Michelle Hespe Podcast Interview - with Intro FINAL
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to Media Magnet Summer Special 2025 Unreleased and Unfiltered. A peek inside the vault of conversations recorded this year that have never been heard until now. Today's guest is Michelle Hesp, a powerhouse publisher, editor, and writer with more than 25 years in journalism. Travel writing, foreign correspondence and TV presenting across Australia, the us, Europe, and Asia.
Michelle is the founder of truly Oz and Aussies and her team has produced in-flight magazines for airlines like Rex Alliance Air North and Tiger Air Plus. Digital content that genuinely inspires people to explore, connect, and take action. In this never before released episode, she breaks down how to create content that truly moves people from business to travel and everything in between.
This is 2025 unreleased and unfiltered. Let's dive in.
Liz Nable: [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to Medium Magnet, the podcast for female founders and women owned businesses, startups, and side hustlers who want to learn how to grow their business, leveraging the media and free. I am Liz Nale, and I'm your host, personal publicist, PR strategist, and dedicated hype woman. My goal with this show is to give you a behind the scenes tour of how the media works to break down the barriers between your business and the big MA heads.
So you can see how easy it is to get featured simply by giving journalists what they want at Media Magnet. You'll also get access to the top journals, editors, writers, and. PR people in your industry and beyond sharing their secrets and expertise on the how, why, what and when of pitching and getting [00:02:00] featured in the media consistently.
I will share with you how to build your reputation as an industry expert so successfully. The media will be knocking down your door. When I first started in small business 12 years ago. I had no idea what I was getting into. I had spent 15 years as a television news reporter working at several major networks in Australia, and then as a freelancer in the US and around the world.
I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and traveling the world chasing stories. It was unpredictable and exciting until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted a life where I was in charge of what happened next and where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's.
There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business, but getting media and great free PR was not one of them. I already knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made news, and I [00:03:00] knew how to leverage those media outlets to build my business, get more exposure, and ultimately make more sales.
I was featured in every major media outlet in the country, and I never spent a single cent on pr. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses. Let them in on the secret, and they too could build their brands with organic media and pr.
Let me help you take your brand from Best Kept Secret to household name. This is Media Magnet. The podcast, and I'm pretty pumped to have you here. Hello Michelle and welcome to Media Magnet, the podcast.
Michelle Hespe: Hi Liz. It's really great to be here.
Liz Nable: I am really fascinated by what you do, because today, on today's episode of the podcast, I'm kind of gonna flip on its head Everything I've [00:04:00] ever taught, all my students inside the Media, masters Academy, and all my clients.
But there is an exception to the rule, which is what you do in terms of paid media and PR coverage. Tell us a little bit about your publications, AusBiz and TrulyAus and a little bit about how what you do works.
Michelle Hespe: Sure. So basically bit of background. I've been in publishing for about 28 years.
I have been on both sides, both the, I've been in freelancing worked as an editor, now I'm a publisher, but then I also manage the marketing and., Sales part of our company. , I set the company up about seven years ago, , because I've been working with Rex for about 14, 15 years. , So I created their in-flight magazine, which was originally called TrueBlue and now it is called TrulyAus.
And we've got the website as well, which is rex.tru.com, and half of the magazine is business. So it's called AusBiz. So the idea was always to have a company that covered Australian businesses and [00:05:00] Australian places. And then we've also got sub-brands like Australian products and TrulyAus Dogs, things like that.
But it's all focused on everything I know, and I've worked in for the last couple of decades, which is business and publish.
Liz Nable: So it's really interesting what you do because I first picked up a copy of TrulyAus on when I was on a Regional Express.
Aircraft. I think I was going to Wagga or Dubbo or somewhere, and I was I knew that it would work. Obviously you're a small publisher, so I was keen to know how it works because, you know, it's not like big mainstream traditional media outlets, is it?
Michelle Hespe: No. So we essentially, how I look at it is a lot of the big main publishing companies in Australia, let's talk about the Murdochs and Packers of the world, et cetera.
They, of course, they have a lot more bang for their for their buck, for advertisers bucks. And they can afford to put a lot of. Free or earned media as PRS refer to it in their publications because they've essentially got all these other big advertising dollars coming [00:06:00] in through everything else.
So whether that's tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, lift outs, et cetera, they've just got these massive reaches and they tend to just. Distribute their their dollars across that so then they can support the editorial. We do that as well, but essentially we write a lot of our editorial in-house 'cause we're only a team of four staff, myself, a designer and deputy editor and assistant editor.
