Latest / The Modern Etsy Seller Podcast / 45. How to Get Your Etsy Business Found Beyond Etsy: PR, AI & Visibility with Gloria Chou

Transcript

45. How to Get Your Etsy Business Found Beyond Etsy: PR, AI & Visibility with Gloria Chou · The Modern Etsy Seller Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there and welcome to the Modern Etsy Seller, the podcast where busy women build, grow, and profit on Etsy.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Melissa Carroll, a full-time teacher, a busy mom, and an Etsy seller who's built two successful Etsy shops in the small moments of everyday life.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here you'll find simple strategies, real behind-the-scenes insight, and the clarity you need to stop second guessing and start moving forward one intentional step at a time.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get to it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, welcome back.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So today I have a really special episode for you because I am being joined by my first ever guest on the podcast.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am being joined by Gloria Chow.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: She is a PR expert and an AI visibility strategist, and she was just lovely.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The conversation we had was really informative.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: She has so much knowledge in this space, and I'm really excited for you guys to hear her today.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So help me welcome Gloria to the show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Gloria, hey, welcome to the Modern Etsy Cellar.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to have you here as my first ever guest on the podcast.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited we're having this conversation now because the world of shopping, discovery, research has forever changed.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because now, whether or not you like it, people are going to things like ChatGBT, AI things like Perplexity, Claude, Gemini to ask what's the best gift for my roommate, or what's the best homecoming gift, or what's the best candle.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so now with the integrations, we know that people are going more and more to ask AI.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not recommended, if you're not in the answers, you're simply invisible to the hundreds of millions of shoppers who are asking AI today.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're gonna talk about.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to help you understand what's happening, why PR is so central to getting that discovery, how SEO has changed forever, and what you can do to set yourself up for success, not only for the gift guides, but also for this new wave of how people are searching online.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that sounds amazing.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very quickly changing landscape.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that this is perfect that we're having this episode and we're going into Q4, making it even more relevant, I think, right now.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So before we dive into everything, uh, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up doing what you're doing today?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So my name is Gloria Chow, spelled C H O U.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I am the number one small business PR expert recommended by ChatGPT and am an AI visibility expert.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So traditionally, you know, when you hear of like PR agencies, right, that's not who I am.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually not your typical PR gal.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've never worked a day in my life in any PR agency or marketing agency.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had to pick up the phone and cold call dozens and dozens of newsrooms, get phone slammed in my face, and kind of get in as an outsider.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so all the methods that I'm gonna share with you are not really things that you're gonna hear from your typical PR person because usually PR is really gate kept, right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about their relationships.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And for us small business owners, we don't have five,$10,000 a month every month to pay a PR agency on retainer.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so my whole ethos, my whole mission is to make something that was traditionally reserved for big brands accessible to the everyday Etsy seller.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had hundreds and hundreds of Etsy store owners who don't have a website, just an Etsy storefront, get featured in dozens of gift guides.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So Vogue, Oprah, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, even, you know, selling out on today's show.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the number one thing I want you to know is that right now, people scroll to browse, but they ask AI to decide.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's good.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Can you elaborate on that?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us exactly what that means?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: It means that there's so many different ways for people to know you, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's social media, there's blogs, there's ads, but there's not another single highly converting platform than AI referred traffic.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: We know for a fact that AI converted traffic.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody finds you on AI, they're eight times more likely to convert than finding you on an ad.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the history of commerce, there has never been a more highly converting platform, other than maybe your sister or your best friend whispering in your ear to buy this or buy that.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if I look at the landscape of all the ways that I can reach new people who have never heard of me, right, beyond my the local markets, beyond friends and family, there is not a better platform than AI.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so the next question is well, how does AI, ChatGPT, how does the LLMs, large language models, decide who to surface?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And another caveat is that if you notice on Google, they've made the biggest change they've ever made in the history of search, which is they don't really have, you know, page one, page two, page three.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: They do have page one, page two, page three, but if you type something into Google, you'll notice that it expands with an answer.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so now the game is not how do I become on page one or how do I go viral?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: The question you should be asking yourself is how do I get mentioned in the citations?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get shown in the answers?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really that's really the right question.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: They they say if you want a better business, if you want a better life, ask better questions.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: That is the question is how do I get AI to recommend me?