19. Turn free PR into long-term loyalty: a step-by-step guide for small business owners with Gloria Chou

EPISODE 19 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

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In this guest episode, I’m joined by PR coach and visibility expert, Gloria Chou, to unpack how small business owners can leverage media features to build short-term visibility as well as long-term brand loyalty—without big budgets, agencies, or insider connections.

Today’s question: How can you turn media coverage into a loyalty-boosting exercise that goes beyond the initial click?

Gloria shares her signature CPR Pitching Framework, powerful free tools to find the right journalists, and mindset shifts that help you feel worthy of showing up in the media. Whether you’re brand new to pitching or ready to expand your visibility strategy beyond social media, this episode is your permission slip to get featured, and get remembered.

What we cover:

Why PR Isn’t Just About “Being Seen” – And how it can become a sustainable loyalty and trust-building tool for your brand.

Gloria’s Career Journey from Diplomat to PR Coach – Including how she cold-called the New York Times with zero connections.

The CPR Pitch Framework That Gets Results – How to write a pitch that grabs attention.

Free Tools to Find the Right Journalists – So you can save time and track down your next opportunity.

How to Repurpose PR Features Beyond SEO – Including how to turn media mentions into nurture emails, sales assets, and trust-building proof points.

Soundbites:

Gloria Chou: “So if you can flex that muscle, if you can just keep pressing send, literally everything you want is on the other side, whether it’s a speaking thing, whether it’s being on a panel. And it’s never really a no, is it? Because we’ve had people turn nos into a maybe later and then let me connect you to this journalist. There’s so much more ROI that can be gotten from pressing send than the fear of rejection. So If you think about it, what’s the worst that can happen? They don’t respond. The upside to that? If they do respond, that could lead to a media feature. It could lead to multiple. It could lead to you being on a pocket dial with a journalist who then invites you to speak on a panel. That is a hundred times more than just being rejected. So for me, it’s a no brainer. I would be pressing send all day every day.”

Gloria Chou: “It’s actually not only about who you know. You want to connect with the journalists, but that’s not a requirement for them to feature you because journalists are always looking for fresh perspectives and people to interview. And if they only interviewed the three or four or five handful of people they knew, they would lose their credibility really quickly. So you’re actually doing the journalist’s job. You’re helping them by putting your name in the hat and submitting your idea and your commentary. Journalists are looking for fresh ideas and new people to interview, not just the people they know. Cold pitching absolutely works. And when you boil it down, PR is really simple. It’s just writing a relevant pitch and sending it to the right person.” 

More about my guest, Gloria Chou:

Gloria Chou is an award-winning PR strategist and host of the top-rated Small Business PR Podcast. Known for her untraditional yet proven approach to PR which makes visibility and access to media accessible for anyone, Gloria helps BIPOC and female founders get featured organically in top-tier media without needing PR connections or a large following. Her strategies have earned small businesses in nearly every industry niche over a billion organic views and features in outlets like the New York Times, Oprah’s Favorite Things, Vogue, and Forbes, without any pay-to-play. A former U.S. Diplomat turned small business advocate, Gloria has been on 100 podcasts and was named “Pitch Writing Expert of the Year” in 2021 as part of the Influential Businesswomen Awards, and a Forbes Next 1000 honoree.

FREE Masterclass: https://www.gloriachoupr.com/masterclass

Website: https://www.gloriachoupr.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/gloriachoupr (DM Nadine for an extra freebie)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@smallbusinesspr

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Episode Transcript:

 Nadine Nethery (00:00)

Hello, hello and welcome back to the podcast. In today’s episode, I am looking at something that is super important to grow a sustainable business, especially in 2025, where everything is online, fast moving, and it is really, really hard to build trust with audiences. So

I am going to look at the question, how can you turn media coverage into a long-term loyalty boosting exercise that goes beyond the initial click? And to answer this question, I’ve invited PR and visibility guru, Gloria Chou. Welcome to the show, Gloria.