And then often we'll have a couple of interns from universities working with us as well. So how we work is that we essentially work with clients who have a particular budget, whether that's. $900 or $10,000. And we, I then pull the content creators together to create that content and then pay for things like printing, distribution, social media, newsletters, et cetera.
So essentially we work on collaborations that get people out there. We reach around a million people a month through that. Wow. But there has to be some funding there for us [00:07:00] to be able to pay those content creators and to get it out there.
Liz Nable: Right. So I mean, I've always explained and trying to keep this very simple.
I've always explained to my clients or students inside the course not to pay for media and pr, but I would welcome you to kind of challenge me on that argument with what you do. Why would someone, a small, medium sized business come and pay to be featured , in a magazine like TrulyAus?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah.
So I, for people, because I've been in publishing for so long, I know there's a lot of words. We use a lot of terms that PR use as well, and we all sort of all understand one of another's languages 'cause we've all worked together for so long. And even if you're new to it, you kind of get that crash course straight away and how everybody operates, what's marketing, what's pr what's publishing, et cetera.
So I often use an analogy of a gallery and I just say to clients, look. If you picture somebody who's put all their love and time and money into creating a [00:08:00] gallery, and I see a gallery as like a magazine, a website a social media following, et cetera. It's where great stuff is displayed for the people to read if they want to view it, to, to digest it.
So I see the gallery, these owners put all their money into it. They've put all their time into it, and then an artist might come along and say, I'd really like to be in your gallery. Now the gallery owner is going to say. Sure. This is the cut that we take of that because we can hang your artwork here and then we sell your things for you.
And then you get a cut. We get a cut, everyone gets paid. I see. If a PR comes along and they say we'd like our my artist to be in your gallery, then the PR is paid. The PR gets their comms, , the person with the artwork gets to sell their art. So everybody's making money. But then in that sense, the publishers put all this money, the gallery owner into this space.
If they're not charging something, they're the only one not being paid. Mm-hmm. So my answer to that was really to work with clients to [00:09:00] show them that it a collaboration in its true sense is where everybody's being paid. And I also, being in this industry, can then support content creators who will need work.
So I pull together the journalists, the photographers. Et cetera. So that it all keeps going around. And if I didn't take that approach I just think it would end up a world where there was just the big publishers and none of the small ones would be able to survive. 'cause we just wouldn't have the funds.
Liz Nable: So it's sort of, I guess, just another opportunity for someone to fine tune, I guess, where they spend their media and marketing dollars and putting that that editorial in front of the right people. Is that correct? So if you've got, you know, you don't necessarily have to have a massive budget, do you, to work with with Trus and the magazines that you publish.
Michelle Hespe: No you don't, because essentially we focus on supporting small Australian businesses. That's part of what we do. Our tagline is creating stories that matter. We always offer 50% off to small businesses and [00:10:00] charities as well, and not for profits. Because essentially that gives me the funds to still be able to pay everyone and pay for the print and distribution, which are huge.
Liz Nable: These,
Michelle Hespe: and also newsletters as well as. So expensive to get out there, especially when you are sending them out to, you know, half a million people that we do. So I always say to people that the kind of coverage that you get for the amount that you put in is really, I mean, it's how long is a piece of string.
Someone could come to me and say, I've only got $600 to spend. What can you do? Mm-hmm. And I had someone come to me the other day and say, but I've had stories written on me for free. Won't your pieces come across as advertorial? And I was like, well, and I've known this lady for a long time and I said, not at all, because they're the same journalists writing the content.
It's just that we're actually putting the funds into it so that we can push the content further. So I see AusBiz and TrulyAus as a way to reach a wider demographic because we've also got the distribution across three, three airline lounges, three planes in the [00:11:00] recs group. And we sometimes also put 'em in hotels or at events and things like that.
So it's just a, it's just a way of me using the money. To spread things further.
Liz Nable: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about the magazine itself. Truly Aus and AusBiz. What kinds of articles do you feature and what sort of reach is it? Because I think, I mean even with the distractions of phones and wifi on planes these days, I feel like airline magazines are such a captured market, aren't they?
To when people are sitting there waiting for takeoff or whatever that might be. It's really rare opportunity these days when people will pick up a magazine and pay attention.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, I, I always spy on people when I'm sitting on planes to see how many people read them, and people just love them still. So it's just, it's, I don't even have to, you know, fudge figures with that.
I just say to people, look, this many people travel on Rex during the year. It's about three and a half million. You break that down to a magazine six times a year, you end up in about 500,000 people that it's in front of. And then people can make up their own idea as to how [00:12:00] many they think. Out of that 500,000 you see are going to read it.
