Cracking the Code to Content That Actually Works | Michelle Songy | Press Hook | Bonus Episode

Michelle Songy is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder of Press Hook, a platform that helps brands get media coverage through a hybrid model of earned, affiliate, and paid press opportunities. Prior to Press Hook, Michelle founded and sold Cake Technologies to American Express. 

She’s passionate about making PR more accessible and transparent for small businesses, especially mission-driven consumer brands. Press Hook is used by 1,000+ companies— from early-stage startups to category leaders— to connect directly with journalists, newsletters, and podcasts that drive real product discovery. 

In This Conversation We Discuss: 

• [00:00] Intro
• [00:56] Realizing the need to master your own PR
• [02:36] Understanding why generic pitching fails
• [05:21] Boosting discovery via trusted publishers
• [08:06] Navigating earned, paid, and affiliate media
• [11:26] Callouts
• [11:40] Standing out with visuals and clarity
• [15:26] Adapting strategies to decentralized media
• [18:58] Enhancing discoverability in crowded markets
• [20:57] Building systems before scaling PR

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• AI-driven media relations and PR pantform presshook.com/ 
• Follow Michelle Songy linkedin.com/in/michellesongy 

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Transcript

Chase Clymer 

I do get quite a few  pitches and I think you mentioned it earlier. Length is not your friend. You want it to be short and digestible. 

Michelle Songy

Mm-hmm. 

Chase Clymer

And I would say, on my end, if I can't read the whole thing on my iPhone screen, it is too long.  

Michelle Songy

Maybe using some bold to highlight the points you're getting across if someone's skimming it fast. But you need to get quick into the point.

Chase Clymer

Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow, and scale an online business today. 

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today, I'm welcoming to the show Michelle Songy, the founder and CEO of Press Hook, a platform that helps Ecommerce brands get discovered by journalists, creators, publishers, and podcasters  through earned affiliate and paid media opportunities. Michelle, welcome to the show. 

Michelle Songy

Thank you. So happy to be here.

Chase Clymer 

I'm excited to chat. I am a user of Press Hook. I have found dozens of awesome brands so far. I cannot speak highly enough of the platform if you're trying to find cool CPG brands to talk to. So big plug for that platform. But Michelle, guess give me a bit of your backstory. How the heck do you know so much about PR?  

Michelle Songy

That's where it's kind of ironic. So I don't. I don't actually have a background in PR. I'm pretty sure I didn't even get into my journalism school and marketing school in college. So they sent me to the IT school. And then I started to learn to get into tech. But I was actually a founder of another tech company. It was a mobile payment app. I was living in London. And that was my first business I started. I was wearing every hat in the business. 

The one thing I was scared and didn't even know how to do so I would hire an agency was PR. But sometimes, with your budget, [you have] had to stop doing it at times. I really just wanted to learn. Figure out I guess I have to take this on and figure out how to do it on my own. Because I just wanted to level up to our competitors. I wanted to get out there. And I started doing it. And I was like, wow, this is a wild and really difficult world and just so time consuming. 

And I didn't have the knowledge, education. There were no really good resources, no good tech out there. There were some more pros. Like Muckrack and Cision were for the real PR pros, but not for the Mary Janes and Joes like me that are just trying to learn how to connect to journalists. So there's really nothing out there. And I had to just self-teach myself. 

Chase Clymer

That's amazing. Yeah. And you've definitely built an awesome database and  product that helps people  make those connections. But this isn't necessarily going to be a love letter to Press Hook, even though I do think it's amazing.

We're going to talk more today about some PR things that you've learned along the way. So I guess just getting started, a lot of the listeners out there, going to be of the smaller CBG, Ecommerce brands, and PR is just like this black box to them. So why are these smaller brands struggling? What actually works? 

Michelle Songy

Right. So I think a lot of people go into it and like me, you  just haven't done it before. You don't know how to do it. You don't know where to start. It's really overwhelming. So you might be treating it like advertising where you're pitching without a story. It's really promotional or I've seen founders pitch paragraphs of text or not keep... First of all, not even just making sure the pitch is relevant to the journalist you're writing. 

