(above: Selected media coverage, including a trade magazine, Reader's Digest online, front page of a newspaper, and Woman's World magazine)


Getting your message heard today can seem overwhelming, whether you’re announcing a new toy or game, or helping spread the word about how a nonprofit organization is helping others.

After sharing my photographs, tips, and personal stories with millions through podcasts, radio shows, magazines, and TV—including Animal Planet, The Costco Connection (USA and South Korean editions), Woman’s World, Reader’s Digest, and People Magazine—I’m excited to highlight my favorite zero-cost PR strategy.

These actionable tips are designed to to help you elevate your voice and/or more effectively share the stories of your colleagues or clients.

Leverage Podcast Discovery Platforms: The Power of ListenNotes.com

One of the most effective PR tools I've found is ListenNotes.com, a free podcast search website (and much more!). If you’ve ever been a guest on a podcast, even years ago, Listen Notes can help you track down those appearances and showcase them in many different ways.

What makes Listen Notes so valuable is its robust search functionality. By simply entering your name (I recommend using quotation marks for better accuracy), you can often pull up a list of podcasts you’ve appeared on. Utilizing past interviews can both boost your credibility, and also provide you with content you can repurpose for your website, social media, speaker promo materials and more.

Listen Notes also offers insights into trending topics and popular podcasts, which can help you identify shows that you may want to listen to and/or contact. The platform even allows you to export data about each episode (a LOT of data!), making it easier to organize, publish and promote your appearances. For a small fee, you can unlock formatted data from more than four or so episodes. For example, I paid about $4 to download a spreadsheet with content from 10 episodes.

And in addition to all of that, they make it easy to share links to searches. To do that, just copy the web address of your search from the browser bar and share it (no registration required). But to take things to another level, I recommend creating a free account and creating one or more playlists. You can then upload a headshot, add a bio and some social media links to create a very nice podcast page (you can even customize the URL!). Here’s a link to my page if you’d like to take a look and/or a listen: https://www.listennotes.com/@adarlow

And here’s something else I just found that’s toy biz-related after searching for my name on Listen Notes. I’m a huge fan of the podcast: “Making It in The Toy Industry,” hosted by Azhelle Wade. I just noticed a testimonial that I gave Azhelle a while back after searching again for my name in quotes. That's because my name was spoken and Listen Notes picked it up. (Side note: I highly recommend leaving a testimonial for any show you truly enjoy!).

Conclusion

Whether you’re a toy/game inventor, designer, salesperson, retailer, educator and/or involved with a nonprofit organization,  Listen Notes and the approaches I suggest here can help you build your brand, connect with new audiences, and earn media exposure usually reserved for big companies.

Would you like more PR Strategies like this one? In addition to Listen Notes, I shared four other strategies in a talk earlier this year. If you’d like to watch my 25 minute presentation, you can do so for free by requesting to be on my VIP list. To claim the video and many other valuable items, including an excerpt from my photography tips book, visit https://imagingbuffet.com/newsletter.