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when I asked ChatGPT, Perplexy Claude Gemini, I said, How do you decide which brands or products to to surface to recommend?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they say it's not about likes or virality, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really pull from your social media.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: What they are looking for is you being cited by other people's websites, by you know, articles, you know, trust signals around the internet.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so that could be a gift guide, that could be you being on a podcast, that could you being mentioned on things like Reddit or Quora.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: But out of all those things, the highest trust signal will always be mentioned in an editorial magazine.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you mean by editorials?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Editorials mean that you're not paying to play.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not your like DM that you get that's like, oh, get featured in a 40 under 40 or this pay-to-play.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's different.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Those are ads.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So editorials is getting in like a TechCrunch or a Forbes or a gift guy roundup where you're not paying the writer to write about you.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna have the biggest authority, the biggest searchability, and it's gonna have the longest sustained visibility.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what the AI is pulling from.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the more times that you are mentioned in blogs, in articles, in podcasts, it forms this interconnected web of trust that then boosts you higher and higher in the rankings, not only for AI to recommend you, but for traditional SEO as well.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I think about, you know, Etsy sellers who are so overwhelmed, so time poor, we have so many things we're doing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: What is that one thing that's gonna give me the 10x return?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be PR all day, every day, because PR feeds into traditional SEO and also allows AI to recommend you.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I always say there's no better return on your effort than doing PR and getting mentioned.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the biggest thing we need to know is that PR is not reserved for big brands.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many writers, freelancers, journalists, podcasters, mommy bloggers, product lovers who are writing on blogs, on big magazines and looking for so many products to feature.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we are getting into Q4 gift guide season right now, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: It starts Labor Day, and this is the best time for all of us, as we know, because people are ready to buy, they have bigger, like desire to spend, but it's also your best time to get in with the editors, the journalists, the writers so that you can get in front of the the gift guides.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really the best.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So as an Etsy seller, what's our approach?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do we even get started doing something like that?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because it sounds very overwhelming.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are, like you said, so many different places to go.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do you even narrow in and find a place that's going to be right for you and your product?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I always say marketing is you talking about you, but PR is your industry talking about you.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we want.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: That is what a trust signal is that's going to boost you in traditional SEO and AI search.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about PR.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: PR at its core is very simple, is sending a relevant pitch and sending it to the right person.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And notice how I said relevant pitch because I think a lot of people are like, well, I'm doing something that's so saturated.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has a candle, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about groundbreaking, innovative, new necessarily.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about sparkling water or the brand liquid death, they are bottling water in a can.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to invent something new, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be the most innovative thing.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to know what is the season, what is the demographic, maybe the price range, and understand that there's different buckets of gift guide feature.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so gift guides are usually like, you know, 10 things to gift your mom or Valentine's Day.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: But not only are gift guides available to you all year round, there's also product and shopping roundups that are maybe not for a gifting, but something for you to try.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: For example, on Pop Sugar, we had someone get featured for her one of her body oils, and it was one of the editors testing it out.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like here are the 10 best, you know, wellness obsessed body oils or what something like that.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I mean when I say like a shopping listicle or an article.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So at any given time, you have the evergreen angles, which is like best this, best of lists, and then you have the gift guide season, best for her, best for him.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have the holiday ones, and then you have the seasonal ones.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So don't think that you only have Q4 to get featured, because then you're missing out on a whole 12 months of all the other opportunities.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, AI wants recency, it wants consistency.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't care if you had a Forbes article 10 years ago, but if you had four maybe smaller blogs in the last 11 months, that's gonna really help you because they're pulling from recent information.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing to know.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So again, to recap, PR is not about you having to know someone, right?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you knowing what is the right product for the right season.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we actually know what the right product for the right season is?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Before I used to teach a method called the CPR pitching method that I taught for years and years, it's kind of how I became known to the scene.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the best part is that now free AI tools do all the brainstorming and writing for you.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't even have to do this anymore.