Gloria Chou (00:45)

Thanks for having me, Nadine

Nadine Nethery (00:47)

Thanks so

much for coming on. We’ve connected via the Mixer Mind, which is this amazing online community for business owners. It’s a blend of mastermind, online community, and it’s a great place for collaboration and finding people like you, Gloria, who are just amazing at what you do. So

obviously, I know who you are. Do you mind introducing yourself to the listeners, telling them a little bit about your zone of genius and also a little bit about how you ended up where you are today?

Gloria Chou (01:19)

Sure. So my name is Gloria Chow. I am based in Brooklyn, New York. I am a small biz PR coach and host of small business PR podcast. So my whole mission is to make PR, which is a traditionally very gate kept industry accessible for the everyday small business owner. You know, it’s funny story because I’m not like your average typical PR gal. I never worked a day in my life in any agency, whether it’s a PR or marketing agency. I actually used to be a US diplomat before this and I made a huge career transition.

And I just had to start picking up the phone and cold calling newsrooms at New York Times and Wall Street Journal to get my unknown clients featured because again, I never worked in PR and I had no connections in the media. And I think from hacking it like thousands of times, I figured out a formula that works so that even if you don’t have PR experience, you can really leverage the media and be your own publicist. And that’s what we’re going to share today.

Nadine Nethery (02:11)

Yeah, so cool. you know what, I think sometimes having that fresh perspective on an industry that seems so interconnected and so premium where you have to be in the in-crew to get your media coverage out there. It’s just such a fresh take on things that you actually just pick up the phone, build relationships with the right people without actually having to know them or having that huge corporate PR budget to

buy your way in. So let’s talk a little bit about your approach on things. You said, picking up the phone, building those relationships is super important, but can you tell us a little bit about what that involves for your clients and how you manage to get those awesome publicity opportunities?

Gloria Chou (02:55)

Yeah, I think the word PR, publicity, it gets thrown around and it gets kind of muddied because raise your hand if you’ve gotten those spammy, I’ll feature you in one of these random 40 under 40s, right? That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about organic earned media where you’re not paying for an ad. Sometimes it can be tricky because you do have companies scamming people and saying, we’ll get you featured. And that’s not editorial. That’s advertising. So what I’m talking about is how can we position you as an expert, an industry expert and get on a

podcast or a founder’s feature or a gift guide, and you’re not paying the journalists to write about you. So that’s really the most powerful marketing activity because it simultaneously checks all the boxes of traffic, visibility, credibility, and it also gives you something that social media and ads can’t, which is powerful SEO. We all know that backlinks from reputable sites pushes your rank higher in the search engine. So PR is also really great for that. And I think for any founder, PR is the most

best leverage of your time because then you can take a PR feature and turn that into an Instagram reel or caption or a newsletter and repurpose it. So the longevity is there, the sustainability is there. When I started with PR, I realized like, my gosh, it’s actually not only about who you know. I mean, yes, you want to connect with the journalists, but that’s not a requirement for them to feature you because journalists are always looking for fresh perspectives and people to interview. And if they only interviewed

the three or four or five handful of people they knew, they probably would lose their credibility really quickly. So you’re actually doing the journalist’s job. You’re helping them by putting your name in the hat and submitting your idea and your commentary. just right off the bat, I just want to make that very clear is that journalists are looking for fresh ideas and new people to interview, not just the people that they know. So cold pitching absolutely works. And when you boil it down, PR is really simple. It’s just writing a relevant pitch and sending it to the right person.

And if you can put the two and two together, you can create a seamless system in your business where you’re continually pitching and getting onto those features, giving you that SEO. And so it’s a great process for not only generating leads, but visibility and converting that into sales.

Nadine Nethery (05:03)

I love that approach that you’re basically helping the journalists. It’s not you burdening them with, yet another pitch to go through. Obviously, as you said, it’s super important to make it relevant and spell out, what’s in it for them. Why is it worth their time, their effort, and also their trust in that you’re going to deliver Love that approach. And often it’s that mental piece, for small business owners to

take that step to put yourself out there and go after visibility, opportunities, podcast guest episodes, because who are we to talk about a certain topic? That’s often, especially when it comes to my clients who are often pretty early on their business journey, it’s that mindset that’s holding them back. I’m just a little copywriter, I’m just a graphic designer. what do I have to add to this new story?