So blasting them or trying to just send a generic pitch to everybody. That's not going to work. Especially if you're pitching, let's say, a podcast or a sub-stacker versus someone like Conde Nast or Buzzfeed. So I think really it's about like what you know, it's not just about what you say, but when, why and to whom. 

A lot of people, again, I just see so much of this like generic pitching that's just promotional about like, here's 10 things that are so great about my product and me. Instead of saying, this is why this is relevant to because it's back to school or holiday season or like what it's really like. Why is it relevant to the times right now? 

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. I see a major mistake people are playing. And this isn't just like CPG brands. This is anyone trying to get PR coverage. Just having ChatGPT come up with the most  uninspired spam and just blasting that off to folks. 

Michelle Songy

Right. And I'm all for using it. helps you... It can help you create the pitch  and the structure and the layout.  But you need to put  in yourself and some personal or just kind of like a little tie-in or like, why are you contacting them? And kind of give it like, this is a human on the other side too. So yeah, I just think of it like a clear narrative, being short, sweet, to the point. I usually just like, if I see a pitch someone's doing, I usually delete like 90 % of it. 

Chase Clymer

Oh my gosh. Yeah. 

Michelle Songy

This is all not needed. So we know there's some journalists on our platform that receive up to 800 pitches a day. I'm not there. I do get quite a few that have been around for a while. And so you are... It's competitive. You need to make it stand out. It is. 

Chase Clymer

Now, I guess, why do I want to get these journalists' attention? What is the outcome of a good PR campaign? How does it help my business? Maybe I think some researchers don't even understand what PR results in, like why it will help. 

Michelle Songy

Yeah. I think it's really for credibility and  social proof these days. Whether you're trying to get into a retailer or talking to an investor, if they look online and look for you, they're like, who are you? Why has nobody talked about you? So it's giving you that credibility, improving your reputation. You want to be sitting next to your competitors, right? 

That's why you started a company to be competitive. That's really another one of the main reasons. The pitch is really showing what you are solving for that already didn't exist in the market and why and how big is that market.

I think also a lot of people, they try to say they're creating a product and it's really, they want it to be for everyone. Like they want everyone to use it, everyone to like it, every journalist must use it and talk about it. But sometimes products really solve a need for certain people. And I think the more you can be really honest and transparent about that, the more it'll click with an editor journalist. 

Like, oh, right. That makes sense. Like, and help them understand what the problem is, why you're solving it, why there's nothing else like it right now that exists. 

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. And another thing that I've seen a lot of brands do quite successfully is it does lead to traffic and potentially sales. These folks, their audiences usually are way bigger than the audience that the brand has built up. 

Michelle Songy

Right. And I think there's also just a big crossover. Obviously, the change in Google AI summaries and LLMs, they're all really reading trustable, reliable sources. It could be a niche publication, like it could be  a trade publication, it could be local news, it could be a top tier publication, obviously with a really high domain authority. But they're looking for trusted and real sources on the internet to come up with that information. 

And the only way to get that is through getting your brand, getting other people, trusted people to talk about it and speak about it. If not, you're just going to have the people on Reddit going off about it. I think it's okay if you have that and you need to control that too. I think really getting that like a trusted source and I think it's like, it's kind of like a badge of honor to it feels. 

Because you know, these journalists, it is competitive and they are experts really in your category and market. So getting them to kind of leave a good review. And a lot of times they just... If they don't like something, they're probably just not even going to include it. So I think even by... When you do get press, especially at an early age, usually it's positive because they want to tell people about it. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Earlier on when I did your intro, we talked about earned affiliates and paid media. So I guess, what do any of those words mean? 

