🍦Borrow everything I know about securing press

My takeaways for getting exposure to a new audience from a 20+year comms career

Hiya 🌊! I’m Lucy from Hype Yourself. I send weekly recipes to help you PR your work when you don’t like promotion. Serve with side dishes of personal essays from midlife relocation as a PR agency owner in London to solopreneur in rural France.

Photography by Gabriel Hutchinson

Note: With any advice, one-size-fits-no-one. Take the bits that work for you and put your signature twist on them.

I don’t believe ‘getting PR’ is just securing a mention in a national newspaper. That’s called publicity. PR is everything you do to build your relationship with the public.

Most of my sales conversions come from outside the Substack platform, and part of that is building my presence in the wider world.

More often than not, the story is NOT my newsletter but I do always get a link to it or mention it in my byline.

For those who connect with what I am saying, then they often come on over to find out more.

Here’s how you can start doing the same.

Beginner

• Pitch buckets: Build out topics of what you can talk about.

  I tend to bucket pitches under three blocks.

  • Business expertise - You have tips in your chosen line of work that others could learn from. For me that looks like PR tips, journey as a creative entrepreneur, pivot of agency owner to solopreneur

  • Human interest - what are your personal stories that you are happy to share? For me that is midlife relocation to France, finding out my baby had four rare congenital heart defects in matresence,

  • Passion points - what is a hobby or interest that shows a bit of ankle. Your equivalent of horoscope or recipe pages.

• Podcast Interviews
  Look for podcasts that align for your pitch buckets.

  Whether you are pitching business, human or passion angles, ask before recording to be able to have at least one question around your newsletter and for it to be linked in the show notes.

• Bonus points if you can pitch a show where you can get a whole segment talking about your newsletter growth

  Example: Creative Courage podcast with Matt Essam

• Newsletter Interviews
  Look for opportunities to be interviewed in other newsletters.

  (This isn’t the same as pitching to write for someone else’s publication)

  • This is completing a submission form or asking to be part of an existing interview series.

  • Showing a different side of your personality that maybe doesn’t usually sit on your own Substack can open you up to other audiences.

  Example

  The Ladybird Purse • Opening up about money

  interviewed me about money OR

  Jenna Folarin

  interviewed me about motherhood.

• Newsletter Collaborations
  Guest writing for other newsletters. When you do pitch an article or personal essay to another newsletter.

  • On Substack? Head to ‘Stats’ in your publisher dashboard and then ‘Subscriber Report’ and in the bottom right, you can see ‘Audience Overlap’ . This is a great place to start to reach out to newsletter creators

    whose audiences align with yours.

  

  • Top 10 recommenders: Are you recommending any other publications? If not, 100% start and see if you can build relationships with other writers to reciprocate recommending your newsletter. Your Top 10 recommenders are a great place to start for collaborations as their audience is already a natural fit.

  • Paid subscribers: I prefer collaborating with my paid subscribers rather than trying to catch a “famous” writer on here.

• Find directories = save time: Many other newsletters, networks, or business hubs have a place to find these opportunities so keep an eye out. Or upgrade here to join me because once a quarter I send out a directory of interview slots, podcast submission forms, and newsletters that are open to collaboration. The last two are here:

45 outlets looking for guests

66 outlets looking for guests

Intermediate

• Newsjacking
  Newsjacking is the process of adding your thoughts and opinions into breaking news stories made famous in 2011 by David Meerman Scott in his book, “Newsjacking.”

  • It could be that you know a major event is happening, like when there are legislations about to be discussed in parliament and you have expertise either through your business or can be a case study (human interest).

  Example: Funmi is included as an expert in The people facing ‘unfair’ inheritance tax bills because they’re not married

  OR

  Beth Spencer

  hijacked the discussions around AI and art trends to create a powerful campaign that landed her in Forbes with her story on human intelligence vs AI art. She crafted a bespoke pitch (no press release needed!), and it resonated with the right journalists, leading to additional coverage in Fast Company.

