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Welcome to Empowering Women in Chiropractic show. My name is Dr. Nathalie Beauchamp. I’m one of the cohost, thank you so much to ChiroSecure for putting on these amazing shows where we can have guests or share pearls about what’s going on in our practices and in our lives. So we can, you know, upscale our personal, uh, practices, but also share it with others. So super excited today to have a guest. Her name is Christie Christina Daves, and she is a PR strategist. Uh, Christina has written two best-selling books. One of them is a hundred plus affordable ways to easily create a buzz. And the other one, and it’s right behind her is the, do it yourself guide to a free publicity. So hi Christina.
Hi, Natalie. So fun to be here.
Yeah, super excited. And one thing that I didn’t completely re, um, you know, talk about in your bio, you’ve been in the media a thousand times. So you have to tell us, uh, your story, Christina, how did all of this start?
Yeah. And it’s super important, you know, when you hear the story that I walk your walk every day, so I’m really doing this stuff in my business, but I invented a product in 2010. I had broken my foot, uh, which I’m sure a lot of chiropractors are helping people with the therapy after that. Um, and I broke my foot and I was one of those big, awful boots, you know, the big black ugly boot. And we were headed to New York city. So I’m on the train Googling, anything that I could ship to my hotel to make this look better. And there was nothing on the market. So ding, ding, ding, you know, entrepreneurial light bulbs go off and I invented a fashion line for them and everybody loved it. And everybody thought it was a great idea. Uh, but my problem was I had invented a whole new space in the marketplace.
You know, nobody knew that they needed to decorate their medical boots. So I had to teach the world, uh, and I had hired somebody as a consultant and he really did me wrong and he took all my money and did nothing. So I’m dead broke. My house is mortgaged. I have 50,000 pieces of inventory sitting in a warehouse and I’m like, Oh crap. Now what do I do? So I literally went to the library, the real library, where there are books. And I read about PR and publicity. And I started and I made a lot of mistakes when I started. And then I started to figure things out that worked. And in my first year of business, I was in over 50 media outlets, including Steve Harvey, Dr. Oz Fox, a post, and to date, I’ve been in over a thousand because I know what that means for both that business and this business that I’m in. Now, when you get publicity, people find you, it gives you authority. It gives you credibility and peop people love to work with the famous person.
Mm that’s awesome. So today, uh, Christina, what I’d like you to talk about is how, as a chiropractor in a small community, we can become the go-to expert because, uh, we can listen to your story. And we know about book authors and, you know, it’s more of a global run international, uh, kind of, uh, thing, because you’re not restricted to your geographic location. So I think when we hear PR, you know, and in our mind, you’re like, okay, how, uh, how am I going to do this? So rake it down for us. What are the most important things to think about, uh, when it comes to getting some exposure, because there’s a big difference between PR and advertising, uh, and one is way more powerful than the other, right,
Right. Advertising you pay for. And it’s important. I’m not saying don’t advertise. It’s a very important part of your business, but advertising your, putting the message out, you’re telling the world what you want them to hear. And everybody knows what an ad is, which is fine. Again, it’s okay. You’re letting people know about you, but PR is, is somebody else telling the world how great you are, they call it third-party credibility. So that’s why I get super passionate about it because it’s so much more credible. If a journalist is quoting you or talking about you, your business, your specialties, then if you talk about it, um, so you asked me how, and one of the easiest things you can do is, is what they call news jacking. You know, what’s going on in the world right now that you, as a chiropractor can talk about.
And, and a lot of that is COVID still co I’ve never seen anything like this, just this all consuming in the news. But especially with everybody working from home as chiropractors, you know, what does it mean? Here’s a perfect example. I’m here today, doing this. We joke about, you know, the zoom calls are from here up. I’m sitting in my dining room chair because it’s shorter. I can get all my lighting, right. And my, you know, my camera, right? Probably not the best for my posture, my back, my shoulders, uh, you know, what are people doing at home? I know the kids are laying in bed, doing class. I was with my niece and nephew last night, they’re 15 and 18. They could go back to school today. They’re like, why? You know, we can stay in our pajamas and do school in bed. So these are the things you all could be pitching your local media, whether it’s television or print, radio, anything talking about what a year of being home has done to our bodies. And as chiropractors, as experts in the industry, you all know the body here are some tips. So, you know, your, you don’t your back. Doesn’t get thrown out your shoulders, how you keep your posture. Good. You know, here are five things you should be doing, working from home to protect your, your body. Yeah.