Michelle Songy

Right. I know. I had to learn this too. And they're changing and there's hybrids and stuff of all of them. But earned media is when you really think about that traditional PR. You're featured in a story because a journalist found your brand interesting or timely. It's credibility building, but it's very unpredictable. It's not guaranteed. So you're doing it yourself or paying someone to do it or using a platform. That is not guaranteed. If someone tells you it's guaranteed, that's a scam. 

It's not. There's no way that anything like earned is [something] you can technically pay for. The other bit that came in and especially affected the whole entire CPG world a years ago was just affiliate media because then it was like, we can write still features and we want to include brands we like, but we can also include these affiliate links that are going to Amazon or direct to the customer's website and they'd be getting this commission back. 

It was a way to fund and help these publishers. And so I like that because I was like, it gives them a kickback. Like, you know, the publishers work hard, journalists work hard, they don't get paid a lot. So I think it's a nice way of them still having the discretion of the products they want to include, but they're getting that percentage back through your affiliate platform. 

So I do tell most brands, like, if you're ready for PR media, like you need to be on an affiliate platform, without a doubt. And a lot of them usually are already when they come to us, they're already using a TikTok Shop or Like to Know It or ShopMy. They're using one for the influencer side. But for the editorial publisher side, they're usually looking at those like Awin, Impact, ShareASale, Rakuten type of affiliate platform.  So I know it's a lot to learn. But that's part of the game.  

Chase Clymer 

Yeah, absolutely. And then paid opportunities kind of speak for themselves.

Michelle Songy

Yes. So paid is something actually new. We're really getting into a press hook that I like. They still have the, not like GQ or Oprah or anyone is just going to say, “Okay, you're paying us. We're just going to write and do anything you want.” It still has to be a brand fit  to them.  And then you can talk about paid options, like sponsored content, maybe a dedicated article that you guys can help you co-create. 

So they'll write it and you get to actually approve it and make sure the messaging is right.  Obviously, paid media includes those influencer partnerships. So if you're paying someone to promote your product, and then there's some [more] other.We're even seeing a mix of paid and affiliate, where  maybe they're cutting down the cost of the paid and then also running affiliate on it. 

But I think it's a nice way, especially if you have, let's say, a new launch or product release or something really timely you want to get out and you want to control the messaging. I do think  it is nice once you have the budget to do a mix of earned affiliate and paid. Especially if it's a publication that is your audience, that is the perfect audience you know. 

And maybe you've done some earned affiliate work. It's like, just double down because they're going to go promote those articles even further. And it helps build that relationship too.

Chase Clymer 

Hey everybody, just a quick reminder. Please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week. So don't miss out. Now back to the interview. 

Earlier,  we talked about what a bad pitch looks like. But I guess what does a good pitch look like? What are some common mistakes? If I'm getting into PR, what should I think about this?  

Michelle Songy

I would think about it most similar to how you would pitch, let's say, a retailer or a VC investor. So, you obviously want to have a very clear, unique subject line tying in again, like the first sentence, I'll just say, “Hi, Chase. Let me tell you why my brand is the best brand in the whole world in Genius and we do XYZ.” 

It's like, “Hey, Chase,  I love watching and listening to your podcast and I love this episode you did on XYZ. It brought me to why we actually started developing our product and the problem we were seeing.  And this is the product we've developed. I'd love for you to give us...  Take a look and get some feedback. And if you like it, we'd be happy to send you a sample to check out. No strings attached.” 

So the big thing is there are no strings attached. You can't when you're pitching a journalist again for earned or affiliate. You can't guarantee anything. If they sample your product, you cannot. They're not forced to have to write about you.

Why? Because they want to test it out and see if they like it if it's good. So again, they are testing a lot of samples. So it's not, I think you can't be hurt if they don't cover you for whatever reason. You can always go back to them and have them try something else or maybe iterate your product. Again, the product isn't for everyone. 

It's the same thing when you're going to... It's like a sales process. You're doing it to retailers, you're doing it to investors. It's similar in a way.

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. I think that. I do get quite a few pitches and I think you mentioned it earlier. Length is not your friend. You want it to be short and digestible. 

Michelle Songy

Mm-hmm. 