Gloria Chou (05:44)

Yeah.

Nadine Nethery (05:50)

Do you work with your clients on mindset as well or are they usually already pretty sold on the idea?

Gloria Chou (05:54)

Okay.

Yeah, so my people are mainly wood of color, a lot of first generations, a lot of English as their first language. So a lot of firsts, right? And I realized from doing this work and cultivating community that it’s not just about the logos at the end of the day. It’s about

feeling safe to feel seen, to take up space. And so there is so much sacredness in the work that we’re doing here because a lot of it is about exactly what you’re saying, confidence, which is rewriting some of those narratives. As I’m a five foot tall daughter of an immigrant and I was told not to promote myself, not to talk about myself. And so there’s a lot there, especially when it comes to female entrepreneurs that we have to unravel. That is the key piece there because I can show you all of the strategies which we will go into.

But if you traditionally never felt seen in media, for example, I never saw people who look like me in media, you naturally won’t take up space. So this is kind of your reminder that you absolutely deserve to be seen. People want to hear from you and journalists want to interview not just the same old, same old. They want new, fresh perspectives. But I think where a lot of people get tripped up is they think, oh, well, I’m not bringing anything really new or original. And it’s not about inventing the wheel, right? It’s not about a revolutionary groundbreaking finding.

It’s just about pitching with the relevant seasons. I think a lot of times we think, well, I’m doing something very saturated, whether it’s copywriting or graphic design, and I don’t have anything new. But that’s not really what journalists are looking for. They’re looking for seasonality. They’re looking for trends. They’re looking for what people are using now. Maybe you can give commentary on what’s happening in your industry. Maybe you can do a simple poll to your audience to find out what the sentiment is. There’s so many ways that you can pitch with an interesting angle that’s not about

reinventing the wheel or marketing your benefits and features. Because as founders, we’re really good at selling our services, but ultimately the journalist is not your customer. They’re not going to buy from you. So we need to take off our marketing hat and speak in a way that zooms out and talks about the bigger issue. So it could be giving tricks or trends or tips or guidance on, and I can give you like so many different, different ideas about this, but absolutely it’s a different way of communicating.

Nadine Nethery (08:00)

Hmm. So, so true. Opportunities don’t usually come chasing you, do they? So it’s growing that confidence, believing in that you have something valuable to add and putting yourself out there. So I love that. Also just from a personal perspective. I have guested on a whole bunch of podcasts. A lot of them I have pitched myself. So

If any listener out there thinks opportunities come chasing you, I’m sure you’d agree, Gloria, you really have to put yourself out there. Journalists don’t come chasing you. Podcasts often, unless you know hosts, don’t come chasing you. So build the confidence in yourself that you have value to add. Another thing you said, is that thought leader perspective So rather than…

talking about what you do, how amazing you are. It’s all about adding that fresh perspective or jumping on topical things like copywriting, obviously at the moment it’s AI in the marketing space generally. staying on top of things that are happening in your industry. What I personally do as well is I subscribe in Google to topics that are related to.

my industry, customer experience, customer retention, and it adds things every day into my inbox, a collection of top articles in relation to a keyword. that is a good way to do it. How do you identify fresh angles? Do you have any tools?

Gloria Chou (09:18)

Yeah, that’s so good. you You

talk about Google News Alerts, which is what I think you’re using. Yeah, and that’s actually the best first free tool everyone should sign up for. So you type in the search bar Google News Alert, whether you’re a Pilates teacher or you’re a graphic designer, and it pings you with all the different articles. And it does two things. The first one is it trains your brain to think in terms of subject lines, ideas, angles. And then once you click on the article, you can see who’s the writer.

Nadine Nethery (09:21)

Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I was looking for.

