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Dmitri Vietze's Level Up Presentation
- 1. Level Up: PR and Storytelling for Businesses Dmitri Vietze (@dmitrivietze) www.rockpaperscissors.biz
- 6. ...boring and similar to the output of other firms
- 15. Where do you start with a business story?
- 16. Service or Product as a Solutions• Value proposition of the service or product (differentiation) • The missing need the service/product fills • Success stories (or at least marquee users) • How a feature complements the existing service/product • New use cases • Mind-blowing innovation of the service
- 17. Additional Pitch Topics • Partnerships / Significant Client Announcements • Benchmarks • Hires/New Offices • Content • White Paper • Article (Blog,Guest Posts, or Op Eds) • Infographics • Events (Your Own or Appearances at Others) • Acquisitions • Investment Activities (either direction)
- 19. Additional Pitch Topics • Partnerships / Significant Client Announcements • Benchmarks • Hires/New Offices • Content • White Paper • Article (Blog,Guest Posts, or Op Eds) • Infographics • Events (Your Own or Appearances at Others) • Acquisitions • Investment Activities (either direction)
- 20. Timing of PR
- 21. Stay in Touch! Dmitri Vietze dmitri@rockpaperscissors.biz www.rockpaperscissors.biz
- 22. CD Baby Case Study
Editor's Notes
- Welcome Brief Intro How many of you are founders or CEOs? How many of you have a PR or marketing title? How many of you are revenue positive? How many of you are B2B?
- In the old days, you would send a press release and news outlets would run the information, sometimes verbatim, sometimes with original content. It was a significant tool for getting the word out about a business to millions of people. It wasn’t always that way. The first press release was a train wreck.
- No, I mean it was literally about a train wreck. It was a Pennsylvania Railroad accident in Atlantic City in 1906 where 50 people died. This was back when companies like railroads or large utilities or mining companies wanted to hide any problems. But an early PR guy named Ivy Lee decided it was better to release the truth and his writing was so direct that the New York Times ran it verbatim.
- So everyone started sending press releases. First by mail, then by fax, then by email. Then paid newswire services came along and press releases started being sent by the hundreds. And thousands.
- Now there are over 5000 press releases sent per day. That’s almost 2 million per year. But quantity isn’t the only problem.
- Press releases are ignorable. Even Wikipedia’s official entry on press releases says they are in their nature boring because they are all uniform. So what do you do?
- The media and influencers of all sizes need constant content. They want eyeballs and attention and the way they get that is by providing unique content for their specific audience. What messages get attention?
- The ones that evoke an emotional response. [PAUSE] Why?
- Chemicals! No not meth, but the drugs we make inside our bodies.
- Thanks to a neuroeconomist named Paul Zak we know that the chemicals in our brain and body are what make stories so engaging. It’ physiological. There’s Cortisol: the stress hormone comes out during tense moments in a story, which allows us to focus. There’s Oxytocin: the feel-good chemical that promotes connection and empathy. Theres Dopamine: a happy ending to a story triggers the limbic system, our brain’s reward center, to release dopamine which makes us feel more hopeful and optimistic. Stories not press releases are how you evoke these biologically-triggered emotional responses.
- Stories are more memorable than marketing copy. Stories are fun to repeat, not only in the media, but from customer to customer, investor to investor, and employee to employee. Have you ever heard a business story getting repeated over and over again? (What are some examples?)
- Some Stories are Sticky What makes them stick?
- I like to use this book…
- Simple – find the core of any idea Unexpected – grab people's attention by surprising them Concrete – make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later Credible – give an idea believability Emotional – help people see the importance of an idea Stories – empower people to use an idea through narrative
- That’s some of the theory and science behind storytelling. But where do you start with a business story? Let’s put on a different lens now to jumpstart your thinking on what you want to convey for a business.
- Value proposition of the service or product (differentiation) – Virtex Arena: Turn downtime in a stadium into an augmented reality game with your fellow attendees, where the stadium is the place to play. The missing need the service/product fills – Cheddar: Usage Based Billing platform for lean software developers. Success stories (or at least marquee users) – CD Baby: Josh Perrin makes $90,000 off of Spotify How a feature complements the existing service/product -- New use cases Mind-blowing innovation of the service
- Partnerships / Significant Client Announcements – LyricFind on Google search results Benchmarks– CD Baby infographic (next slide) Hires/New Offices Content White Paper : BuzzAngle’s Midyear report beating Nielsen and revealing Video outpacing streaming Article (Blog,Guest Posts, or Op Eds) Infographics – LyricFind Valentine’s Days: Love songs and heartbreak songs in 8 countries Events (Your Own or Appearances at Others) Acquisitions Investment Activities (either direction)
- Just an example; Next to continue
- Partnerships / Significant Client Announcements – LyricFind on Google search results Benchmarks– CD Baby infographic (next slide) Hires/New Offices Content White Paper : BuzzAngle’s Midyear report beating Nielsen and revealing Video outpacing streaming Article (Blog,Guest Posts, or Op Eds) Infographics – LyricFind Valentine’s Days: Love songs and heartbreak songs in 8 countries Events (Your Own or Appearances at Others) Acquisitions Investment Activities (either direction)
- Pilot story: The runway behind you and the sky above you won’t help you. Sometimes you get lucky: Virtex and the annual football tournament.
- Thank you. Let’s go to questions!
- CD Baby Quietly continuing to serve their base: independent artists. Considered separate from the core music industry. Since it was long tail, “tastemakers” looked down on it. Things nobody realized: Very innovative, solving hard problems with technology. Some of their technology was surpassing record labels. They were serving over 500,000 artists. That size catalog -- even though most were not blockbusters -- gave them a lot of negotiating power. Very agile which allowed them to partner with the major music outlets (streaming and video services). How were we going to tell this story? Underdog for the underdogs. On ramp to the music industry. New services that spoke to the democratization of music. Partnerships Brand Acquisitions. Unexpected success stories in which CD Baby played a role. Leaders to be taken seriously (via thought leadership pieces that painted a bigger picture).