Chase Clymer

And I would say, on my end, if I can't read the whole thing on my iPhone screen, it is too long. 

Michelle Songy

Right. I've been telling people like 200 to 300 words is a good sweet spot. Bulleting, like using bullets, maybe using some bold to highlight the points you're getting across if someone's skimming it fast. You need to get  quick and to the point. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah, I think that a lot of people want to tell them all these amazing things about their brand, but they are too far in the process. First, you want to get that permission from the journalist or whomever that they're like, I am interested in this. And then you can spiel all of your cool stuff. The first is you're asking. You're seeking their buy-in and their interest. That should be the goal of the first message. 

Michelle Songy

Right. And what's the tie-ins? What's the hook? Is it a new launch?  New product? Really innovative product on the market? Is there a seasonal tie-in? Those are great. Just know they're writing stories, maybe 2 to 3 months in advance. So don't send them something about back to school maybe next week. It's maybe a little too late for that. 

And then sorry, I don't know when this is listening. It's August right now and we're even seeing media request holiday gifts and holiday sets. 

Chase Clymer

I just got an email. Yeah, I just got an email earlier this morning from another PR person that I know. And she's like, hey, we're doing a holiday gift guide stuff. And I'm like, oh my gosh, the holidays are already here. 

Michelle Songy

Yeah. And obviously having things like high res, really good images. Images sell a lot now. You can include it. You can even include an image in your email if you'd like. Having those on file. Having a really set of imagery is very important these days. Again, just because it's competitive. So I'd almost look at what your competitor's website social images look like. You need to outshine that. 

Chase Clymer

Mm-hmm. 

Michelle Songy

You want to stand out. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. Content is king still. Now, we've talked about ChatGPT a little bit earlier. And how do see PR evolving with AI? Now, substacks are big these days and influencer newsletters and just there's all these new channels where there's still audience and eyes, how do see it working? 

Michelle Songy

Right. I see it working. Obviously, every day, I'm getting an overflow of just opinions and you should try this, you need to do this. In showing up in LLMs and pitching the media and your press releases, right now, it's information overload. So I wouldn't really believe or try to go down doing everything that I read about, especially if it applies to media relations. 

I still think it's about building those, finding out who your audience is. Where's your audience? What are they reading? Are they reading certain substacks? There are amazing... There are categories you could search on substacks of food and drink, of travel, of consumer electronics, let's say. You can search for it. So find what those substacks are and you can even see how many subscribers they have. Read them.  

Actually see what content it is, recipes they're doing or product reviews, or maybe they're just talking about restaurants in the US. So like maybe don't have a tie into them  if that's a product. Or maybe you do see them that they're writing like product reviews and things like that. So I think it's still important to understand your audience [and] where they are in each channel. 

And yes, there's some tools that can help you, like you can ask chat, you can ask what sub stacks are relevant for you. And they can bring up some, it's still good to do your own. Again, I think like helping you write a pitch, kind of get your get all your I think sometimes like we have so many things we want to say. So like helping it to kind of  keep things clear and concise  can help. 

What else? I think that the biggest demand though right now I'm seeing is people wanting to show up in these LLMs and trying to understand and  kind of work the algorithms and system of seeing where they're coming from. So if you do a little search on your category on a topic somebody might write to find out [something] like a problem or a product that they're looking for, you can just clearly see when you go to it and see the sources where it's coming from. 

So that's an easy way to kind of say, “Oh, like, this actually came from good housekeeping or skin from Forbes or this is this article.” So kind of see like where it's pulling its data from. And that's a good idea. That's where you should be focusing a lot of your efforts.  

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. 

Michelle Songy

If that's what you're looking for, to show up on LLMs. But yeah, I think a lot of people just think a lot of PR is just about getting into magazines. And it's really about building relationships across this now very decentralized media landscape where somebody could, like you have a podcast, be a LinkedIn thought leader, have a substack, an independent publishing, have social media. 