Gloria Chou (09:43)

You can copy and paste their name into an ever expanding media database. Like you can start creating your own and their emails are usually public information. Right? so remember PR is writing a relevant pitch and sending it to the right person. So these are tools to help you find out who to send it to because it’s not going to be editor at New York times or info at Marie Claire. It’s going to be that very specific writer that’s writing that beat or industry, whether it’s sustainability, whether it’s labor economics, whether it’s consumer electronics or wellness.

So that’s kind of the first thing is we need to be very specifically targeting the writer who is writing our industry and beat. And there’s a couple of other tools that are free that I love to use. And one is called perplexity.ai, which has honestly replaced my Google. So perplexity.ai is a free, there’s a paid version, but the free one’s really good. And it allows you to basically ask the questions. It’s a much more powerful web search tool. So for example, I can say something like, I had a great time on a Nadine’s podcast.

I would love, love, love to get on other similar podcasts with similar audiences. Can you give me five more female podcast hosts of shows that are similar to Nadine’s? Boom, it’s going to give you that. And then you can keep prompting it. For example, can you tell me their Instagram or can you tell me, which guests they had on recently so that you’re not pitching the same topic as someone they just had. Perplexity is a really beautiful and wonderful tool for you to search that if you make a physical product, it’s also really great because you can say,

Hey, I make a candle under $150. Do you know any magazine that’s publishing home decor or gift ideas for this type? So perplexity, perplexity, perplexity. The third one, because we talked about Google News Alert, perplexity. The third one I would do is sign up for things like HARO and Source of Sources. So HARO stands for Help a Reporter Out. And sourceofsources.com is another one where you sign up as a source and every day you get emailed all these things that journalists are looking to interview. So today, I got three emails.

and they might have 10 or 20 different inquiries from journalists asking to interview a veterinarian, to a Pilates teacher, to a child specialist, And if it happens to fit your niche, then you just hit reply. And we actually had someone get into Forbes last week in my community because I sent her one of these, right? So those are kind of the free ways that you can do it. The fourth one, so we have Google news alert, we have perplexity, we have harrowing sources, source of sources.

Nadine Nethery (11:54)

Yeah, wow.

Gloria Chou (12:02)

The fourth one, is really a gold mine, especially for my PR program members is Substack. So a lot of these freelance writers now, they’re writing for many different media outlets and they actually prioritize their Substack, which is kind of like a blogging platform. They prioritize their Substack subscribers before anyone else when it comes to receiving pitches. what does that mean? It means that if you subscribe to their Substack, they will tell you, hey, I am writing Father’s Day gifts, roundups for the best experiences or I am looking to interview this person.

Here’s my email and here’s the deadline. And it’s so easy because all you have to do is literally just respond one, two or three sentences. Boom. The faster you do it, the better. So Substack is also another great way to connect with journalists to know exactly what they’re writing. And all of these tools that I mentioned, by the way, are free.

Nadine Nethery (12:51)

I’ll make sure I link them all up in the show notes so you can check them out. That is so cool. So once we’ve worked out where to track the right person down, do you have some tips when it comes to constructing that in inverted commas perfect pitch to stand out from everyone else landing in their inboxes?

Gloria Chou (13:08)

Yeah. Yeah.

So remember PR is just, writing a relevant pitch and sending it to the right person. So we talked about all the ways that you can find the relevant person. Now let’s talk about what to write. Now notice how I said relevant pitch and not a good pitch, because I don’t really think there’s like such a thing as like a better company or, I think that things are not just like newsworthy or not. I’ve written things for, paper towels and candles and they all got featured. So

Nadine Nethery (13:13)

Mm.

Gloria Chou (13:33)

It’s really about the relevance to that season. So what does that mean? It means that think about the holidays, the weather, the trends. I’ll give you an example. We had someone recently get featured because there was a lot of talk about biases in the AI algorithm. And so what does that mean for education? So what’s happening right now in your industry? You can ask questions like, what are the predictions? What’s happening? Are there any policy changes? Are there any Fortune 500 companies

doing something really interesting. So those are all the ways you can ride on the coattails of relevancy. Again, it’s not about originality, it’s about relevancy. So if you make a physical product, it could be mother’s day, it be back to school, it could be summer travel. So there are so many ways and angles, and that’s a really good way to position your product or service, even if you just have one product or service, to get you featured all year round.