And you’re right, that, you know, we can all come at it from a different angle because we all have different kinds of specialty. And I think hooks are super duper important, right? Because the titles has to be the title of your pitches. Uh, you know, cause sometime you can make more than one D have to be catchy. So can you walk through your reasoning when let’s say, cause I know you’ve worked with many doctors, uh, what’s your thought process? When you work with a client to say, Hey, let’s look at it this way and let’s approach it this way and let’s pitch it this way.
Right? So I use a three step approach, be newsworthy, create great hooks and find the right journalist. So obviously you all need to find who covers medical stories. So that’s easy. That’s simple research should be able to do that. I gave you an idea for newsworthy, which is news jacking, and then the hook. How do you get the journalist to open that email? Some journalists at national publications, national, you know, TV shows. They might get a thousand emails before 12 o’clock before noon, you know, half their day is a thousand emails. How do you stand out from that sea of emails? And part of that is the hook. So what’s really important is, is to hone in on that. And I, for example, I’m not a good copywriter. I’m not, I’ve gotten better as time goes on, but figuring out what hooks are, look at a magazine cover.
That’s a hook. Think about where we buy magazines in the grocery store. It’s an impulse purchase. You don’t have time. Oh, here’s an article. Let me read it. Okay. Now I’m going to buy the magazine. You’re buying a magazine based on what’s on the front of that. That’s a hook. So think of your media pitches in terms of that, what is that hook? That’s going to get the journalist to say, I’ve got to see what they’re talking about. You know, and maybe it’s something, you know, um, Y Y virtual school means your kids won’t be walking when they’re 20. I don’t know drama. You know, something that, if that’s true, don’t I hate clickbait. Don’t do anything like that. Um, but you all know what, for example, this COVID stuff, what it’s doing to our body. So think about one thing it’s doing and how do you turn that into a four or five word subject line. That’s going to get that journalists to be like, Oh my gosh, you’re right. We’re all home. This is a great story. It’s beneficial to our audience, which is so important value, value, value. So by using the COVID stories, whether, again, it’s your neck, your back, your legs. If you’re
Exercising, not exercising, there’s so many topics you could come up with, but hook them in and then you get them to read that great newsworthy story. And you found the right person. And that’s the formula for the perfect pitch. Oh, I don’t know if I am muted. I can’t hear Natalie. Okay. I can’t hear, I’m going to go reset Christina. We lost Natalie sound. If you can pick up. Okay. I thought it was me. Yeah. Good. I’ll I can talk about this all day. Um, so again, so that’s kind of the formula. So I gave you one idea about COVID, uh, October is national chiropractic month, which you all of course know this. So think about things that you market your business with during October, those are the same kinds of things that you can pitch the media about. That is an optimal time for you all to be pitching because that’s news jacking, that’s newsworthy, that’s what’s happening, um, seasonal things, you know what happens?
We’re talking, Natalie and I were speaking before, before we lost her, but how beautiful the snow is, where she is. And she was going to go take a walk in the morning. And I know that, you know, often now that we’ve had snow I’m instead of walking in my exercise shoes, I’m walking in my snow boots. Does that do something? You know, what, what impact does it have? So if you’re getting ready to have, you know, snowy weather, you could pitch a story that says, Hey, I’d love to share with your audience what they should do to make sure they’re having a safe walk outside in the snow. Something like that.
You guys hear me now? Yes. Perfect. Awesome. Sorry about that. I don’t know what happened. Uh, Christina, what I was going to say is that I’ve noticed, um, in recent years that when I contacted, let’s say, uh, television, especially television, because obviously it’s visual a lot of time. They’re asking what props are you going to have the visual? So now this is pre, uh, pre COVID. Now most of the interviews are done. Uh, remote. Is this something that you see as often now, or it’s, it’s less,
It’s still really helpful television. They don’t like this talking head. Uh, one of my clients is a pediatric dentist and February and Natalie, you were gone. I was just talking about how October is national chiropractic month. February is national
Children’s dental health month. So we got Janell on television and we set our all up, but she had a high top table and she showed like a toothbrush and how the progression of taking care of kids’ teeth. And that she had a little, almost like a little washcloth, like this is how you rub your baby’s gums. And then you go to this toothpaste and then you start with this toothbrush. So it’s definitely more, it’s good to have visuals. And as chiropractors, maybe you hold a pillow or you can be far enough back, you’re laying down or showing an exercise using a ball, a band, different things. But yes, anything visual for television is really important even now, even with zoom or Skype for TV.
Cool. Uh, so your three-step process, uh, Rhonda by us again.
Yeah. You want to be newsworthy, which is news jacking COVID national chiropractic month seasonality the things I was talking about. You want to create a great hook, look at your magazine covers. Those are hooks. And then find that journalist who covers medical type stories.
