Bianca Barratt, Founder The Scoop
Bianca Barratt, Founder The Scoop, is a journalist for Forbes, Vogue, Sunday Times, R29, and more. After years of getting pitched stories; Bianca is teaching founders how to (better) pitch their brand stories to attach media attention. She breaks down the most important aspect of a good media pitch. This episode is a must listen if you're looking to cut through media noise.
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00:02 And welcome back to a new episode. I have a very special guest that I know that you're going to geek out on learning from and hearing her story. 00:13 Bianca Barrett is here from the scoop really helping women in business better understand PR publicity and how to utilize it to build their brand. 00:24 So Bianca, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. 00:31 I'm so excited to have you. I follow you on social. I look at all your videos. I look at all your tips and advice. 00:39 I'm on your email list. Like I am definitely a fan. And I would love to hear how you got started because you've worked with some of the biggest names in media. 00:49 I believe Vogue, Forbes, the BBC, like major media outlets. And now starting a brand where you're helping people have access to the knowledge of using media. 01:04 So how did, how did this all get started? Yeah. So I've been a journalist for a really long time. Well, it feels like a really long time. 01:14 And over the years, I've had so many pictures. I mean, I've probably received about 100 pitches a day at the moment when I worked in house at newspaper. 01:25 It was probably about 500. That's taught me a lot of lots about what works in pitching, what works in stories, what stands out. 01:37 And I was getting so many questions, particularly around Forbes from mostly women female business owners who were saying either I have no idea what to pitch or I've pitched. 01:52 And I'm not getting anywhere. I'm not getting any response or just even how do you even get into Forbes. Like maybe they're not. 02:00 They don't even know anything about pitching yet at all. So I realized there was this huge gap between the media that's available and what it can actually do for businesses in terms of visibility and credibility and also bringing other opportunity. 02:19 And then the knowledge that you needed to break through that and actually get those pitches to land and have those like successful outreaches to journalists. 02:31 And up until the point that I was starting to think about how I could help with this, really all that was out there was PR. 02:39 And you know, I don't know if your listeners, if you guys know this or have worked with the PR or thought about it, but it is not cheap. 02:49 Okay. It's like you're looking at paying thousands a month for the service. And if you're brand that at certain level where outsourcing to that level is worth the money for you, grant the money for you. 03:00 And that's a great, but there are so many small brands and entrepreneurs and creatives that aren't at that level yet and can't necessarily afford to pay that kind of money every month just to get into the media. 03:13 And I just truly believe it shouldn't be only for the few who can afford the PR. Like it's a service that everybody should be able to utilize and that we need more stories that aren't just coming from people who are already in the privileged position to pay for professionals to pitch on that behalf. 03:33 First of all, yes, everything you just said, and I've worked with publicists and they're great when your brand is able to have that budget. 03:44 It's a great investment. However, what you're saying is for those emerging brands when it's your first starting out, but you have a great story and you would love to get some traction. 03:56 You're really helping connect the dots and making this information more accessible so that they have a better up at that when they do send it out or even have the confidence to even think that that's possible. 04:08 Exactly. And even the brands, you know, I think what I find is that I have a mixture of people who are still relatively small brands and they're they're looking to get more visibility because again, then like is paying for ads going to be worth it. 04:26 And you know, they're really having to think strategically about where they are spending money within their business. I also then get PRs interestingly, signing up for the scoop. 04:37 You want to learn how to better up skill for their clients. And then the other group is business owners who are now looking to scale. 04:45 So yes, they might might have more cash in the business. But again, they're wanting to think strategically about how am I going to spend this in a way that's going to bring me the most profit or results back to the business. 05:01 And so they might be looking at putting that money in the PR or into advertising, but what I always say to them is before you do those things, look at how you can strategically and effectively do some of these things for yourself, like outreach to the business. 05:19 And so I think, you know, you said you've worked with with publicists before or you know of them. I think there's a real misconception that if you're paying for it, it's no longer something you have to think about that it's like, okay, I've delegated that I don't have to think about it at all. 05:36 And it's actually not the case even if you have a PR or you have a publicist, you're still going to have to liaise with them every week. 05:45 You're still going to be speaking to them, you're still going to be sending them things that's going to take at least a couple of hours of your time every week still. 