So it's an exciting time. But I think that, and I think  it's exciting to see how this industry has changed from being a little bit backwards, a little stuck in old times. And now you're really seeing it transitioning and adapting to new smart technology. 

Chase Clymer

Oh, absolutely. And speaking of smart technology, what a great segue you gave me. Let's learn more about Press Hook real quick. If I'm the audience of the show, we've got a lot of people that are working at smaller brands up to even some really fun corporate... Inc 1000, actually no, for a fact because I was speaking with someone at a conference the other day. So if I'm listening to this and I'm working for a brand, what's the elevator pitch for Press Hook? 

Michelle Songy

Right. So we help brands connect directly to media to get a mix of earned, affiliate and paid opportunities. It is the only network and platform of its kind right now that is specially  targeted only for consumer goods and brands and consumer and lifestyle media. So we don't actually focus on other industries. We're very focused on consumer brands, especially mission-backed. 

A lot of our businesses are small, like SMBs, women-founded, minority-owned, you name it. So I think we cover most of the product categories. So food and bed, home goods, beauty, fashion. You name it, pets, parenting, kids, all those great categories. And it's really supposed to be a place for you to learn, even if like, again, you have no experience doing PR, like you're going to get onboarded and we're going to help you throughout the process. We'll get you started. We'll even generate and show you some pitches you can write, help you create a media list and collection. 

And then once you're there, I think the true beauty of it that we built is that once you're there, you're now discoverable by journalists. It's like you are when you're looking for a certain product or brand or founder to talk to. You're now in this very discoverable curated network that they come to content and products to check out for their articles. 

So we really market the brands that we work with because we know it's hard. Just to do 100% outbound, that takes a lot of time. It's a lot of effort. So I think we're kind of acting like your publicist in the background that's out there really pitching you and getting you in front of these media. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Now, obviously, something like this, there might be an investment involved. How does this look? Is there a free version self-service or is it all paid? What should I expect? 

Michelle Songy

Yeah. We do have some free tools. Creating a media kit and press kit on our site is free. We're on the Shopify platform too, app site, app marketplace. So you can find us on there. You can even just start creating that press and media kit, which is nice to have. It outlines a lot of things that a journalist might ask or need to know quickly and get that information in one easily digestible page for them. 

So I think that's what you need to get started. Anyways, we also have tools like we have a press release like AI generator, pitch generators. But then once you want to be on our network, discoverable, that is a cost and it ranges anywhere from  $4.99 which is more self-serve. And then we have some packages that are like 1,000, 2,000 if you need an account manager or extra a little bit more managed services. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. That's amazing. Now, is there anything I didn't ask you about Michelle that you want to share with our audience? 

Michelle Songy

Yeah, no. I know there are so many platforms that everyone's using out there. And it can feel like when you're, especially when you're starting an econ brand. It's like, “Okay, now I have my Shopify, but now I need like 50 other platforms to get going.” And I think a part of it is like, yeah, you need to get started on working on your top of the funnel. 

You need to be able to know if someone hits your site, how are you going to get them back and convert them, collect their email, and really convert them back. So the only thing I'd say is I never want people to think you have to wait till you're like Series A or something to start doing PR. I think getting started early is good. But you also want to make sure you have some other systems and processes set up in your tech stack and knowledge of what to do. 

Just because a lot of PR, can be a lot of top of the funnel that's coming to you. So you really need to know and be able to nurture and manage them. Whether that's through Google retargeting or some exciting new feature you have to capture the customer and bring them in. But also just looking at your conversion, too, will be important. 

But yeah, we love getting started with brands as soon as  they have some sales. You've proven market fit. And we like asking a lot of those questions just to learn more about what you are doing. What's working? What's not? And see if brands are really ready for it. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Now, again, if I'm listening to this, where should I go to learn more? 

Michelle Songy

PressHook.com. 

Chase Clymer

Awesome. We'll link to that in the show notes. Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show today. 

Michelle Songy

Oh, thank you so much, Chase. Thanks so much.