Ronica Cleary - Cleary Strategies

On Trying DIY PR: "You don't know what makes you newsworthy. You don't know what lands. You don't know what's a really good pitch and what's not."

Every business wants, well actually, needs customers.  How do you get customers?  You get noticed and you get your business in front of potential customers.  How do you grow this awareness?  You can shout from the street corner, cold-call, pay for advertising, or use the tried and true way to build trust and that is to get some news stories written and published about you.

The interesting thing about public relations is that, with the right public relation expert, you can control the narrative about your business and grow the awareness of your brand in a trusted space.  People generally trust the news much more than they trust an advertisement.  So if you are in the news, you are much more likely to be a trusted brand.

Ronica Cleary has been on the news side of the desk and now helps businesses get noticed with her PR firm, Cleary Strategies.  She and her crew craft the stories and push them to the editors and people that can get them on the pages, print and web, that people read.

Listen as Ronica explains the power of PR and how she has built her PR firm from her incredible experience as a television journalist.

Enjoy!

Visit Ronica at: https://www.clearystrategies.com/

Sponsors:

Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, phone answering for small businesses: https://callsoncall.com

Some videos have been recorded with Riverside: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=james-kademan

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Starting Cleary Strategies Unexpectedly

06:09 Covering Trump's first election campaign

09:09 Media relations and crisis management

11:33 Evolution of media placements

13:59 Pitching to a busy newsroom

18:23 Managing media queries efficiently

22:16 Managing Public Relations Challenges

25:45 Concerns about paid media placements

27:11 Shady PR practices discussion

30:51 Using PR to Boost Visibility

33:50 Developing client content themes

37:20 Building a thought leadership presence

40:08 Importance of a founder's story

42:59 The value of PR in business

46:37 Podcast audience quality over size

50:26 Reflections on Starting a Business

53:56 Assessing contractor fit and retention

Podcast Transcription:

Ronica Cleary [00:00:00]:

We, we think like producers when we pitch our clients. We don't. We have to think as a producer would so that when we present the pitch to the newsroom, it's like we've produced the segment for them and not because they aren't capable, not because they can't, but because maybe they don't have the bandwidth to do so. And so if our pitch comes perfectly packaged with the pieces in place, the B roll ready to go, the expert teed up the potential questions all written for you. You know, they're not going to take it word for word, but it's like all of the pieces are there.

James Kademan [00:00:36]:

You have found authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link [email protected] we are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun prairie, Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, as well as Live Switch. And today we're welcoming, slash, preparing to learn from Ronica with Cleary Strategies. And today we are talking pr. So Ronica, how is it going today?

Ronica Cleary [00:01:07]:

It's going so well. Just poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, finished the pot.

James Kademan [00:01:12]:

So lucky.

Ronica Cleary [00:01:13]:

We've had a caffeinated day, but it's a good day.

James Kademan [00:01:17]:

Yeah, nice. Tell me, how long have you been in the PR business?

Ronica Cleary [00:01:24]:

So I'm approaching eight years this summer. So we started our agency, I always say we opened our virtual doors before it was cool. Yeah, nearly eight. And so it's, we're kind of, I can see in the horizon that 10 year mark, which is exciting.

James Kademan [00:01:42]:

I don't know what the, what the metrics are, what the data is for. How many businesses make it 10 years? It's not many. So I feel like you're doing very well.

Ronica Cleary [00:01:50]:

They talk about that five year mark as a really big turning point and I felt it and I think that's a very valid marker for, you know, a shift in your business. But I think you maybe hear less about the 10 year mark because people probably throw in the towel by then.

