PR For CPG Brands + Joyful Co PR Audit

Jordan Buckner: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. For today's conversation, I want to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is public relations or PR for CPG brands. I think it's something that a lot of people have been interested in, but don't fully understand the power of what it can do for your brand. There's a lot of opportunities and misconceptions on what it is and what it isn't.

So for today, I've invited Heather Holmes, who is the founder of Publicity for Good, who does PR for tons of CPG brands and other companies as well, to really break down How the best use PR to support your efforts. And at the same time, we're also going to do a little bit of a live strategy session for JoyfulCo, my curated gifting brand as well.

Heather, welcome. 

Heather Holmes: So excited to be here, but as you know, I'm so passionate about being a mom. I have a two and a half year old, a one and a half year old and a baby. And I've seen firsthand how getting in the media. I built my [00:01:00] legacy. I'll go to trade shows. People are like, how are the kids? Do you still have the chickens?

Are you still living in the Airstream? So I love PR because it's helping you stand out. It's sharing your heart. It's showing your personal story. Every time I'm in the media, I feel more connected to my why. And I have seen sales come in from stepping into. Being in the media. So I'm really excited to be here.

Jordan Buckner: Absolutely love it. And I think that's a good place to start. So as you've been doing this now, how do you define like what public relations is in the modern sense for like CPG brands? Like how it should it be thought of and what can it do for you? 

Heather Holmes: So PR will really help build out your brand story and help you build your community and connect you to your customers.

That's the first thing. If you have a product, you're able to get products in the hands of your consumers. They fall in love with your brand and then from there it can convert to a sale. What is so powerful though is local media. [00:02:00] So if you have media in your local market, I have seen time and time again, Founders go on air example, an amazing cookie company went on spectrum.

One news didn't have any retailers, just e commerce. And because of their amazing story started the company for her daughter, her daughter had diabetes. She made 12, 000. So there's so many miracles happening. And then when you integrate. Page traffic and digital marketing with PR, meaning you take a local TV segment, you run paid traffic to it.

It's lowering the cost of acquiring a customer. When we think about publicity, I typically say start local. Of course, industry, industry press matters to get your name on the map. Whenever you get that first retailer, you need to let all the trade press know. I can tell you one of my favorite brands, Char Gluten Free expanded into public.

They're an international brand. Because of all the industry press that we got announcing Publix expansion, Publix was over the moon, [00:03:00] so grateful and are really excited to meet with them in January. So it's telling your story. And then as you scale to other markets, it's looking at, well, what are we doing to support our local retailers?

And then big picture, if you're just a direct to consumer brand, PR drives traffic to your website as referral traffic. It also drives traffic to Amazon. The more traffic you drive to Amazon, the more Amazon will reward you. And again, people want to know your why, your story. Are you purpose driven? Why are you different?

It's storytelling and every podcast will provide 30 pieces of content. So if you're the founder, who's always behind the scenes or making sure product is being made or running your team. Why not do one TV segment and then have your team create 30 different reel. And again, kind of back full circle, we're seeing sales, we're seeing brands that literally are only 84%.

It reminds me in 16 months, flying embers owned 84 [00:04:00] percent of all of the category for hard kombucha, but it was consistency, local, national blogs. And you know, this from your experience. PR is a marathon, not a sprint. So you will have more success when you stick with it consistently instead of doing what most brands do is they launch a new product, they launch it, they put it on the wire, and then it goes dead.

What I love and I'm passionate about is building industry leaders and that consistency month over month. 

Jordan Buckner: And I think what I love is that you're able to connect the brand storytelling elements, which are really powerful as part of PR with the bottom line as well. Like ultimately it should in some, you know, hopefully in some way it can help drive sales and drive customers, whether that's directly or indirectly.

But I think there is that, as you mentioned, that misconception that it's not a Google or Meta ad where you're tracking like, okay, this is our click, so this is our conversion rate to customers, the transactions don't always [00:05:00] happen that directly, and it's a very wide industry in terms of the way you can get that messaging out there, and so maybe you can talk a little bit about the different, Forms of PR where it lives between TV, news, industry, publications, podcasts.