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what the PR agencies are not sharing is that now we have tools like perplexity.ai, which is hands down the best PR research angle finding tool ever.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It actually finds the best angle for this year, for this season, for this trend, and it tells you out of all the things that you should pitch, what are the exact products that can fit that trend.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So using a tool like perplexity.ai, which is the best information gathering tool in real time, it'll find out what editors are writing, it'll find out what are the categories of gift guide for you, all the things that a PR agency would charge you thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for, now you have that at your fingertips.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So perplexity.ai is free.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to upgrade.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of looks like ChatGPT, where you kind of, there's a little chat bot.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: But the difference is that unlike ChatGPT, which is more of a jack of all trades kind of information synthesis, perplexity is the best for real-time information gathering.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Real time means updated, it means relevant and recent.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm thinking about recent trends, recent hashtag on TikTok, what are people talking about?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go to a tool like perplexity.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when you first start, I always say start with research and you want to go to perplexity.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the first prompt that you can give it is something, and by the way, there's no prompt engineering.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Don't let the AI bro marketers tell you that there is.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's very simple.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can just say something like, Hey, I make dog treats.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Here is my Etsy store, here is the URL, scan my store and help me find the best products that I can tie to this season's gift guides.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Bring in some relevant stats or insights or trends that can strengthen my pitch.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So might you be going really niche then?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if I have candles, right?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I am targeting tons of different niches, really.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have a candle that might be meant for a runner and one that might be meant for a new grandmother, and one that might be meant for a confirmation sponsor.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying that perplexity, if you give them your URL, will find not only the most relevant or the best choice of I guess all of your products, but also then be able to tell you how to market it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Or yeah, so we're still talking about the first part, which is what is your relevant angle?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the first prompt is check my store, check the SKUs, tie it to the best gift guide, tell me all the possible angles and all the data points to support it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: The second prompt, then I would continue in that thread and say, great, now you've given me these ideas of angles and hooks, please put it in a comparison chart of most to least likely to get me featured, and also the appropriate outlets I should pitch this to.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, it'll give you a beautiful chart with all the different columns and rows.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I like visual things, right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna tell you exactly for this product, you should pitch this, or for this one, you should like it's just what you said.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some scents are better for winter, some things are better for lower budget, some things are better for higher budget.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you have something that's$300, maybe it's not gonna be for a buzz fee, but it'll be great for an architectural digest.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Perplexity will help you with that, and that's why perplexity is so powerful.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And no PR agency is talking about it because it's really something that's made PR accessible in the hands of everyday small businesses.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really the second prompt that I would write.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one is have it find out more about you, match it to the angles and have the supporting data citation trend.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Second one is to give me an opportunity ranking in a chart of all of the different opportunities with the angles and the outlets and tell me what is most of the least likely.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then the third thing would be like, great, angle one and two, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Can you flesh that out more for me and start writing like a structure of a pitch using Gloria Chow's CPR method?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is where I would be careful because perplexity is not a writing tool.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so in our get feature accelerator program, we give you the prompts to use perplexity in a very specific way and then write it with ChatGPT.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: But what I just showed you right here is like 80% of the way there because you got your angle, you got your season, you got your skew, and you got the citation.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of saying, I think your reader should buy tote bags, we had someone who made tote bags, and the pitch I wrote for her was according to Vogue business, search volume for catch all canvas totes increase 150%.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: That is why, you know what I mean?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a much stronger way to approach an editor or a journalist instead of saying, hey, buy my candle or vase, you can say this type of maximalist decor has been exploding on TikTok with this hashtag claiming 300,000 views or whatever, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what perplexity can help us with.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So now that you have perplexity, you can also do a couple other other things real quick is you can see where your competition is getting picked up.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have a brand that's maybe five or 10 years ahead of you, you can say, hey, give me all the recent press features, press mentions, you know, PR that this brand has.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can see how you can also fill those buckets too.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's very likely that if they're occupying a certain story or an angle, you can pitch that as well.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because the thing about product PR is that there's no exclusivity.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like if one person covered it, then they're not.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: If one person's covering it, probably means that other consumer wants it too.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because what the journalist is doing is they're also following trends.