Marketing 911
Marketing 911, is the podcast where we tackle the toughest marketing challenges at the executive level.
Whether you're navigating complex strategies, trying to reach your target audience, or facing shifting market dynamics, we're here to provide you with actionable solutions.
From digital transformation to customer retention, if it's a marketing crisis, we're here to help you solve it—before it turns into a full-blown emergency.
Marketing 911
PR in the AI Era - Live from Marketverse
The media landscape is transforming rapidly, leaving both journalists and PR professionals scrambling to adapt. How do you cut through a journalist's inbox that receives 1,500 pitches daily? What happens when AI-generated content floods these already overflowing channels? And most surprisingly—could the humble phone call be making a comeback?
Declan Waters, founder of Waters Agency, sits down with hosts Brian Bakstan and Richard Bliss in Austin, Texas to share insider knowledge from his 25 years in the PR industry. Fresh from conversations with reporters at Fortune, Forbes, and other major publications, Waters reveals that despite our digital-first world, personal connection remains the secret weapon in effective media relations. "What's different is I'm talking to more reporters on the phone. It's going back to where it started 25 years ago," Waters explains. This approach forces PR professionals to truly understand their stories rather than hiding behind carefully crafted emails.
The conversation explores how PR itself is evolving, with companies increasingly demanding that communications efforts directly contribute to revenue generation. Waters notes that his agency has pivoted to bring PR closer to demand generation, integrating webinars and other pipeline-building mechanisms with traditional awareness activities. As organizations navigate challenging economic waters and trendy topics like generative AI, the value of authentic, strategic media relationships becomes even more critical. Whether preparing for inevitable crises or helping clients break through the noise, Waters demonstrates why thoughtful, relationship-focused PR remains irreplaceable even as technology transforms the media landscape.
Oh, this is Brian Baxter, and we are actually on the road in beautiful Austin Texas at a conference. Here, the weather is absolutely beautiful and I'm here with my co-host.
Speaker 2:Richard Bliss. Brian, this is the first time we've ever done this together in person yes, right, all this time. So this is kind of fun and the weather is nice. We're here with Marketverse, who has invited us to in and bring the show on the road. At their conferences, they bring in marketing executives from all over the world to come together, so it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, really fun. So we have a wonderful guest today Declan Waters from Waters Agency. You've been around for seven years. Seven years, that's right, brian Out of London and now Austin, texas going back and forth, so we're thrilled to have you on board. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your agency?
Speaker 3:Thank, you, brian. Thank you, Richard. It's a privilege to be here. Thank you very much. Yeah, we're a growth partner. We're a B2B agency to technology companies predominantly. We have a wide range of three major buckets of clients that we work with. We have early stage startups, midsize companies and large public companies.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. So you do the entire scope, we do the entire scope, absolutely. So let's jump into a topic that's hot these days the media, and a lot is changing with AI and certainly in many other areas as well. As somebody that's right in the mix, what are some of the trends and changes that are happening within the media that the audience would be interested in?
Speaker 3:hearing about. That's a great question, brian, thank you. You know I speak to a lot of media every day. In fact, I've just come back from a conference in London CubeCon and I met with reporters from Fortune, Forbes, some of the major technology publications, the Newstack, infoworld all publications that you'll recognize and I always ask them what are you seeing out there, what's changing and what I'm hearing the most at the moment? The big trend is these guys and girls typically get about 1,000 to 1,500 media pitches every day Staggering amount of companies that are trying to get their attention between AR folks who are actually taking the time out to thoughtfully write a pitch to get them to speak to their clients, versus an AI-generated pitch, and they're seeing a lot more of those coming through now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting because if it's an AI pitch, it's going to be a generic but topical, but we can still tell. We can tell it comes through, yeah. Yeah, the question are they in panic mode? Are we seeing these reporters and everything in panic mode? Because are they staring down the barrel of the fact that ai possibly might be making them obsolete?
Speaker 3:I don't see panic, richard. It's a good question.
Speaker 2:I don't see panic, but what I do see is reporters finding it like even more difficult now to just try and find out the companies they really need to be taken seriously oh, interesting, and so that's one of the things that you're able to do, is you're able to help them because you know what they're interested in, you know the industry, you know the clients and you're able to put that in front of them in such a relevant way that they're like, oh yeah, I mean, and you become a trusted advisor then to them just an advisor, exactly what it is, and I think the the way that water's agency approaches talking to the media is a lot of thought has to go into what they're writing about, uh, the types of stories are interested in and sometimes a lot of pressure from clients.