Like what are the different mediums out there? 

Heather Holmes: Yeah. So if I was a founder listening and I had a CPG brand, I first would start with media where I live. So if you're in a bigger city or a city that has local TV, radio, and print, I would start there because local media wants to have on local stories.

Hero's journey. You could also do something for Mother's Day. You've been doing a lot of segments for the holidays and why your product is incredible and why Joyful Quote is incredible. It's intentional, right? You're representing all these brands that need to be represented. So I'd start local, then local, I would look at, well, what's the next city?

If you're in Asheville, then go to Charlotte. You can own the state with your story. Simultaneously, I love podcasts. I heard podcasts are showing a high [00:06:00] rate of conversion to sale. They may have a smaller listenership or base, but there's a very loyal community. So I would do podcasts. And then I would always do industry press.

So typically industry press will feature a new product or flavor. I work with a lot of companies that have had a rebrand. That's harder to get new news around. The media always says, well, what's new and what's the new product and or Jordan reach out to me when you have a new product. So typically when you have a new flavor, a new skew, that's when you get a lot of industry news.

And in addition, all of the trade press. BevNet, Progressive Grocer, Nosh, a lot of them have a place where you can write a news release and upload it and they will run it for you for free. In addition, when you become a member, example, for Foodbevy, I know as well, there's opportunities to get promoted for new launches as well.

So I do think being a part of a community is essential. In addition, Industry Press. As an editorial calendar. So in 2025, you can go onto the website and click media [00:07:00] kit and the media kit is connected to women's journal men's health, all the big publication, but it tells you when they're doing certain stories or product review.

Now, typically, you need to be 90 days ahead of the game for pitching. So already today it's December. We're already working on Valentine's day gift guides and probably already be on a January. We're already working on mother's day gift guides as well. So you have to be ahead of the game. And the last piece I would say is a lot of the media members want to see an affiliate program.

You don't need to have it, but if you're on Amazon, a lot of the bigger publications will link to. Your website with like an a win and have the affiliate program and or Amazon. And if you would go to New York city and go into Condé Nast or any of the big publications, there's an editorial department and e commerce department.

And if I'm going to be writing a roundup of my favorite protein bars, typically eight of the 10 products need to have an affiliate link. [00:08:00] So it's not black and white. For example, we've gotten really big features in some publications, but because they love the product or the story, they would include it.

So I'm not saying there's not a chance of national media, and I'm not saying you have to have an affiliate program, but as you're planning, you're planning your goals. That's where you need to get and have an affiliate program to integrate into your PR. 

Jordan Buckner: That makes a lot of sense, and it gets very in depth, and there's probably a ton more questions and areas, but I would love to use this as an opportunity to explore some of these questions through my business, JoyfulCo.

So, I've been working with your team for a few months now, and they've been able to deliver really good press opportunities, and think that's been really effective. And so I wanted to talk through kind of the strategy behind what we're doing. And if a new brand kind of comes to you for an audit to understand what they should be doing, some of the questions that you might ask them or what they should ask you.

And so I love to kind of walk through that real quick. So for joyful co., for a context to those haven't seen, we sell curated gift [00:09:00] boxes for every occasion. Think mother's day gifts, birthday gifts, holiday gifts and do that through our site and through. Amazon as well and came to Heather really with the brief of understanding.

Like our goal is to reach cost consumers because we're a new brand. No one's ever heard of us and to help build that trust because we also have higher price point gifts and then trying to figure out where we want to start from there, right? Like which mediums, what's our messaging and how we tell that story.

So Heather, what are some of the. questions that you would ask, or you asked me to help figure out that strategy of where to start. 

Heather Holmes: Sure. So I would first say, what are you currently doing for marketing? So that's my first question. What are you doing for marketing? And I'd love to kind of hear from you.

What you're doing for marketing to grow your brand. 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah. So on the marketing side, we have been doing some performance media with Google ads Facebook ads to get in front of people. We're posting organically on social We're starting to do some short form video and then once people are coming to our site we [00:10:00] have email marketing flows, retargeting set up to help build that relationship with them.