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking at Google keyword search volume and they want to make their articles super attractive to a wide number of people.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can claim that people are already looking for the solution and you're just providing that, then the journalist is more easily convinced.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so perplexity does that for you.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: The next step I would do is then copy and paste the whole thing into Chat GPT, like the whole thread, everything, and then have it flesh it out for you and write it in a more friendly, clear tone.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because perplexity kind of writes like a 12th grade science project presenter.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really how I like to write.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where I would stop using perplexity, get all the research and put it into ChatGPT.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then how do we ensure that we like what has come from ChatGPT?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the pieces?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned your framework.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're proofreading, because I proofread everything ChatGPT says, just to make sure it makes sense and that I'm hitting everything I want to.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: What specifically is the CPR that we're looking for?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So later we have like copy and paste prompts that make it like super tight, but it's credibility, point of view, and relevance is what my CPR method stands for.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to start with relevance.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of saying, My name is so-and-so, here's my story.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to get right into it, for example, your shoppers are looking for XYZ because it's Halloween, or as we approach Mother's Day, like whatever that relevance is.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: It could be the climate, it could be the demographic, it could be a graduation, it could be a holiday, whatever that is.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So always start with the relevance, and then the point of view would be like three to five bullet points on you why your product or bundle is perfect for that relevance.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would conclude with where you can find it.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: What's the shipping like?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is it made to order?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: All of the things that you need to dot your I's and cross your T's with so that the journalist has everything they need to write and go live with the story and publish it without all this back and forth.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Also, pricing is really important.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Think about for Q4, the price point.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So is it a stocking stuffer?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a white elephant gift?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a unisex gift?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So all of those things is gonna help make your pitch more specific because all of those categories, price point, who it's for, what's the occasion, is going to be already the buckets of stories that the gift guides already are gonna be published in.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what have you found is the like how many pitches does someone typically have to send before they get a yes?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So what's that ratio, that success ratio?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would say more is better.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So in our accelerator, we have over 30 different categories of media lists from home goods to pets to foods to accessories to wellness to jewelry.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you might have one item that could fit many different things.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: For example, a candle could be for Mother's Day, but it could also be for home, but it could also be for hostess with the most.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it just depends on what your angle is, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you have something that's very niche, like a pantry staple, that's probably mostly going to be for food and entertaining, right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And again, perplexity can help you find that as well.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can say, I have this product, what are some of the outlets that would be interested in?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that is really the best way.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of finding out the media contacts, I would say more the better.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I recommend my people to send to at least a hundred contacts.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so we give them like multiple hundreds, but you can start grassroots, you know, if you want to take the time.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: You can sign up for different things like Harrow, which stands for help a reporter out.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can sign up for Peter Shanckman Sourceofsources.com.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can sign up for Substack, you can follow journalists on LinkedIn.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all the grassroots way that you can start to put together the pieces of who's covering your industry or who's in the in the business of writing gift guides.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And here's another caveat and a tip is that if you see someone with the title shopping or commerce writer or editor, those are the people who are constantly writing product reviews.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the people who are going to be writing a wider range of products from all different categories.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say if you make an ergonomic mouse pack, right?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can also pitch to like the tech reporter or maybe like the home person, right, who writes about like home.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: But then you can also look for people who are simply shopping or commerce writers.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So those are kind of all the ways that you can find out who is a good fit.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And is there etiquette involved as far as you know, you should always email them or can you go find them on LinkedIn or Instagram?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say multiple touch points is always good because they're getting hundreds of emails.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we tell our students in the Get Featured Accelerator who have never done this and get end up getting featured is always start with email.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: So start with a very specific subject line.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Don't make it clickbaity, don't make it random, like Deborah, here's a surprise for you, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Make it sound like kind of like an article title.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: For example, you know, a bath bomb lovers, unique flavors under$50.