Why Digital PR Matters to Founders | James Dooley ft Ben Nicholls, Peter Jones & Paul Truscott

James Dooley: Why entrepreneurs should be using digital PR. Today I'm joined with Ben Nicholls, the founder of JamPrime and Jam Press, Paul David Truscott, and Peter Victor Jones. So Ben, I'm going to start with you. Why should an entrepreneur be looking to be using a digital PR campaign?

Ben Nicholls: I think, you know, there's lots, lots of different reasons why we find that entrepreneurs come to us to use our digital PR service. Um, I think getting their, their brand name into the press, getting their, their name into the press as founders really helps with a lot of aspects of, of growing a business generally. It can help reduce, you know, the cost of sales. It can help you get in front of new audiences. It can help you explain your products to audiences. And it's just a really great way to showcase why you and your business is, is a really great business. Like, the, the sort of, um, titles that we, we tend to work with and distribute our stories to don't just write about anybody. So, you know, they're really picking the cream of the crop. They really want to cover businesses that are doing really interesting things and are really sort of, like, important to the, to the, to the business sphere. I think getting your name mentioned by this, by these sort of titles really shows that you're doing a great job in whatever it is that you are doing and, um, will make people more trustworthy of you and your business in general.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Anyone who's listening to this that's an entrepreneur that might be looking for a Knowledge Panel, we have a whole episode talking about digital PR can increase the chances of you getting a Knowledge Panel or can strengthen your Knowledge Panel. But to expand upon it just a little bit very briefly, check out the whole episode in the description on it about how digital PR can help generate Knowledge Panels. But Paul, just very briefly explain why entrepreneurs that's doing digital PR, it's a great way to strengthen their KGM ID and for them to get a Google Knowledge Panel.

Paul David Truscott: It all comes down to corroborate... Third-party corroboration. So by third party, we mean some kind of source that you don't directly control. Okay? Because Google wants to see other people are saying good things about you, not you. Anyone can say good things about themselves and their brand. It doesn't mean much to Google beyond a certain point. I always think of it like a set of weighing scales. You can put as much weight on the first and second party. Those are things that you have control over. You can't put any weight directly on the third-party corroboration, and that's the one that Google weighs the, the heaviest. Well, the publications that Ben can get you into, they're heavyweights, right? So, you're putting a massive weight on the other side of that set of scales. It's huge. And that's what you need to be doing if you want to strengthen your KGM ID and pop that Knowledge Panel so that everyone sees who you are and what you do.

James Dooley: Peter, me and you had a long discussion in Kuşadası and we had... We was talking about the different pots of money that businesses need or people need to be investing for the future of their career. We was talking about things like brand building and we was talking about obviously building the websites, and there's lots of other pots of money, like PPC pot of money, ORM pot of money and stuff like that. But with regards to you as an entrepreneur yourself, you've invested so much money in attending masterminds, you've put a lot of money into brand building for yourself. Where do you see anyone that says, like, if we say, look, in, in our opinion, you should be spending £20,000 on a digital PR campaign, which might be over two, three or even four months, for you as an entrepreneur to get your name out there in these trusted sources. How important is that investment into that business owner and that entrepreneur to be looking for the trusted sources with a digital PR campaign to set those foundations in place?

Peter Victor Jones: Yeah. So, it lays the... The investment needs to be looked at as, like, a long-term approach. So you might put 20 grand in over six months, say, to build your presence online. But then for years to come, whenever someone searches your name because they're considering doing business with you or they search about your company and your Knowledge Panel pops, there's the return on investment on that investment that you've put in your digital PR campaigns to start with, um, is almost uncountable. You know, it just goes on forever.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, for me, when sometimes you're investing in a brand, if you're thinking of selling the brand, there's times I'm like, should I put that much money into it because I'm going to sell it at some point? And is it adding value to the, the, the brand and the business? Like, is all this brand building going to add value to the business? But the point is I'm never going to sell myself. Do you know what I mean? So, I'm always going to be James Dooley, the entrepreneur from the UK. So therefore, I need to be making certain that I'm doing that brand building exercise. Ben, back to you. An entrepreneur comes to you and they get... And you give them a price and you say it's £8,000 for a digital PR campaign for them to go and run with it. How many people think that it's expensive or, or do they... Does a lot of them have the right mindset? Like on a previous episode, you mentioned the US, they seem to understand it a lot more than the UK. Why do you think US entrepreneurs versus UK entrepreneurs, they seem to get that they need to invest money in themselves and, and in their career versus a UK entrepreneur that seems to be a little bit more frugal?

Ben Nicholls: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think, you know, American businesses, there's a lot more of them to begin with as it is. There's a lot more competition, and I think to really set yourself aside in your market, you really want to be the one that's the most seen, the most visible. So I think, you know, Americans really understand that. You know, they're... They do, you know, and it's been drummed into them from a very young age as well, Americans, to promote themselves, to promote their work they're doing, and they take full advantage. You know, they're... They want to be the best. They want to be the, the market leader, the niche leader, and they know that PR helps them to, to do that. So I think, you know, for them, I think you see different sort of sectors of, of entrepreneur coming to us. And I think usually when a, when a, a business person has got their sales sorted and they've got regular income and they're comfortable with the operations of the business, then they say, you know, I'm going to look at how else I can make this whole thing grow a lot quicker. And usually building a brand, you know, building a brand halo across all of your business, whether that be your personal brand and your business brand, is a really strong way to do it. So yeah.

James Dooley: Yeah. I mean, for me personally, anyone who's listening to this that's an entrepreneur, I'm also an entrepreneur and I spend a lot of money when it comes to digital PR. I, I purposely do not put it in a pot of money. I love tracking my KPIs, my key performance indicators of what return on investment am I going to get. However, when I'm doing brand building, I do not put KPIs in place with regards to return on investment. It's a long-term play of what I'm trying to do and I invest a lot of money as an entrepreneur into digital PR. However, one thing that I would say, right, is that ever since I've started to run the digital PR, I actually think I'm a net profit just from leads I've actually generated from people reaching out. Ben, you did one within JamPrime on the Manchester Evening News and it went semi-viral, and we had seven different inquiries that we know of. So, there's probably a lot more. We couldn't attribute certain leads that came through, and they came through from that one campaign of what you did from the Manchester Evening News article that went semi-viral, and we got the inquiries through and converted a few. And it, and we got way more lifetime value profit than what the actual digital PR campaign actually cost. And that was just for me as being an entrepreneur. Nothing to do with the businesses. It increased brand search demand. There were so many different things that it actually benefited from. But the other big part was it strengthened up my KGM ID. It strengthened up my Knowledge Panel. I've now wrapped that in my Wikidata. I've now got it in my sameAs schema on my entity home. So there's so many benefits from an entrepreneur to be looking to do a digital PR campaign for long-term growth. Don't think about the return on investment, even though I did get it and I'm saying that I got it. Just think of it as being brand building long term. That could be the difference between you getting that big investment or your new business partner who comes and looks at you and goes, "Wow, they've got a nice reputable online presence. Okay, I'll do business with them." There's so many doors that it opens when you do a good digital PR campaign for you as being entrepreneurs. Ben, Paul, Peter, thank you very much.