And then in the boxes that we are selling, we're also including things like a cart to try to capture the information for customers. So if they, if you send a gift to a friend to get them to come back and purchase a gift as well, since they're doing a little bit of social sharing as well. 

Heather Holmes: Awesome Why,, like in your heart of hearts, like why is Joyful Co. So successful?

And what's so special about it? Like what's the heart, what's the why behind it? What drives you every day? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah. So I think one thing that really drives me is bringing more happiness and joy into people's lives. And I say that kind of like kitschy, but I think it's true, especially in like the world that we're in is like, I always love that feeling of someone like sending me a little gift or a little token and let them know that they're thinking about me.

I feel like the world's become a lot more disconnected virtual. And so it really makes a difference when you receive something like tangible and physical from someone. And I want to help people both [00:11:00] like share that feeling of like thinking about someone else. And make it easier to send a gift because what I found is either, you know, someone really well, you know exactly what they want.

them like a very personalized gift or you're like, I have no what to get them or like what they're going to like. And so joyful co kind of. fills that void of being able to send someone like a really nice present with gourmet food items or gifts that they'll love without having to go over the top to like very personalized that gift.

And then both the person sending it and the person receiving it is very grateful and appreciative of that process. 

Heather Holmes: And then who are your persona is like you know, Sarah, lives in Charlotte. She, does yoga. She buys lemon. She's a mom. She cares about the planet. Her household income is 100, 000.

Like, can you walk me through who your personas are? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, so we have two main personas. We do business gifting and then personal gifting on the business gifting. We're really looking for companies who are typically remote first, have a diverse dispersed workforce, [00:12:00] and they're really trying to help their employees feel appreciated.

And celebrate and connect it to the company when they don't do too many events or have that in person interaction, and so they want to send something meaningful, but also that's going to be like use appreciated isn't just like another throwaway swag gift, and so that's really important to them. Now, a lot of our best customers.

Love that we source our prize from women and underrepresented founders and there's an element of like discovery and something really fun and cool on the personal gifting side. We find our customers are typically higher income, 24 to 54 years old, and they're trying to send a thoughtful, unique gift that makes the recipient feel kind of overjoyed.

 They're thinking about someone, they want to send a birthday gift or a holiday gift, but they're not quite sure like what that person would really love or what they should send. They don't want something like a generic gift, and so they're really looking for something that's exciting and has some storytelling elements behind it as well.

Heather Holmes: Well, where do you want to take your business next year? What are like the [00:13:00] biggest goals for next year for where you want to take JoyfulCo? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, we have very low awareness, so my whole goal is to increase our awareness, increase our customers, to really build our individual and our corporate gifting programs where we're starting to build that trust, we're showing up in trusted resources, like my goal publication would be on Oprah's list, and they're Oprah's favorite things, because I think She's a trusted resource for sending like really great quality gifts.

And I think that's something that is kind of our goal standard where we're looking to be. 

Heather Holmes: What are you going to be doing next year to increase brand awareness? What tactics? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah. So continuing our paid marketing PR is a really big strategy kind of within there just to get our name, the company, kind of my face and voice out there and talking about the brand more so that we can show up in those places and opportunities that people are looking for gifts.

I think that's one area that we're looking to, we're continuing to look for opportunities so that when people are thinking about gift giving to be something that's top of mind. Yeah. 

Heather Holmes: How did [00:14:00] you know it was time to do PR? Like, what was it, what did you see, what did you hear, like, what made you say, yes, I need to do this?

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, I think in curating the gifts, like my wife, who's co founded the company with me, she's really great at gift giving. One thing that, I realize it's a little bit more challenging. It's like we're a new company. We don't have a the authority, I think, necessarily, if I'm being honest, of like a famous curation company or a gifting company to say like, Hey, we curated gifts for Oprah for 10 years or something like that, where people are like, Oh, there's a reason to trust them.