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because the subject line is really important for your open race.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so optimize a subject line.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when you send, please install an email tracking device, whether that's a HubSpot or a Mail Suite or something that allows you to get analytics on whether or not your email is being opened.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then you want to follow up once a week to make sure that they opened it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: If they opened it, if they're clicking around, and the software will tell you that, it means that they like it.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're just trying to find a place for you.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I would go on LinkedIn, go on Instagram, comment, engage, and InterGet Featured Accelerator.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: We give you like their LinkedIn, their Instagram, all the details, because you want to nurture that relationship.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, journalists are writers.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the more you can share their content, the more you can follow up with a hey, not only did I want to follow up, but I loved your article last week about the five best children's gifts.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I gave it to my niece and she loved it.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's always ways to bring that connection a little bit closer to show that you've done your research and that you're following them on Substack and that that you loved what they wrote.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all the best ways.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And another tip is when you do follow up, follow up on the same thread so that they can see the pitch that you wrote, but please don't say following up.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Attach something new, like I said, a compliment, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe, hey, we just have a new colorway, or this colorway just sold out.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: So bring some kind of freshness, some newness to the follow-up.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, where do influencers and their gift guides play into this, if at all?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: So far, it sounds like everything is really better media-wise, because I'm guessing that's where the AI piece comes in, where if it's an influencer who puts out their gift lists, especially during the holidays, is that an area that they should be looking into?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when I talk about peer, I'm not talking about people's Instagrams.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about like an article or a published gift guide with in a website that has preferably high domain authority.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's that trust signal is very low on Instagram because anyone can buy followers, anyone can pay an influencer.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if an influencer has their own blog, or sometimes influencers do freelance, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Martha Stewart living or a pop sugar or well and good, that's okay as long as it's editorial.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you always want to ask, is this an editorial?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because you don't want any pay-to-play or anything parading like PR when it's actually just an ad, in which case you get zero SEO and no AI visibility.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: So can we talk about the AI visibility a little bit more and how that's working?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: How exactly are Etsy stores getting recommended on AI through ChatGPT?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So ChatGPT rolled out a GenTech shopping as early as October 2025, but it started to go mainstream March of 2026.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people who are on Shopify got an email saying, hey, we are officially debuting our partnership with ChatGPT.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: So what does that mean?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It means that in ChatGPT, you don't ever have to leave ChatGPT to check out, give your credit card, and do everything in app.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so what you can do now in ChatGPT is say, hey, I'm looking for a best ceramic bowl.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: It'll show you Etsy results or whatever that fits your inquiry.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can select the size, the color, checkout on whatever platform.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So ChatGPT now has integrated with Amazon, Etsy, Walmart, PayPal.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we actually know that people are going to AI to shop.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm thinking about setting myself up for success in the future, if I was an Etsy store owner, I would be asking, where are people going?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Where are people trusting?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where do people convert the highest?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer all day, every day, is going to be on AI.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Does an Etsy seller have to have an established business to start trying to get themselves into these gift guides?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, zero.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We we've had people who are brand new who have gotten featured over and over.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: We have people who make multi-seven figures, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it the thing about getting featured is not about how established your brand is because journalists and writers love discovering fresh new voices.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: They love to be shop small advocates.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think about the writer's job, they're basically in the position of discovering new products for you.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's always the big store brands, we would probably stop reading their articles.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's actually their job to find.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Find out who are the new people that I can recommend the products, and you're just simply doing them a favor by putting your name in the hat.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: When they are actually featured, how does that end up affecting their sales?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what about their bottom line benefit?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look at all of the things that we're doing today, it's all about bringing customers to your storefront.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look at Instagram, if you look at ads, if you look at blogs, but we know that AI referred traffic converts the highest out of any one of them.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if I were to put my chips, you know, in whatever basket, I would say AI all day, every day, because we know that people trust AI more than they do on Instagram.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: On Instagram, they might need to take a lot more touch points and a lot longer sales cycle to be convinced.