Now on that one, sometime it can be tricky. And I find once you start building a relationship with one, my goodness, it’s so easy, especially if you always bring good content and they ask you, but sometime I find that, um, the media people, um, it’s strength, they, they, they rotate often and you’ll end up not having, uh, necessarily a contact. So trying to reach them is one thing. Do you have any other platform or ways that we can do some research, especially if we’re local to an area I ne uh, PR uh, strategies that you can share with them.
So I always joke my top secret trick to finding journalists is Google. Uh, it really, Google is amazing. LinkedIn is amazing Twitter. We have so many resources at our fingertips, and it’s important to remember, and I know people are so afraid of pitching the media. And the first time I pitched, I, I remember I called. I was like, um, um, hi, this is, um, um, Christina, David, I know saliva in my mouth. I was horrible. I have since been on television. Many times, you, you learn how to do this, but you know, just look things up, pick up the phone, call the newsroom. If you want to be on TV. They’re lovely. I think in the hundreds of times, I’ve called one time. Someone was kind of nasty to me. I said, Oh, they must just be having a bad day. They need our stories.
They need, like you said, they need the relationships they need to know, Oh my gosh, I’ve got to do this story. I need a chiropractor. I’m calling Natalie. I know she’s good. She’s always around. That’s the other thing, always give your cell phone number and always answer it very important. If you, if you want to be that person, don’t make them go through your front desk at your office. You know, and I always signed my name and I put self and my clients, I make them always put their cell phone number to basically implying, Hey, I’m here for you, 24 seven. If you need someone in the meet, you know, if you need an expert, I’m your person.
Oh, we lost her again. So I’ll just keep on talking. Um, no, but it is not a hard process. And when I talked about people who get scared and, um, if you remember that, that they need us more than we need them. And you think about, I was joke, I’m going to date myself here. But back in the day, our television, we had channel four or five, seven and nine, and we had the Washington post and that was it. And now it’s, we have thousands, probably tons of thousands of media outlets. And everyone’s 24 seven three 65. There is an opportunity for every single person watching to land media this month. That that’s how available this is to you. I say, be confident in what you do, be confident in what, you know, give a really good, valuable story and follow the system. That’s awesome. Can you hear me now? Now we’ve got you back. I just keep talking.
I swear to God. I swear to God. I don’t know if it’s this no. Or, or, uh, the pool that we have here, uh, up North, but, uh, all right. So great information. And, and I think I’m going to segue in close with this, that I think it’s important that, uh, we do it ourselves because it, you know, some people will ask their assistant, uh, you know, and if you have a big campaign, if you have a book launch or something like that. Sure. I think it’s important. And hiring people like you to really help you, if you have a, you know, a really, really specific need, but when it comes to the small daily stuff, I think it’s important to build that relationship. And I can talk firsthand up. I think I had, uh, eight for eight years. I was a, um, uh, a regular on a wellness Wednesday because I’d build a relationship with, uh, one of the, uh, the host who was really into wellness. So if it was not for me to put myself out there, I’m not sure that I would have gotten all this. So, Christina, uh, you have a free guide that you’d like to share with people,
Right? Yep. So you can check it out. Um, it’s captivate and cash in.com forward slash blueprint. And it’s a blueprint. It’s not only what I just went over today, but it’s some extras, you know, how do you get your messaging? Messaging is so important. Um, both for pitching the media and your website and your content. And so download that. It gives you a step-by-step guide of really everything you need to just up level what you’re doing right now.
That’s, that’s awesome. And I think I’m going to challenge that people listening to say, just, just do it. Just, they have a topic, you know, I’m up my standing desk right now. So this is an example with, with posture and, and sleep. People are so stressed out right now. So there’s just so many things that we can do to support health and not necessarily talk about COVID. Cause that’s not a topic that I personally want to cover whatsoever, but what I want to cover is what people can do to stay strong and healthy and how it’s it’s relevant, uh, to them. Some challenging, everyone listening to this to, you know, just sit back, think what are, what’s your expertise? Maybe you, you have a specific niche, uh, and just do a global, we call it Christina. As, as, as doctor, we call the Dr. Google sometime because patients, uh, obviously go and diagnose themselves.
Um, but in your case, it’s the research Google and try to find out who is in your community and give them a good value and show that you have some good content for their listeners or their viewers. And like, like you said, usually they’re, they’re super happy. So thank you so much, uh, Christina, uh, with us, and I apologize for the technical issues we’ve had, we made it work. Uh, like I said, I’m not quite sure. And thanks again to ChiroSecure for putting on these amazing show, to, um, for us to all grow in our practice and how we can also get out there with VR, for example, to reach a bigger audience. So this was Dr. Nathalie Beauchamp, uh, one of the co-hosts for the show, empowering women in chiropractic. Thank you.
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