But I, what I find really handy, I always say to people that print only is dead. But I, because I think if you've just got a print publication, then it's just you're gonna miss out on a large part of the audience you want to reach. So that's why when we created True Blue and then we renamed it TrulyAus, then we've got the website, which is rex.trulyaus.com/, that's got all the content in digital.
Then we've got our social media that amplifies the message and then the newsletter. Goes out to Rex passengers. So they're a completely captive audience when it comes to print, when they don't have wifi. Because you're right, all the prop planes, we call them, the small planes don't have wifi. Good.
That's
Liz Nable: good for you.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, it's great. And the National Jet Express planes that we're on as well, they're the fi FO flying fly out. There's no wifi or other entertainment. Wow. So that's good. Yeah, that's really good. And it's the big jets that go between, they're the ex virgin and tiger [00:13:00] planes. 'Cause we used to do tiger tails as well.
Those planes have the wifi on them, the ones from like Sydney to Gold Coast, Melbourne to Sydney, et cetera. Wow.
So I just see it as a completely captive audience where you don't have to just. It doesn't have to be just print, it doesn't have to be just online. We always put the QR code on the stories as well.
So if people are sitting there on their phone and want to actually read it online, they can.
Liz Nable: Yeah. Tell me a bit about the kinds of stories. 'cause when I'm, look, I mean, I'm always thinking from the viewpoint of a journalist, but also as a business owner, do you necessarily, like what kinds of businesses could consider.
Investing some of their media and marketing dollars in getting featured. Does it have to be like a tourism driven business? Could it be a local retail shop? Like what sort of breadth of the kinds of coverage you get and like any sort of success stories or feedback from your clients who have been featured on the uptick in sales or how that's grown their business?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, definitely. So look, our [00:14:00] whole ethos and our whole angle is. Australian. So, so that's why the two names TrulyAus and AusBiz. We have always focused. On promoting Australian businesses and places. I think, like, don't get me wrong, occasionally you'll get someone like Mitsubishi who want to reach, say, the fly in fly out crowd, and there'll be an ad for a car like that.
But as long as we can find a nice Australian angle, that might be a photo shoot of the Mitsubishi in the Outback or things like that. But essentially the bulk of our work is. Australian, and it's really important to me as well, because I'm just one of those people who's always said to people, if you can buy Australian by Australian, like whether it's food, whether it's clothing, where, you know, just support those around you and in turn they'll support you back.
So I've just always focused on the smaller the tourism bodies as well, helping them to get their their word out there. But when it comes to other products we cover all sectors. It could be. [00:15:00] An Australian made watch, like Adena they had the back cover for a while. They said it was really good for business.
We've got bar crusher. They sell the boats. They love us. They always say whenever their stories go in, they have a story with a QR code that they get heaps of traffic to their website. We do a lot of giveaways with companies if people are after data acquisitions so that we can essentially say.
This is run in partnership with TrulyAus so that we are essentially sending people to their website. But yeah, there's lots of different ways with different types of products and places, but I think it's all about doing what suits you as a business. So if you think my people are living on Instagram, then go for Instagram.
If you think you, sorry, your reach. It's more about if your audience of who you want to reach are on Instagram, that's where you should be. If you know that your audience loves print. That's where you should be. So I think it's just as a business owner, understanding your audience and being where they are.
Liz Nable: Yeah, very much so. Because I mean, I didn't even think of the FIFO workers. [00:16:00] That's almost like, and I often teach inside the course about audience Exactly that, like saving yourself, the trouble of trying to go for big, high level media organizations or huge exposure like the Today Show, which everybody seems to wanna get on.
If your audience is 3000 really targeted, engaged people who are already fans of your industry or what you do, makes much more sense just to go straight to the source, right. What other kinds of like specific markets could you suggest that people could think about when they're like the FIFO workers?
It's kind of, I guess it's much easier to think of like a FIFO worker, what their needs are, what their interests might be and go straight to that specific market. Any other kind of specific markets within your industry? Within kind of. The kinds of people that you see, you know, day to day reading the magazine that you would suggest that could interest someone in a small to medium business who's, you know, wants to get exposure.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, I think I think that's really important question. 'cause [00:17:00] the, and you only have to go into, say, a Rex lounge and sit there and see what a lot of the audiences are at different times of the day. I find that, for instance, like the Sydney to Gold Coast route I've done that one quite a bit.