Nadine Nethery (14:21)

It’s such a smart way to look at business really. Rather than just going for any opportunity, it’s relevance, which is important when you’re pitching new audiences and those opportunities, but also making it relevant when it comes to the seasonality, then ultimately makes it relevant for your audience as well and brings in those aligned people that are interested in what you have to say. It works right at the beginning of the customer journey.

as much as it then works long-term because these people are primed to buy from you, So once we have that pitch out there, we hopefully got the opportunity. Do you have any tips or any great examples you’ve seen where people have leveraged that coverage and exposure long-term

beyond the SEO impacts?

Gloria Chou (15:10)

Totally. So, you we had someone who just got off social media and stopped doing ads, obviously for the SEO, but also if you are like a photographer or a consultant, it’s really hard for people online to gauge, especially if it’s like a health coach or something that takes a lot more scrutinizing. And so PR is that validation, that stamp of approval, because I always say, marketing is you talking about you, but PR is your industry talking about you. And how do you establish yourself as an authority in a niche, no matter how crowded, but even if it’s crowded, the best way to differentiate

is often with PR. So that’s with podcasts, with speaking, all forms of visibility that are earned are always going to be best because we know that you can buy followers and actually even ask the journalists themselves because I invite them into my community and I say, do you care if this person has X number of followers more than someone else? And they’re like, we don’t care about the follower count. It’s not a popularity contest. We just want to know, do they have something that I can use right now for what my readers are looking for? Can they be a part of the solution?

So a lot of times with pitching and I can tell you about my proprietary CPR framework, which stands for credibility, point of view and relevance. It’s an anatomy of a pitch that gets you featured. And it’s something that I came up with from pitching thousands of times and getting rejected. And I realized, okay, what do I need to say in that really short email to the person on the other side who has never met me, but have them actually respond and say, tell me more. so C stands for credibility. It’s usually one sentence or two at the end of your email.

that encapsulates, if you’ve been featured anywhere, any kind of awards, any credentials, don’t go crazy here. It’s just like one or two sentences. And then P in CPR stands for point of view. It’s usually the body of the email that looks like three bullet points. So if you’re a speaking coach, it could be three tricks or tips for introverts to stand out, It could be like three ways to use this AI tool. I like bullet points. So that’s the P and CPR. And R stands for relevance. And I actually like to start the email with relevance because

What is news if it’s not relevant? You wanna capture the journalist’s attention at the get-go. So you wanna start your email not with pleasantries or how’s the weather, but you can say something like, as people are more concerned about their privacy than ever because of Google’s changing policies, we have found that X, Y, and Z, right? Or it could be something related to something else that’s relevant, whether it’s a season or what people are talking about right now, like you said, with AI.

So find out what that relevancy is, start with that and that really sets up the rest of the pitch really nicely because it makes a really good case for your product, your services.

Nadine Nethery (17:35)

And having that framework to follow and that structure makes it so much easier to get into that mindset and set up your pitch for success. So yeah, love that. Totally agree with the trust factor. So what I recommend to my clients is including any media appearance logos in the, media wall, as I like to call it, a little banner on your website, because

unfortunately, anyone can claim anything today and having the backing of some major news outlets or recognizable podcasts you might’ve guested on is just a nice seal of approval from people, your audience and your customers are likely looking up to or trusting. What I also do to leverage all the effort you put into getting that exposure is

thinking about how you can piggyback on that PR long term. So potentially mentioning those high profile guest features in nurture sequences for your membership, for your program where it fits organically. You can also list it all on your guest speaker page, So if you want to be featured on more podcasts, make sure you mention them.

Make sure you make it easy for people to find. it’s just so easy to build a collection, but not leverage it. And apart from that SEO boost that keeps working for you long-term, make it part of your marketing. Just something to keep in mind for everyone.