And so I think what we're doing is proving One customer, one day at a time that we're building that authority and like giving out gifts and having really great experiences and actually delivering on the joy that we're promising. And so I think PR helps to share those stories behind the brand. So it's more than just the products.

Heather Holmes: I love that. And then walking through next year, promotions, themes. Certain gifting moments you're going to take advantage of Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, back to school, like, what does that [00:15:00] look like for you? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, so we found that our key gifting moments are Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas holiday with some others kind of evergreen opportunities sprinkled in between.

Get well soon gifts, thank you gifts, welcome gifts for new team members and birthdays. And so our goal is really to focus our customer acquisition on those key gifting holidays. So we bring people into our community of givers and then we can. Reach them and say, Hey, is someone's birthday coming up that you care about to to share those opportunities to send other guests throughout the year.

Heather Holmes: I love that. , I mean, of course, you know, we're publicity for good and always ask clients on client calls. How are you giving back or how is joyful co making a difference? And something I'm really passionate about is helping brands. Develop that whether it's 1 percent or, you know, during a certain campaign donating to a local battered women's shelter or any of those things.

Any ideas that you and your wife or causes that you're passionate about could quickly kind of brainstorm ideas. I love it. Example, one of my favorite purpose driven [00:16:00] cocktail brand, Mission Cocktails. They have a really good product, but 5 percent of all proceeds go to food banks in California.

They're featured in Forbes, Fox, like iHeartMedia, the product's good, but they have a good story, and of course, when you have a good story, we're able to get more publicity, but are there any causes or things that, you know, you guys care about? 

Jordan Buckner: There definitely are, you know, I think One thing that we champion currently are sourcing all our products from women and underrepresented founders.

But I do love the idea of continuing to go more and have a give back program that for the causes that we want to support. And I think what's interesting is to consider, so do we do that? Evergreen or like with one organization or for each big occasion, we pick a relevant cause to support that specific to that event, right?

And so something specific for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, I think that could be really interesting. 

Heather Holmes: A lot of my experience, I mean, you know, I've worked with over 300 CPG brands, but I manage cause marketing for Canary Bread. And a lot of it was campaign based, so imagine if you guys teamed up for [00:17:00] Mother's Day with a cause that's in alignment with JoyfulCo.

Why I love it is now you have another marketing arm promoting JoyfulCo to their list Instagram account and there's an army of people where it's like reciprocity, you don't have to pay. Something to consider that I always love to help incorporate in the strategy itself. And then last. So those are all the questions that I typically ask to see a big picture of where you want to take the business, because then what we do is we take that and we build on a strategic plan, meaning we incorporate the gifting season.

We incorporate Father's Day. I know you're a father. We incorporate that into our pitching. We incorporate the personas to go after the different media outlets that. Your consumer bias. So that's really the strategy behind it. In addition to news jockeying. So if certain topics happen in the news we utilize those.

And then lastly, typically if you're traveling, we want to know, because we can reach out to local media to see if, you know, you can do a segment. 

Jordan Buckner: No, that'd be really cool. I like that. In terms of kind of getting joyful [00:18:00] co out there, what do you think are the best ways of telling those stories? Is it through.

Video and like TV news. Do you think it's showing up in like every holiday gift guide kind of where should that focus be to deliver the best impact? 

Heather Holmes: So I think it's. consistently it is doing gift guides and it is doing TV. I mean, let me ask you, you did that segment on NBC. Like, , how was it?

Did you enjoy it? Like, what was that like for you? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, so we did an interview about our gifts on NBC. I think it was really great. It was a fun experience. Where, We need to do next. I think that just aired the week, the week, by the week ago when we were recording. 

Heather Holmes: I know where you're going to go. I looked at your website and the logo is not there yet.

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, no, like using the logo, using like breaking that into reels because the long video, we're doing a lot of talking and pitching and then breaking that into media that we continue to use of being able to share that out to help as a additional promotion piece. 

Heather Holmes: Yeah. And the power is you take that TV clip and then you add it into your targeting.

It should lower the cost of acquiring a customer and say you do a [00:19:00] segment in Indianapolis, take the raw clip and then go to the Indianapolis market. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, like that's my favorite anchor. So that's really the power. And part of like when we work with you, we always are having conversations of how are you integrating our publicity into your marketing.

