Tis the season for getting together! I just attended my second Friendsgivings last night. This one was extra special because so many brilliant minds from the local design community were there. One friend mentioned that she reads our newsletter regularly and really appreciates what we surface and share. My little heart was truly touched, I was gifted another thing to be thankful for.

As we go into this blissfully short week I am reminded to tell folks when their work or their words make an impact on me, and as you all go into your big celebrations I encourage you to do the same!

Cheers, Nora

Now, on to our monthly resources and tips!

Show, Don't Tell

Tips to read the media like a publicist: A Design Milk Case Study

One of the first pieces of advice we give designers, brands, and businesses who want to pitch their work is to actually read the publications you want to pitch. That said, how you read is just as important as what you read. Here we review a feature our sister company, Wolf PR, secured for Sabai, a sustainable DTC sofa company. You’ll learn what reading the media looks like from a PR perspective. You can use the same techniques to research where your work fits and where you want to pitch.

Good Links Round Up

1. Gmail templates, the golden bullet for PR outreach.
If you are tired of writing the same email over and over again, or copying and pasting the content into new ones, you seriously need to learn how to create plug-and-play email templates. This guide details exactly how to create templates in Gmail, with simple and easy steps that won’t take much of your time.

2. Clients are always right! Except when they are not.
This column is focused on interior designers (a custom rug gone wrong) but I think the takeaways are great for anyone dealing with a tricky client.

3. Don't get jealous, get stalking.
We are huge advocates of doing research to build your PR, content, and marketing strategy. And what we call research you may call stalking :) There's a great section in this newsletter from Demand Curve all about how to copy stalk on Instagram.

4. Build it once, use it many times.
We love repurposing content. This video from Shine With Natasha goes through 3 steps to help you decide what content to repurpose and how to do it in a way that feels fresh.

5. Improve your email marketing
Email marketing is one of the best ways to make money as an eCommerce business, especially since you can do so on autopilot. BUT… the only way to truly be successful with email marketing is to consistently test to improve your results overall. Jessica from eCommerce Badassery goes over the 7 main elements to test in your email marketing, including how to execute these tests and identify the winners.

Wolf Craft PR Tip

PR tip- Keep your eyes out for Pantone's color of the year announcement

If what You've probably noticed that around this time every year Pantone announces the Color of the Year for the upcoming year. While we can't begin to explain the *why* behind these yearly selections, what we can tell you is that they're a big PR opportunity. A quick Google search will reveal many round-ups of products, gifts, décor items, and spaces that incorporate the yearly Pantone selection.

Keep the Pantone color announcement on your radar every year and be prepared to respond quickly to 2023's announcement, who knows you may have a product that is the same color as whatever Pantone decides, and you may have a quick PR win!

Gift Guide Wins

We recently received an amazing email from Amy, one of our Holiday Gift Guide Course participants, who wrote:
"I‘ve been featured in 2 gift guides so far this season for short lead publications. I pitched about 20 guides so far. It was nice to have a system to find the calls for gift guides and have a template ready to go that I could then customize for each editor as needed.
Anyway, just wanted to say thank you for the course and for all the follow up. I started small this year, but I’m excited to try more approaches for upcoming holidays like Mother’s Day and next holiday season."

We love this because it shows you can start small and still get a good system going.

We're going to be doing a flash sale starting on Friday and lasting for a week on the How To Pitch For Holiday Gift Guides course so keep your eyes open for emails from us with more info about that.

For most businesses that sell product, the holidays is when they make at least 50% of their profits for the year. I can't think of a better time to invest in your business and get those gift guides working for you!

Work With Us!

If you want to get really good at telling your business' story, we can help!

-Tweak and Edit- for when you need a critically constructive second set of eyeballs to look at what you're doing and tell you exactly what to fix, and then show you best-in-show examples to help you get there. We're so happy to say that people LOVE this service and find a lot of value.

-1-1 sessions- for when you want to learn how to tighten up your business and pitch it to the media yourself, and you want guidance informed by 15+ years of experience and someone to hold you accountable.

-List building- for when you want a fully customized media list built to fit your specific needs and timing as it involves launches and other company initiatives- AND you want it to include suggestions for press materials, stories to develop, order of operations for embargos and/or exclusives, and other activities for the biggest media impact.

and finally

-How to Pitch For Holiday Gift Guides- for when you want to truly knock it out of the park with holiday gift guide pitching, but also secretly learn how to pitch for all the other year round holidays as well.

Thanks for giving us some time in your inbox! If you have any questions send us a note, we'll always reply.

Cheers,
Nora & Kirsten

PS - If you liked the newsletter, we’d be so happy if you shared it with others who might find it useful. Anyone new can subscribe here.

sustainable DTC sofa company local design community many brilliant minds gift guide wins

Wolf Craft - Thankful for gift guide wins!

Show, Don't Tell

Good Links Round Up

Wolf Craft PR Tip

Gift Guide Wins

Work With Us!

Key phrases

Older messages

Your PR questions answered - edition #7

How to write subject lines editors will open, and a little T+E recap

Your PR questions answered - edition #6

Up your PR game tomorrow

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