Speaker 3:So just get the story out there. We just want to talk to media and I think a lot of agencies fall into the trap of just focusing on the numbers. We've got to get 15, 20 interviews. I think where Walsh is different is less can be more sometimes, and it's really about understanding the technology, making sure that the clients are speaking to the right journalists at the right time.
Speaker 1:And that takes a lot of effort and thinking and so what's different and what has changed in regards to the channels by which these media folks are getting their articles out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, well, just from my own personal experience, actually, email is getting a lot harder because, as I mentioned, they're getting a lot of emails every day. We use X to a certain degree. A lot of journalists I talk to like to talk on WhatsApp, but the biggest one for me recently is by just talking to more reporters on the phone. It's going back to where it started 25 years ago when I was pitching to reporters. I spoke to a journalist from Fortune recently. I had a 20-second conversation with her on WhatsApp, managed to get my client into there for a meeting, and a couple of reporters in the UK just last week, and I think they enjoy that interaction. So, picking the phone up, picking the phone up and what that does, I think, for PR people is it forces you to actually truly understand the story that you're pitching. You can't hide behind the email. You can't hide behind chat, gpt. You've really got to truly understand what you're talking about. So I think that's great.
Speaker 2:'re also bringing up uh experience, because when you get on the phone, right, they now suddenly know oh, I'm talking to somebody who understands and they can ask those questions. You know, it's not just that you know the story, but you know the history. You've been doing this a long time, right, you understand some of the challenges they're facing with, so I've got to believe that that is beneficial to them. I've got to tell you Declan that's a surprising answer that the phone. I don't think my kids know how to actually call anybody on their phone. They're just texting what's up.
Speaker 3:Another trend I'm seeing and this is something I talk to my team a lot about yeah, exactly, another trend I'm seeing and this is something I talk to my team a lot about is when you're talking to reporters today, it doesn't always have to be selling something off the truck, it doesn't always have to be my clients pitching X, y, z.
Speaker 3:Journalists, like anybody else, like to know that people are watching and they're doing a good job. And just to tell a reporter that you know what, I really enjoyed that story. I read it with interest. Because of this reason, they really appreciate that, rather than just a barrage of pitches every day and I did it quite a bit with reporters that are friends of mine, but also others that I'm not as close to and I think over time that's a really nice way of building a relationship I would imagine and correct me if I'm wrong with the ubiquitous nature of getting content and information and streaming and all of that, is the reporter, like the number of people going into reporting declining in a small way or a large way, or do you still see it?
Speaker 1:Because I would imagine it's becoming a more difficult job to do than, let's say, in the 90s?
Speaker 3:I think it is becoming a more difficult job to do. I think that's a really astute observation, right? I think it's the traditional media, and then there's the non-traditional media. You know we're talking on a podcast right now. I see a lot of young, aspiring young reporters going off and creating their own channels, getting their own audiences in terms of what they're passionate about. You know, maybe opening somebody will pick them up, but it is challenging now. But we are still seeing really top quality young journalists coming in. They blow me away with how great they are. So that's great to see. I think we just need to see more of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it reminds me of a story I just recently read where a four-year-old generated and created a best-selling book. Not that she wrote it, but they were at a bookstore. She asked her mom, why is that man sitting over there all by himself? And mom explained well, he's here to sign books and the guy was giving no traction. So the mom and the daughter says well, I want to go, I want to go see his book, I want to go talk to him. He looks lonely.
Speaker 2:So mom recorded it. The daughter walks over, has a conversation. The man's very polite and nice, has some fun, signs a book for her which she can't read, and then mom posted it to tiktok and it blew up with 1.3 million views on that tiktok and he's suddenly now is a best-selling author, simply because when you deal with that kind of virality, with a four-year-old can go viral like that, it's got to be tough for a media person today to find relevance that they're being drowned out by the I'm putting this in air quotes people, influencers, right ones, who are kind of gaining the system and who are known simply to be known.
Speaker 3:They're siltons of social media is what I like to say. Well, let me ask you this um, you've both been in this a long time. Yeah, veterans, where are you going to right now for your media? What are your go-tos? That's it so, brian Brian how about you?
Speaker 1:I mean, I have some like national newspapers that I get a stream on every morning, but I pretty much go to Google and put in the topic I'm interested in and kind of get it from there. I'm not tied to any particular media.
Speaker 2:I use Apple News, and so I'm getting the Washington Post, national Geographic, popular Mechanics right or Vox or BuzzFeed right. I'm getting it from such a what and?