05:55 And if you're at this point where spending, you know, 5,000 a month on PR is going to be either just completely out of the question or is still going to be a bit of a stretch and you're not sure if it's actually going to give you the returns that the investment, you know, it's not going to be worth 06:10 that investment. Then I would say take some time first and figure out the stuff that you can do for yourself, because if you're going to be spending two hours a week anyway, the easing with a PR, why not learn some of this stuff on your own, save yourself 60,000 in a year and still not be spending any 06:30 more time than you would if you tie it out, you know. Absolutely, and I would also add to that because I've worked with PR and I've used it to help launch brands, you still need to know the stories to help them pitch your brand. 06:47 And so that also inspired me as well with my niche of creative direction, I always start with the brand story and really finding direction around around the brand story because that's the thread that's going to connect all of the pieces from a product to your marketing. 07:05 For PR for content and also making sure your brands cohesive so that when you are pitching either from a publicist or yourself, it all makes sense and the person on the other side could be like, I got the story. 07:20 So I absolutely agree, a thousand percent because you need to know what you're actually talking about about your brand being able to communicate your brand, whichever stage you're at, it's such an important first step so that you could utilize the tools that you're talking about as well in order to 07:40 even share about your brand and and so and be like, okay, I understand what they're saying. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I just think that's such an important point that you're so right, but the PRs can only work with what you give them. 07:57 Right, so you don't even know yet what you're pulling out of your brand that is the I say the way I position it is how will you move people, how do you move people, what is the fire inside you that ignite Sophia in your audience that gets them moving from just being possibly interested by standard being 08:23 part of your movement. So if you haven't worked that stuff out yet and maybe you don't have the tools to really pull out the best of that you might have a good idea, but perhaps you haven't really honed your brand story and the fire behind it as well as you possibly could yet then that's all the PR 08:45 is going to be able to work with. So yeah, I just think you've got to think of it as yeah you're looking at over you know 50 60,000 investment over the course of a year. 08:59 If you're going to be spending that kind of money, then really you need to make sure you're in a position where it's definitely going to be worth it. 09:08 Absolutely. So speaking back to finding this need seeing that there was a gap in the market you started your own brand. 09:17 I started your own program. How was that what you know, what was that like taking that leap also of like putting yourself out there right you're used to people coming to you. 09:28 I mean like here's my story but now you're like here's how I could help. I would love to hear how that all came about. 09:35 Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, the scoop started as a newsletter. Okay. Yeah, it was a paid newsletter where I was like okay, I have all this knowledge to share because over the years I've done various panels. 09:52 Speaker events, podcasts. I've been a media consultant for other people all on the side of doing my writing. And so I had all this knowledge about, look these are all the things that you can do to get yourself into the media without paying for PR and really effectively and that's going to bring you 10:13 the results. So I started sending out the newsletter and then I realized well if somebody joins the newsletter and say, March, and I've been I've been writing it since May last year. 10:25 It's not fair if they can't access all the old stuff, you know, they need to be able to access the archive so I need something to put the archive. 10:32 So I created an archive and then I realized actually I can make this into a membership if there's so many more resources that I can't share in a newsletter like many courses that I've done templates all sorts of different things, Q&As with journalists. 10:49 And so really it just evolved over time into what it is now, but in terms of the kind of going from being a writer to being a writer and then having this membership. 11:04 I think I was quite lucky in the sense that it felt like a natural progression because it was an expertise I already had and being a journalist as opposed to a PR. 11:19 I was that I already had my unique selling point like that was that was clear as day, you know, I'm a senior contributor at Forbes, I write for places like Vogue. 11:27 I am on the inside, I am the person reading those pictures, you know, like I am that person who is telling you this information from inside the box. 11:39 So that was like very clear to me from the start what I did spend some time really laying around with through the social media that I created and seeing what people responded to best was the message like I said that really moves people. 