, we set this up for ourselves, and I feel like every organization doesn’t do the best on their own marketing, but you can always, like, help other groups. So we set up for ourselves, you know, like, a conversation like this. What are the things we’re going to build from this to, you know, promote the podcast, promote and promote, you know, our ability to tell a good story, and so we know all of that going forward, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add to it later, and it doesn’t mean everything in that plan has to happen for each piece.

It’s just like here, here’s your buffet of stuff. Here are the five things that make the most sense for this story, and we’re going to set the other things aside. That doesn’t mean we set them aside for everything, but you pick it out for the things that work. So, you know, groups get really overwhelmed. Like, why I can’t post on 30 things? Like, we’re not even on some of these platforms. We don’t have to be. It’s like, pick the ones that are priority to your audience. Pick the pick the ones that make the most sense for your story, and start there, right? Start somewhere.

Ann: Yeah, yeah. And that’s it. Even just thinking it’s more than whatever it is, right? It’s more than what it’s not the distribution vehicle. It’s the story. Start with the story, then figure out what’s the distribution vehicles plural from it to come through. And I think the more you get people involved early, the more interested they are. It’s less order taking. Because if I write something and then send it to you and say, okay, post this on social. You are now just somebody who’s executing, right? You’re not involved with and saying, Well, this would have been better if I do have anything on this angle, because we’re talking about this on social today, or something like that. That engagement earlier makes it feel the person feel less like an order taker. And so they’re more likely to embrace what they have to do.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah. 100% I love that, the distribution vehicle. It’s perfect. That’s perfect way to think about it. Well, we have just a couple of minutes left here. Ian, and you are involved with a lot of different companies. You are involved with a lot of different civic groups. Is there anything that you’re working on that you’re super jazzed about that you want to share with the audience.

Ann: Yeah, well, I mentioned it earlier, so I this is a project, Marketing by One, and that’s, that’s the web address that I started thinking about years ago. And the embarrassing thing I’ll share with your audience is two years ago, I said, hey, sign up for my newsletter when I did a presentation, the newsletter just debuted last month.

Mariah: You didn’t put a timeline on it. It’s okay.

Ann: Yeah, I often have, like, I wonder if these people even remember I was going to send him a personal note, and I didn’t. But really, what I see out there of trying to help that solo entrepreneur and creator who have so many hats to wear, and even, frankly, it’s for the solo marketing team. I work with a lot of marketers who they’re the only ones to do it, and they have to do it, and they have to figure it out. So so that’s what I’ve started this year, and will continue so far so good. Made it a whole month.

Mariah: That is awesome, and we’ll put a link to the project and to all of your other wonderful works out there in our show notes. So, Ann, it’s always a pleasure. Thanks for squeezing this in. We really appreciate it.

Ann: I appreciate the invitation. Thanks, Mariah.

Mariah Tang: Thanks for listening to “Did I Say That Out Loud?” with Stu Eddins and Mariah Tang. Check out the show notes for more information about today’s episode. And if you have any questions, concerns or comments, hit us up anytime at stamats.com.