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you definitely, as you ask that question, because I'll click on a story and suddenly I find myself in places People Magazine. I don't know People Magazine, but I'm looking at all of these articles and I'm thinking these journalists are trying to stay relevant where I click in and click out, and they have no stickiness for me to continue reading their content. And they're putting it out every day. This isn't a weekly newspaper. They've got to have something out every day and I just wonder how are they doing that and how do they stay?
Speaker 3:relevant. I put myself in the position of you know, the cto is making multi-million dollar. You know decisions on the type of software to bring into an organization and I look at the clients that you're working with and I'm challenging myself and the team to say you know, where are these? Where is everyone going for their news right now? How you know and it's an interesting question and a lot of companies now are changing the way they're thinking about pr. They want to bring PR closer to demand generation. That's where Waters agency has been going for the last year, where we're bringing webinars, other pipeline building mechanisms, together with with communication and brand awareness, because I think they can't work, can't work inside us. They're one in the same.
Speaker 2:They have to be they are and that's a good point because demand gen. Right now, if you're a demand gen marketing specialist, there's unlimited job opportunities. But if you're a traditional PR person, you're a traditional communications manager, you're having to reinvent yourself. But, man, if you have the word demand gen, npr, you're absolutely right, and that's just. I'm looking at the organizations I work with and I think, particularly in the economy that we're now facing, that the need for good information that drives revenue is critical. How we put it out, how we consume it. It has to drive revenue. Right now, everybody's focused on the bottom line, driving revenue costs, because they don't know what this economy is going to bring us. So I've got to believe that's having an impact.
Speaker 3:I agree. And take agensic AI, for example. Everyone now is talking about agensic AI. Most vendors are talking about it. Some companies have built stuff from the ground up and they're genuinely in that market. Others are putting it onto old products and hoping that it gets noticed. If you think about reporters trying to separate a week from a chat, it's really, really difficult, and there are some really important publications out there that are trying to do that, and they're the reporters and the publications that we want to connect our clients to, the ones that are truly trying to get to the bottom of that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm just thinking of, you know, new York Times, washington Post, there's a bunch more. You have to subscribe to read their articles, correct, just I personally I'm not doing it, because I've done it a couple, couple times and then I end up I don't read many articles there, so I cancel my subscription. I'm just seeing the obstacles. So I'm a New York Times reporter, you're pitching them, but when it goes online, unless you're a subscriber, you're not even going to see it. That's right, exactly right Behind the scenes. Yeah, 100%, shift gears quick. So, uh, this is marketing 911 we'd like to talk about, uh, you know, biggest crises and people's uh jobs. Uh, what does that fall for you as a pr agency and what is it that you do to prepare in the event that?
Speaker 3:happens. Yeah, good question. Thanks, brian, it's. You know running it. I've been a PR for 25 years now and you know crisis communications is always rearing its head. Thankfully, touch wood, I can't bang the table too loud.
Speaker 2:Don't bang the table.
Speaker 3:We haven't had that many situations over the years where we've had to get into the crisis communications, but we have had a few over the years and I think the important thing that we've always found is you have to act incredibly quickly. Get all the stakeholders together. I think not responding is the worst thing you can do. Gather the facts, communicate articulately, get even a holding statement just to let people know what's going on. It's really important. So none of those things are particularly new. They're the fundamentals for crisis communications, but we've always managed to ensure that when a bad situation does arise, we've made sure the client's is protected as much as possible, because it really isn't a matter of if.
Speaker 2:It really is a matter of when, because today, with ransomware, with data breaches, with natural disasters, with supply chain issues, whatever it might be, you're going to face some kind of a crisis and you're probably in a position to help them. At least think about it before it happens, because the last thing you want is for them to call you and say you know, declan, I know we didn't do any business with you, but can you come in in the next 90 minutes and help us craft a message, because we're in fire?
Speaker 3:mode? Absolutely, richard. Yes, we're always talking about it, we're always making sure the clients are aware of it and when it does, as you say, when it happens, we'll hopefully be ready to go.
Speaker 2:Excellent, this has been great. We've been talking with Declan Waters here and we are in Austin, texas. Declan is with Waters Agency for PR, pr, waters Waters Agency, waters Waters yes, thank you, and Brian Baxman has been my co-host. I hope that you've enjoyed this conversation we have and the privilege that we have as soon as we end this episode, we get to keep talking to Declan, so we've really enjoyed being here. We're good weekend, so, declan, thanks for joining us. Thank you guys. It's been an absolute pleasure, thank you.