11:57 And what I found was that the more I spoke about something that I am really passionate about, the more other people got fired up as well and that was the fact that really the media landscape is still massively skewed towards men. 12:16 So around 60 to 70% of expert voices in the media are men. Wow. Yeah, something like something crazy like 4% of media stories actively challenged and disturbed types, which means that 96% of stories are upholding down the stereotypes. 12:36 And the list goes on these statistics. There's just so many of them that just really show we need more women expert voices successful women stories of women challenging the status quo in the media, which not only is great for your brand because it's going to bring you audiences that like no and trust 12:59 you quicker because if you're associated with the media brand that they already love, they're just going to get on board with you much faster. 13:05 Because they'll see you as more credible and more trustworthy, but also because then you are actually doing something that goes beyond you and your brand you're actually helping the next generation of women and other marginalized communities realize that, perhaps this is possible for me too, because 13:23 as we know you can't be what you don't see. So if we don't have stories of women and other marginalized communities in the media where they're being positioned as experts as success stories, whatever it might be, then we are not creating space for future generations to be able to do that as well. 13:45 So if we're not actively challenging the cycle that's out there, then we're perpetuating it. So that's a huge thing for me and that I would say that's my real message that moves people. 13:58 It's like if you are a woman and you are trying to create change, you're leading a movement of your own, you are building a brand, you're building a business. 14:08 When are you going to take up your seat at the table in the media? When are you going to put your story out there on a global scale? 14:16 Not just because it's going to really skyrocket around, but also because this is about more than you. This is about what are we doing for the future generations. 14:26 So once I realized that, that really helped me anchor in to what the mission and the purpose was of the scoop. 14:37 I'm going to pull this audio and have it as like my morning alarm. Have you walked me through that? Because honestly, you just made my heart so happy saying that as a queer woman myself in business for a really long time. 14:56 I didn't even talk about being queer because I was like, Marty, you know, a woman. And you know, I was just nervous getting myself out there and then being queer. 15:05 I'm like, I don't know if that should be part of the story. And so the way that you were just saying that my heart just got really happy of like, okay, cool. 15:14 Like we can take up more space and the fact that you're saying it from the inside that like you're looking for more voices like that and other marginalized communities who haven't really had their voices at the table. 15:27 So just thank you for saying that. And again, that whole clip. I'm like, I want to listen to it every day just to like charge me up. 15:35 And so that is thank you for sharing that. And thank you for doing this work because it's so important for people just to hear that. 15:43 I think that's a big takeaway too of just like, cool. Like they do want to hear from us. Well, most of, you know, you can only speak for yourself. 15:52 I'm sure. But you are on the inside and you're looking for these stories. And now you're helping people connect the dots so they could share their story. 16:01 And I think just knowing that is such a big step forward also to like help with just building up that confidence to even wrap your head around that you could picture yourself. 16:12 Yeah, absolutely. And yes, it's me wanting these, but I can tell you with real confidence. It's not just me the whole. 16:22 Okay, I'm happy to hear that is looking for stories of more marginalized communities from women people from non conventional backgrounds, whatever it might be like that is there is a huge appetite for that. 16:36 And what the trouble we're having at the moment is that, you know, because a lot of those people who run businesses who are from those communities have historically lacked access to the resources they need to get in front of these journalists to know what to say to be noticed because as we know it's 16:58 mostly been through PR which costs a lot. And if you're from a marginalized community that's struggled to gain access to capital because it's not been available to you because you have been discriminated against, then you're going to struggle to get your story out there so. 17:14 That's another big thing for me it's like, how can we democratize the process of getting yourself into the media and make it way more accessible to everybody regardless of what stage you're at in your business and your profit that you're making. 17:32 All of this i'm obsessed so is there anything that you would share with someone as far as wrapping their head around some next. 17:40 Just like simple steps to get the ball rolling any advice there of just maybe some things to think about obviously getting clear on the movement that you're creating to help move people I hear that is a big part of it anything else just to help us. 17:56 And so that's our brainstorming of what this could look like for our brands. Yeah absolutely so I think a great place to start is that there's a real misconception around doing this kind of scatter gun approach so a lot of PR still do this but I think brands sometimes think this is the way to go to 18:18 which is if I send out just 100. Pictures the same pitch to 100 different journalists surely one of them is going to stick. 