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas people coming from AI AI, they don't need as many touch points.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: How much time would you say an Etsy seller would need to spend on that on a weekly basis?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of my audience, busy working, full time moms, um, we don't have a ton of time.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I would say no more than 15 minutes a day because once you systematize it, once you know, okay, here are my angles, here is the batch of 20 that I'm gonna send to, and then maybe you put all your follow-ups on one day.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you send your emails on one day.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can use an email sending campaign device that sends all the emails but personalizes it so you're not copy and pasting like dozens, dozens of emails, and then you've kind of checked to see what the open rates are, and then you follow up with all of them on one day.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And using a tool like Claude Co-Work, which integrates with your Gmail, it can actually monitor that for you.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: So now with so many tools, you don't really have to do a lot of the manual work.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: AI does 90% of the heavy lifting from research to sending to follow-ups to automated reminders.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there's really no excuse for you not to get started.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do any of the journalists expect you to send the item to them?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is that common practice where you actually send them a sample?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of them will want samples, not all of them will, but if you do have samples available, then you can just put it in the subject line or somewhere in the email body, right?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if you make something very expensive, we have people who make 24 karat dipped gold 3D earrings.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: She's not gonna send a sample, but then maybe she'll send like a behind-the-scenes video, or maybe she'll do like a loner.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a sample, but I will give them to you so you can see the quality.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the return label.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: So be careful and conscious with the way that you word things.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: If it is a sample, say that it's a sample, which you don't expect back.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a loner, tell them that too.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's absolutely okay to give a sample that is not full size.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have so many people make minis, and in fact, journalists prefer minis.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, if you don't have to give them a full size thing, you can just give them a mini size so that it keeps the cost low for you as well.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's give their first action step.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: They end this call, they're excited, they want to get started.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: What is the very first thing that they should do?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: They've got 30 minutes, so maybe they can do two things or three things in that 30 minutes.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I do have a free PR masterclass where I screen share and I show you exactly how I use perplexity and you can see it come to life with a random stranger that's like in my webinar room.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see it come to life, and you can go to gloriachowpr.com slash masterclass.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's gloria choupr.com slash masterclass.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you can watch the 30-minute training.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you feel like you already got the gist of what I am meant to say here, literally go to perplexity.ai, sign in and start prompting it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Start finding out what are the SKUs or one or three of them that you should pitch this season, have it tie it to relevant trends and data points, and have it come up with an opportunity ranking and a comparison chart so you can see what it thinks in terms of most to least likely to get featured.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds great.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I will make sure that I put all those links into the show notes so that everyone can find you really easily.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: But before we wrap up, is there anything that we haven't talked about that I haven't asked that you think an Etsy seller or a small product-based business owner needs to understand about PR or AI visibility right now?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is changing so fast.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that you're listening to this, this is a sign from the universe because 90% of other Etsy owners are still playing the virality game.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're still trying to figure out how to go viral on Instagram when people are not even going on there as much, right?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: We know that Instagram views are at an all-time low, and we know that more and more people are asking AI.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: So remember, people scroll to browse, but they ask AI to decide.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to be there at the point of discovery.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I think about not working harder but smarter, I'd rather do something that's gonna help me really set me up for the future of when people are ready to buy.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is how do I get found on AI?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so start asking yourself, not how do I go viral, but how many sales are you losing today by simply not being in those recommendations?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so send this, you know, episode to all your friends because we've shared some things that a lot of the PR agencies just simply haven't shared.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's never been an easier time to get featured using tools like Perplexity, and there's not has never been a better time because again, gift guide season is all year round.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Gloria, thank you so much for joining me today and for officially being my first guest on the podcast.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed it so much.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Melissa.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's it for the show today.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed Gloria, and I am going to make sure to leave in the show notes all the different ways that you can get in touch with Gloria if you're interested in learning a little bit more about PR and AI visibility.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear what you thought about today's show, and I'd also love to hear if there are other guests that you would like me to have on the show, or even if you're interested in being a guest yourself, reach out to me.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, then I will see you next time.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.