• Pitch Opinion Pieces
  My favourite way to secure press for clients (now my paid subscribers) is through opinion pieces. It is a great way to demonstrate thought leadership, showcase expertise and in some instances get paid for it

  • I hosted a workshop on how to pitch for opinion pieces for The Metro where we talked about what the criteria for this particular publication was

  • Templates of successful pitch emails that landed a column are here or you can watch the training video here:

    📣 #013: REPLAY - How to land an opinion article with journalist Jess Austin, Metro

  • I’ve also built a list of over 70+ other publications that accept guest articles here:

    📰 Resource: 73 Magazines & Newspapers Open to Guest Submissions 📣

• Case study in a feature using #journorequest or #haro: Search for the #journorequest on Twitter or LinkedIn and check ‘latest’.

  • If there is an opportunity that you fit for make sure you respond in a timely manner with everything the journalist is looking for

  • Bonus points if you imbed an image with a link to hires to save them time.

Example: I’ve been included in a Stylist feature on women remote working, an Evening Standard article on working from home and The Times in how my business pivot allowed me to move abroad using this technique

• Journalist request services: My favourite is hands down Charlotte Crisps' Facebook Group Lightbulb, where you can connect directly with journalists looking for entrepreneurs.

  I also recommend Press Plugs. You can also try Response Source and, if you have a bigger budget, Cision.

  • The latter are paid for email services, so you will receive requests in your inbox.

  • The positives are you don’t have to remember to seek them out, but the negatives are a lot of PRs are also receiving, and you need to be quick to get in.

• Leverage Trade Reports / industry verticals
  If your Substack covers a particular b2b niche there may very well be a trade publication interested in what you are doing. It could be they compile a list of newsletters in that sector that you feature in.

• You could also pitchin with the business expertise marketing hat on to your industry niche publications to show them why this is relevant to the wider cateogory.

  Example: I was interviewed for an industry-specific trade reports as a business expert for Canvas8 on “How Substack reimagines the newsletter as a brand building hub” This was a double whammy as not only was it a link to my own substack but I was also able to offer expert soundbites.

Advanced

• Pitch for B2B Case Studies or Interview Series
  Lots of business to business service based companies host content on their site such as examples of clients in the wild or interesting case studies their potential clients can learn from.

  Can you pitch your work for a marketing newsletter to showcase yourself as an expertise?

  My most recent interview request was for a service-based business on my email growth and How I doubled my newsletter growth in a year - this is a juicy one if you are keen to know how much I make.

  If you are an artist, is there a marketing specialist for artists? If you help founders, is there a marketing specialist for founders? I recently was pitched to by a b2b business for their inte

  Look for a cross-section niches that could feature you.

Example: I was interviewed for a B2B case study on Liam Curley’s an expert who help consultants discover, articulate, and publish their unique expertise through long form content: https://www.liamcurley.co.uk/case-studies/lucy-werner

• Pitch to Brands with Content Hubs
  Many large brands now have content hubs that publish valuable articles, insights, and case studies to engage their audience.

  Pitch yourself as a guest writer or expert in your niche. These brands often have customer interviews too. If you are using a product or service and love it, check out if there could be an opp for you?

  Example: As a former Mailchimp partner when I ran my agency, I was interviewed for their partner series. Included a visual in French because pourquoi pas?

• Masterclasses and Teaching for target audience
  Teaching is a powerful way to showcase your expertise and build authority. I’ve shared my own insights in masterclasses and small business communities. Many of these go on to become readers of my books or here as a paid newsletter subscriber.

  If you want to get better at teaching workshops, I also have a resource for that here:

  REPLAY: How to make better workshops

Final takeaways from my PR kitchen:

Make the Most of Your Wins
When you secure press coverage, please share it with your audience! Like

Beth Spencer

, whose excitement about her Forbes feature helped her connect even more with her community. A genuine celebration of your successes can create a ripple effect, amplifying your visibility and authority.

Don't Rely on One Strategy
I do mean to sound a broken record.

PR is more than getting into press.

There are HUNDREDS of different types of press, podcasts, sections, editors, event bookers and publications. I’ve just scraped the surface of the different types.

Any time you collaborate with someone or something else it has the opportunity to expand your reach, build your authority, and get your Substack noticed outside the platform. What could you try today?

p.s. don’t forget to always share the link 🔗

New to me and my work?

• You can buy my books Hype Yourself or Brand Yourself.

• You can book me for a one-to-one mentoring session.

• You can book me to speak or host a workshop for your university, accelerator membership or in-house team.

• I’m also an Adobe Express global ambassador and Domestika instructor.

Any more for any more? As a seasonal treat, questions and comments are open to all.

Keep on hyping.

Lucy x