18:27 And actually your far better off. To do your research and work out who is going to be a really good fit for you which journalists are writing about the kind of things that you can speak on and. 18:49 And so you can go way less you know like policy over quantity here you're going to have far better results if you do that than if you try to pitch to everybody. 19:00 So that's a big thing to start with there and that's something that I teach people how to do in the scoop. 19:06 Another thing and this is like if you take nothing else away from this conversation we're having today the one thing I would want you to take is this in it's that the most important person in the pitch isn't you. 19:23 It isn't the journalist is the audience. So. Okay, tell us more. Yeah, how are you serving the audience. How are you giving them value in what you're pitching so I see this particularly for Forbes I think people's when they think about pitching to Forbes they get nervous because they're like it's Forbes 19:44 you know if you're business it is the title that you want to get associated with. It's the top of the food chain that's it was a people get really nervous I think and they're like oh god I've got to really impress this journalist so I've got to go in. 20:02 You know all bells and whistles tell them how amazing I am all the things I've done give them impressive start after impressive start about me and my business and that's what they do and they've done that and then they think great press and. 20:19 How that comes across as the person reading it is a little bit like you know when you go to a dinner party and you're sat next to someone who just talks about themselves and never asks you anything or never even shows any interest in you whatsoever that's what it's like to receive those pages. 20:37 So you've got to think like a journalist's number one goal is to create stories that are of high value to their audience. 20:47 So that value could come in lots of different forms it could be that it's teaching their audience something it's enlightening them on a new point of view that it is inspiring them it's making them laugh it could be anything. 21:00 But it has to be valuable to the audience otherwise the audience isn't going to consume that story. So you've got to think about that in your pitch and if you can you want to align what you're doing with the goal of the journalist which is creating a story that's of high value to their particular audience 21:22 . So instead of focusing on yourself. Think about tailoring to the journalist and tailoring to their audience's needs. So, you know, I receive pitches from men who want me to feature them in Forbes and I'm like well I write for Forbes women. 21:41 And I write about women and if you literally took three seconds to look at my profile of Forbes, you would see I write about women in business and issues surrounding women in the workplace. 21:53 And I think because there's this sort of lack of research that's done up front people often end up just sending out pitches that are never going to go anywhere. 22:03 Which is just a waste of time, you know your business owner you don't have loads of time to be spending on you know you're already over run right if your business owner your schedule is over run. 22:15 So, you need to think about what's going to be the most effective thing to do and I can tell you it's doing that research and thinking about what's going to be valuable for that particular audience of that journalist. 22:26 That is such a great tip of taking a beat really doing your research understand the audience that that journalist wants to bring value to and how does your brand and your story connect for them. 22:43 Yes exactly. Is there anything on your radar right now that you're curious about writing or is that something that you do like you're thinking about different topics and then you're looking for stories or is it it more so seeing who's coming to you and kind of seeing okay there's a trend here of something 23:02 I want to write about I'll love to hear a little bit of your behind the scenes. That's such a great question it's I'd say it's a mixture. 23:10 Okay sometimes I might have a story in mind that I think I need to write about this my audience needs to learn about this from an expert. 23:19 And I already have the story and then I will go out and look for a specific kind of expert for that story. 23:26 And then other times it is obviously I'm getting so many pictures and if I see one that comes through that is I think oh that's really aligned with what I what isn't what matters right now. 23:42 And they've shown me how they can add value on this particular topic then I will go that way as well so it's just it's a real mixture just depending I think. 23:52 I think particularly obviously a lot of the time like it's hard to say if there's a particular thing that I'm kind of looking for or noticing right now but I think. 