Episode 22: How To Get More PR For Your Pet Business

In this episode of "Bella In Your Business", Bella spends time with Susie Timm,  President of Knife & Fork Media Group. Susie specializes in comprehensive public relations and marketing strategy in the gourmet food, restaurant and retail industries. Gaining PR for your pet business can be wildly useful during the upcoming holidays, but if you get copies, you can also use it on your website and social media for months to come! Bella and Susie discuss: The importance of having a marketing and PR plan. Creating interesting and useful event-based PR that then drive traffic and interest in your business. How the “soft sell” approach works best when trying to get to exposure in mass media. Some great ways to get yourself promoted on mass media. Positioning yourself as an expert. How great content drives traffic to your website. You can find more information about Knife & Fork Media Group at KnifeAndForkMedia.com. Subscribe To The Show: Transcript: This is episode 22 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready—Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where we talk about everything in and around your pet business. I'm your host, Bella Vasta with Jump Consulting. The holidays are upon us. Soon we'll be collecting holiday bookings, gearing up for winter, and creating all our seasonal banners, graphics, and blogs. As the time comes, there are so many platforms that your business can stand on to merge your expertise on pets with the holidays. Today, I have a guest that's going to be a real treat for all of us. Susie Timm and I personally met in networking when she was the president of a bank that hosted our weekly networking meeting. Her spunky attitude and colorful personality immediately drew me to her, gaining my respect from the start. Susie is now the president of Knife and Fork Media Group. They specialize in comprehensive public relations and marketing strategy in the gourmet food, restaurant, and retail industries. Susie has also been known to represent a pet business or two as well. She’s decorated in numerous awards such as the 40 Under 40, Women Leaders in Business, and Scottsdale’s 24 Powerful Leaders Under 40, to name a few. Her wheelhouse includes creating media marketing kits, blogging, content creation, copywriting, website content creation, advertising, photography, graphic design, and sales training, just to name a few. But today we’re going to talk about the big one—public relations. Susie: Thanks, Danielle. It's really delightful to be with you. Bella: Absolutely. Thanks for joining up with me. So let's start from the beginning. How did you go from bank manager to PR maven? Susie: Well, it's definitely not a straight path, that's for sure. The short version would be that in 2009 when the banking industry started to become really a challenging place to work, the market started to crash, and no more money could be lent. Someone came to me and said, “Hey, maybe we should do something on the side to get to know our fellow foodies in the community and create some sort of food community in Phoenix.” I agreed, and so we started initially a business doing food events. We worked with local chefs and put on cooking classes while the economy was really starting to go down. I initially did it on the side, but eventually after I realized it could be a viable business plan, I left banking to really focus on hosting these food events. In that process, we actually hired a PR firm who represented us to promote our events. I got to know some local TV personalities and editors of papers and created personal relationships with them. One thing led to another. Restaurants started coming to me and saying, “Hey, I know you did an event for your group at our restaurant, but I’d love it if you could give me some marketing advice.” Initially, I had to chuckle because people were coming to me for marketing advice, but they liked what we were doing. We were driving traffic in a down economy by using creative, relatable, and inexpensive events that people could attend to learn more about local restaurants and chefs. After about a year and a half of that, I decided to branch out on my own. I started my own PR firm. Originally, we focused on event marketing and social media, but people kept asking if I could write press releases or get them on TV. So I decided to try my hand at that, and now we have over 45 clients all over the United States. We work mainly in the food segment, but marketing and PR is kind of a formula. Once you know the formula and how to come up with story ideas that media want to hear, that really does translate—it works for pets, nonprofits, health and beauty, and more. Bella: That’s fantastic. I absolutely love it, and I love how organic it was. You reminded me of a Facebook post with a stick figure showing “success” as a straight line and then the real version—squiggly and messy. It’s so true. Those events you did back then were very fun and filled a niche that hadn’t been done before. So tell us—what kind of benefits can local media bring small businesses? Susie: I can’t say enough about having a true marketing and PR plan for any size business. You could be a startup or a multimillion-dollar venture—it doesn’t matter. It’s important to always stay top of mind. Someone told me this once, and it stuck: between the invention of television and the invention of the internet was maybe 40 years. The amount of messaging people were exposed to in that time is a fraction of what we see daily now. We are constantly in competition—not just with other pet businesses or restaurants—but for brain space. Think about scrolling your Facebook feed and all the things competing for your attention. Add in television, the web, and even your drive to work. We have to figure out how to cut through the clutter and stand out. To me, the only way to do that is to proactively use the media to your advantage. I worked with a pet business here in Phoenix, and most of what we did was event-based PR. She’d host events like a Halloween party at a bar with dog costumes and a nonprofit tie-in or yoga classes with pets. We promoted these in the media, and she went on TV as an expert to talk about things like safe treats for dogs and what not to feed them. We positioned her as an expert while also driving traffic to her events and grooming business. It’s a full-scale plan using free exposure through media instead of paid ads. Bella: I love that—and it’s so true. Those unique events stand out. Tell me about some common mistakes business owners make when they’re trying to get their pitches on TV or news. Susie: The number one thing to remember is that when you’re appealing to mass media—like your local paper, radio, or TV—your message must have value for their audience. You’re promoting an event? It has to be interesting, and usually there should be some community outreach or nonprofit angle, like donations for a local shelter. That adds an element of goodwill instead of straight self-promotion. You can also tie in educational tips. For example, one client hosted a pet CPR class. That alone is newsworthy, but we added TV coverage on pool safety for pets. Low-hanging fruit like that gets you coverage easily because you’re providing value. The number one mistake? Being too self-promotional. That’s fine for paid ads, but for free media, you must add value. Bella: Yes! I hope we’re really igniting the people listening right now. So why can’t they just go do it? What’s the benefit of hiring someone like you? Susie: I’m not opposed to people doing it themselves—you just have to decide what you want to master in your business. If you want to spend time pitching media relentlessly, go for it. But is that taking you away from revenue-generating areas? Media pitching takes time and a certain expertise. For example, when I pitch for a client, I don’t send a press release. I send five quick tips on a topic, keeping it under 200 words, often around 100. It’s punchy, easy to skim, and relevant. They don’t care about your awards—they care about stories that engage their audience and keep viewers watching. Bella: Exactly. We often think people care about us and our businesses when they don’t—at least not until they know and like us. Susie: Right. And something that’s newsworthy to us might not be to the general public. An industry award? Great for your trade publication, not for your local paper. Always remember who your audience is. Bella: I love that. So do you have a client success story—someone you took from unknown to spotlight? Susie: One of my favorites is Brownie Brittle, a snack company that started in 2011. I met them around that time and began helping with local promotions in Phoenix grocery stores. Eventually, I got them national publicity—a feature in The Huffington Post. To this day, if you Google Brownie Brittle, that’s still the top result. They went from $250,000 a year to tens of millions. It’s been amazing watching them grow. Bella: That’s incredible. You have such a cool job—helping clients feel confident and getting them seen. Are you even accepting new clients right now? Susie: Always. We work with all industries, both locally and nationally. There’s always room for new clients. Bella: Something I noticed on your website was “website content creation.” People are realizing they can’t just write whatever they want—their website content has to sell and engage. Is that what you do? Susie: Exactly. For example, I have a client who owns several cosmetology schools and does seminars. We’re creating content on his site so when people Google “how to increase business in my salon,” his blog with five tips pops up. It’s about building authority and helping people find you through value-driven content. ...