So this podcast is about making things practical and getting people to actually take action. What can you tell people who potentially have a desire to put themselves out there? They know how powerful PR and visibility can be for their brand. How can they

build up the confidence and take that first step to put themselves out there.

Gloria Chou (19:15)

Yeah, I will say that, everything you want is on the other side of the send button. And so if you can flex that muscle, if you can just keep pressing send, literally everything you want is on the other side, whether it’s a speaking thing, whether it’s being on a panel. And it’s never really a no, is it? Because we’ve had people turn nos into a maybe later and then let me connect you to this journalist. So I think there’s so much more ROI that can be gotten from pressing that send than the fear of rejection. So if you think about it in your head, right, what’s the worst that can happen? They don’t respond.

the upside to that? If they do respond, that could lead to a media feature. It could lead to multiple. It could lead to you being on a pocket dial with a journalist who then invites you to speak on a panel. I mean, that is a hundred times more than just being rejected. For me, if I were to weigh my risks and it’s just, not even, it’s a no brainer. I would be pressing send all day every day. listen, journalists are people. They’re not, they’re busy. They’re not like scrutinizing every email.

judging you. it might not be perfect. Your first draft is not going to be, but you need to start to learn how to write in this way so that you can position yourself properly. Because here’s another thing I’ve learned from inviting journalists to come into our program they might not respond to every email because if they did, they would be doing that all day. But what they do is they actually meticulously file away all of their emails into different folders so that when they do get tasked with some story relating to your industry, guess what they’re going to do?

go back into their inbox and do a quick search. I had so many people put their name on the hat and maybe they don’t hear back for a while and they think, it’s dead in the water. And then boom, something happens and they get an email from a journalist. We actually had a founder who was in FinTech and she got featured on the front page of the Guardian because something happened in the news and they needed someone to speak on that. I always say, think of it as a conveyor belt or like a luggage belt, it’s going around, your luggage might not get picked up right away, but eventually it will get picked up, but it’s.

important to actually get on the conveyor belt. So put your name in the hat. And if you want to see the anatomy of a CPR pitch word for word, because I know today we didn’t have a visual representation, but I think it helps to see from subject line all the way to the last sentence. You can watch my free PR training at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass And people have seen that pitch, the structure of the pitch.

Nadine Nethery (21:07)

Hmm.

Gloria Chou (21:27)

and have used it for so many things, for submitting for awards, for speaking at SXSW and getting featured. So I really highly recommend you check out that free training.

Nadine Nethery (21:36)

Amazing. I’ll link that up in the show notes. So please go check it out because I know as uncomfortable as it can be, PR and visibility is such a game changer. And as Gloria said, just getting on the radar of the right people can ultimately create so many future opportunities that you don’t even know exist. So before we go, one question I ask all my guests is what is one burning customer experience question that

you have and would love either myself or a guest expert to answer.

Gloria Chou (22:08)

So my question is all around AI, So there’s so many people making custom GPTs. A lot of them are making custom GPTs to help their people get through the course material. But I can see there’s a delicate balance of making it more impersonal and having it create a distance between the actual coach and the student and it being helpful. So how do you, how do you dance that, delicate balance of here’s a tool, but it’s not me saying, okay, don’t ask me any questions. Just ask the tool.

Nadine Nethery (22:33)

What a juicy question. I love it. I’ll track someone down to answer that question for you. You mentioned where listeners can find you I will also link up your website, social media, yeah, your Instagram. Awesome.

Gloria Chou (22:43)

My Instagram. Yeah. I’m at Gloria Tao PR at Gloria

C H O U P R. And if you DM me the word Nadine, I will give you an extra freebie so that you can get started on your first pitch.

Nadine Nethery (22:54)

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Gloria. That was so actionable. And I loved your different take on PR and how easy in inverted commas it can actually be if you just put yourself out there. So if…

If you, my listeners, have any questions that you would like either myself or a guest expert to answer, you can submit your burning question via the link in the show notes, either anonymously or if you want a little shout out on the show, you can add your name and business and get a backlink to your website, that juicy SEO goodness. So thanks so much for listening and I will see you next week.