24:05 A good rule of thumb and this is kind of an evergreen piece of advice here like it's going to apply today tomorrow in a year whenever you're listening to this podcast and that is you always want to be thinking as well about why is this relevant now. 24:21 Why does this matter now so you can have an idea that is relevant all the time so let's say I don't know off the top of my head like five steps to. 24:36 Building like five steps to honing your brand message right right we try and make it a bit more interesting than that but I'm literally come up with that off the top of my head so. 24:45 Let's say you've got an idea like that like that that idea is relevant regardless of what's happening right now but what I would always advise you to do with your pitches is find a way to create what we call a hook. 25:01 You can basically hang the story on so okay we're talking about brand story and how you hone it but now are you going to make it so that the journalist is like I have to write about this now. 25:15 Because you've got to think they're going to have a certain number of stories on their desk what is going to make them choose yours over somebody else's often it's answering the why now question so just as like a quick example of that. 25:31 I once had a story idea that was around sex and relationships and it was something that I'd heard lots of my friends talking about people they knew we're talking about it was just like a rumble that was going on I was like this is a thing that's happening. 25:47 I knew it was always going to be relevant, but I also knew I wouldn't be able to pitch it until I had a really strong answer to the why now question so I can have just sat and let it percolate for a while. 25:58 And then, one weekend I happened to be sitting at home not doing much and I ended up watching an entire the entire new season of sex education which if anybody doesn't know is a Netflix show so yeah, the series. 26:14 Yeah, so the new season came out I happened to watch it all in the first weekend that it came out and it had a storyline that was exactly the topic that I was wanting to write about that was my why now hook. 26:30 So I immediately emailed it to an editor at cosmopolitan and said I have the story idea we need to write about this now because it's actually just been a major storyline in such education. 26:42 She commissioned it half an hour later and was like can you write in two days. So even that you've got to think like even as a journalist I'm doing this work to and it's relevant whether you're the journalist or whether you are a person pitching to be to have your story told by a journalist so. 26:57 Having that why now really matters and it means which is great for you that you can make your stories relevant at any given time because you can always find a new and really juicy why now hook to make that journalist want to write about it at the moment. 27:17 You're amazing and I really appreciate no I mean it and I really appreciate your transparency of demystifying all of this right like it sounds like this other world of like how people get picked up in media and you really broke it down. 27:42 I really from the bottom of my heart I really appreciate it because I know I'll be sending this out to all my clients and I know everyone listening will really have that sense of like okay I could put myself out there because you shared so openly so I just want to say thank you so much. 27:58 Oh it's honestly my pleasure and I think what I love about this work so much is is the kind of stuff that's quite simple but it's not somebody who's on the inside tell you you just don't know you know. 28:28 So how can someone join your course sign up for your newsletter like walk us through because I again I just know people are going to be like oh my gosh Bianca's amazing how do I learn more from her so walk us through what does that look like. 28:44 Yes, so you can join the membership through a link that I've given to you. Yes I will absolutely share. Like and basically yeah so the scoop is a yearly membership and it's full of mini courses pitching templates calendars. 29:07 You and A's with journalist journalist contact database guides honestly there is just so much in there new stuff is added every month as well there's a lot of amazing summer. 29:18 But essentially everything in there is going to teach you journalists and editors inside a knowledge on getting you and your brand into the media so that you can get more visibility more credibility and ultimately make more money because people trust you faster. 29:36 So that's basically what the scoop is and yeah so you can either follow the link that we have here or there's my Instagram account as well which is at its dot the dot scoop and you will see me sharing lots of free advice on that too. 29:54 Yeah and I'm sure I can share a discount with you guys if you would like as well. Yes, I am amazing we always love a promo code absolutely so yeah let me know what that is yes absolutely. 30:07 That is amazing seriously thank you so much I encourage everyone to go follow sign up for the email check out the membership. 30:14 This is information especially coming from a creative director who's building a mer who has been building emerging brands for over a decade press media hits really do make an impact and I could say that from just the creative director role. 30:32 So I highly highly encourage you if you are creative and you're building an emerging brand take this next step and get the ball rolling now sooner than later so that you have what. 30:44 It's on your radar so that as you're building you know what next steps to take to get. And some really awesome opportunities that before probably weren't even available and Bianca's making this possible so take advantage of it take the next step follow sign up all that good stuff. 31:04 Yes, definitely do all the things you all the things do it now. And put yourself in a really good position to grow so thank you so much i'll put everything in the show notes it will be on my blog and just thank you again for sharing I truly appreciate it. 31:21 Thank you so much for having me you're so welcome bye everyone see you on the next episode.