James Kademan [00:02:06]:

They're like, forget this, I'm done. No more, no more. Oh, it's funny. How did you end up in the PR business

Ronica Cleary [00:02:14]:

accidentally? You know, it was not on purpose, but that's been the beautiful part of the journey. So if I'm being more specific than accidentally, I think it was really client request for that type of service. So I'm a former television journalist and when I left TV I did obviously intentionally start a business and open Cleary strategies. But my vision was to do a lot of communicate traditional communications and support with internal communications and writing and, you know, coaching and. But what people were asking for in my network, because when you started business, you know, your first customers are usually in your network, was, you know, you used to be on tv. Can you help me get on tv? And it was, you know, I didn't call it PR in that moment, but I did have an aha moment a few years into running my business where I said, I think I'm a publicist. Like, how did that happen? And, you know, then we, I mean, we realized that was becoming our identity. I've really leaned into it and I love it.

Ronica Cleary [00:03:12]:

And we are now a full service PR agency. And that is very, very much our identity today. And we don't do any internal comms or anything like that. So a big shift from customer demand and direction, which is a really cool way to grow. And it's been great.

James Kademan [00:03:27]:

Nice. So what made you get out of tv? I guess that's an assumption. Maybe you haven't. What made you get out of being a video journalist?

Ronica Cleary [00:03:35]:

So that is, you know, a lot of reasons. But I'll make it brief because we only have 52 minutes. So let's see. I had a really beautiful career in television. I like to say I had a storybook career in tv. And my most recent work in television was as a White House correspondent. I worked in Washington D.C. and I covered the White House as a journalist.

Ronica Cleary [00:03:56]:

And my contract was coming up for renewal and I was pregnant with our second child. And at the time, my husband and I actually lived in different states. I lived in the District, the, the District area. I lived in Maryland, but right outside of D.C. with our daughter on my own. And most of the time and he was up here in Pennsylvania. And, you know, it just seemed like the right time to live under one roof with a. With the birth of our second coming and now we have three, which is really beautiful.

Ronica Cleary [00:04:26]:

And family's very important. And I always really was entrepreneurial. I always had a passion and an interest. I had a really bad attempt at entrepreneurship in my 20s, and I didn't have the drive or the focus to really turn it into something. And in my, let's see, how old was I? I guess my mid-30s. When I started this business, I was a different person and I was ready to really give it an honest try in, in the real sense of the, of making a service business work. And it felt like the right time. And I had done so many wonderful things in tv, it wasn't that, you know, I certainly hadn't done everything, but I felt like I had checked that box in my.

Ronica Cleary [00:05:09]:

And that I could really look back on that and feel accomplished and like the ride was extremely meaningful. And it felt like a time when I could close that chapter in a thoughtful way. So that's. That's kind of the. The Cliff Notes.

James Kademan [00:05:24]:

All right, this is. I want to go down the White House correspondent journalist a little bit.

Ronica Cleary [00:05:29]:

Sure.

James Kademan [00:05:30]:

Tell me about the contract. Was that with a specific channel or.

Ronica Cleary [00:05:35]:

Oh, yeah, sure. So I worked for the local Fox affiliate in Washington. So my TV contract was with WTTG, and that's Fox 5. That's the local station in Washington. And then if you cover the White House, you can become a member of the White House Correspondents association, which I was. But my contract in television was with the local Fox station in Washington. And, you know, I moved down there to become the political reporter for the station. It's actually, you know, I don't know if your listeners are super into this, but, you know, it's really rare for local stations to have White House correspondence.

Ronica Cleary [00:06:09]:

Usually that's a network thing or a print and print reporter thing or some radio stations. But I was down there. I covered the presidential election leading up to the election of Donald Trump for the first time, his first campaign. And, you know, I know he is president today, but that first time that he won, I mean, that the, the media momentum was a frenzy. It was all consuming. And so independent of the politics, I was down there at a really unique time that as a local news reporter, they actually said, we need someone in the briefing room. So that's kind of where, like, I call it like a bit of a storybook career, because usually to get in that briefing room, you've got to follow the journey into working at a national network or, you know, working for, I would argue, maybe a. A bigger news outlet.

Ronica Cleary [00:06:58]:

And while WTTG,...