I know when I managed a really successful entrepreneur in the beverages based LinkedIn account, all the press he posted on his LinkedIn page, and it helped him close deals, it was just consistently, wow, they're featured here, they're featured here. So, to me, it's very 360, and it's a marathon, not a sprint, and that we want to build Joyful Co to be like, You know, everyone knows joyful Co.

Everyone buys free from you. It's all about the impact. It's all about the mission. You are a household name.

Jordan Buckner: I think that's so incredibly helpful to be able to reuse those clips. I think where I would love to develop is a operating process or SOP for like, when we get those media clips, like this is what we create from it. Do you have like a list of the top ways of kind of breaking down that into different content?

Like if we have a. Three [00:20:00] minute, five minute news TV segment. How should we be thinking about breaking that down? 

Heather Holmes: Yeah. So we first think stage one. The first stage is announcing to your followers, so grateful. I'm going to be on NDC next week. So you literally take content of yourself, promote it, teasers.

A lot of times I've said to my followers, Hey, I'm on TV. What should I wear? That's the first thing. Okay. The second thing is if you're in studio. You get a lot of content. You get photos with the anchors, you get video reels, you get photos, the NBC CBS logo, that's the second part. The third part is getting a raw clip for your reel.

I've seen clients increase Instagram engagement by 60%, because like that's like scroll stopping, like wow, Jordan's on TV. Most brands are hit it and quit it, put it on the wire and be done. Or they're just doing one off articles. They don't want it. Like they're thinking so small versus like building a, like internationally known, like household name that it's the [00:21:00] consistency piece.

It then integrating the logo onto your website and starting a press page. It's posting it on every social media channel. It's integrating it into your e news. You utilize this segment to integrate into business development. So you send it to an investor, you send it to a retailer. Hey, wanted to show you, I just did this segment in Atlanta.

Thought you'd love to see it. I know the Atlanta market matters to you. And then lastly, it's continuously integrating that content into your marketing and that you can still use clips. From years ago into your marketing. 

Jordan Buckner: I love those suggestions. I think there's so much that we are doing that's been effective and and working.

And I think like you mentioned, being on the gift guides showing up in TV and then using all of that content really because additional content that is supported and trusted by other third parties. It's not just you talking about yourself, right? It's working with others to share about your story and have those conversations.

And I think [00:22:00] that's really, really helpful. Heather, thanks so much for like talking through all these questions with me. 

Heather Holmes: I literally want to do this until I'm 110. Like, a lot of people maybe start in PR and they fall out of love with it, but like, this is my mission, like, at PFG Publicity for Good, you know, we're now a full time team of 50, and like, we are committed to be the number one purpose driven PR firm for CPG brands.

You know, too, I'm so passionate about making PR accessible. So we're going to have something exciting available in the new year for CPG brands. But I've seen getting in the media changed people's lives. I've personally like have always been re reconnected to my why. Like, even if I don't get a sale from it, like anytime I get asked my story and about my product PR, like my energy is just way better than just being behind the computer.

So. I see so many miracles, people reaching their customers, building their community from getting in the media. And yeah, like I think we're both aligned and that we want to make a difference. We want to build a big brand and just help cool [00:23:00] people along the way. I 

Jordan Buckner: love that and so much fun and you know, I think what's really great too is that, you know, you offer the help brands as well.

So anyone listening to this, you can book a free consultation call with Heather to help map out your Q1 strategy or your strategy anytime throughout the year. And so we're going to be dropping the link in the show notes. So definitely take advantage of that. And then, so If you want an audit for your brand of your PR strategy, we're actually going to be hosting a webinar together.

So the link's going to be in the show notes, but we're going to select five or six brands to talk through your PR strategy. Heather can ask these same types of questions and more to get into how to help build out your strategy. So I definitely encourage you to join for that. The link to register will be in the show notes and we will see you on there.

Heather. Thanks so much again. 

Heather Holmes: Yeah, thank you