And you get on there and it's just all young people just raring to go stay at hotels, go swimming, go to nightclubs, all the rest of it. If you are get, if you are there in the morning or the afternoon, you tend to see a lot of country folk going back and forth between the city and back to where they live.
Yeah. We find had a lot of tree changes as well because and people whose parents have are still in the country and so they have to go back to places like Wagga and Dubbo, et cetera. I found a big part of our audience, and the whole reason we have was, is because a large part of our audience are business travelers.
But Reese and that. Definitely when Rex was the prop planes, the smaller planes because they're the 32 seaters that connect all the cities with the towns. But as Rex grew and bought the jets on, then you get a lot of the Sydney, Melbourne business people and leisure travelers as well. So I tend to say we've got four different readers and it's [00:18:00] definitely really young online.
We, we can see that through Google Analytics that it's more like twenties and 30 somethings going to the website. What do I do in Dubbo? Where do I go drinking in Broken Hill, or whatever it is. But I do find that we get the older. Demographic, like I'm talking my age and above, like say 50 plus. Those kind of people are more interested in the business stories and history and all those kind of stories that really uncover areas that they love.
The four demos I see as the youngest sort of crowd the 50 plus, the FIFO, and then your business leisure travelers.
Liz Nable: Yeah. So that's so interesting and I noticed also obviously the way you format the, I mean, I guess it would depend on the packages. I'm assuming The way you know, there is the.
The luxury, I guess, in a magazine, produced by a small publisher like you that you can indulge a little bit more in that business, depending, I guess, on their package with, you know, a really beautiful photo shoot with multiple pages. Tell me a bit about what options there are for people, [00:19:00] and kind of, I guess, the span of what that budget would look like, what they could expect to get in terms of coverage.
Like, do they come up with a, do they pitch a story idea or do you, you know, how does that work?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, so I have people coming to me like, I had a perfect example of someone come to me this morning who's a small business, who has an online store for children's clothing and toys and beautiful Australian made products, things like that.
She said, look, ultimately I'm looking for free coverage. And I said, I'd love to do that, but then it costs me money. So what can we do together? Happy to offer you. Discounted rates, what can you spend? And then we really pride ourselves, because there's only a few of us in this company, we really pride ourselves on having a good chat or a Zoom with that client and then finding out what their budget is, how far we can stretch it.
And we always say to small committee businesses that we match whatever they spend in editorial. So say somebody buys a. A $2,000 half page ad. Then we always give them editorial on top,
Liz Nable: right? [00:20:00] And
Michelle Hespe: if they go, I've got a 5K budget, then we go, right, we'll give you 5K worth editorial. We can spread it across newsletters, online, social, et cetera.
And so it's really just about making those packages that give them the most bang for their buck. Yeah.
Liz Nable: But
Michelle Hespe: also not breaking the bank. 'cause I know they don't have. The big budgets of like the Telstras and the, you know,
Liz Nable: of what? Yeah. So is that all the way, always the way it works. They get an ad and then editorial comes with that?
Or how does that side work?
Michelle Hespe: No. Often we'll have a lot of people, like I had a small business recently from the far south coast, and they're like a restaurant gallery, clothing store, pub, et cetera, all rolled into one and they purely just wanted a story. So, so I just hired a great journalist. They had a photo shoot done.
We did a beautiful piece on them, editorial only, but they wanted the QR code in there with a deal to say, you know. If you're reading this story and you're like, you can book and get this kind of discount. So I think some people purely want [00:21:00] editorials. So I see myself as a vehicle to help. 'cause I'm a writer as well.
I'm a travel writer by trade and a business writer. And so I see myself and the people that I employ as expert experts in their field and say, it's somebody who, like recently I had a car. I don't drive. And it was a car company that came to us and they were like, oh, we really want this review.
And they was like, well, there's no way I can write that. So then I pull in a a motoring journalist and get them to write that story, pay them, et cetera.
Liz Nable: Yeah. Awesome.
So was there a sort of like a budget like a breadth of budget people can consider, like can they, could they get, , some sort of editorial for less than a thousand dollars?
Or is it, or do you have like an ongoing thing where they might do a few features over a period of a couple of different issues?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, and that an interesting point actually. 'cause we also work with a few PRs where they wind the costs into the packages for their clients. So essentially what we'll do is go, okay, if you just want a story online or you just wanna giveaway where you get [00:22:00] people entering, like our giveaways might get two, three, 4,000 people entering.
Then we can work with smaller budgets. Like some people come to me and say. I've only got $800 and we work with that because then it just comes down to me working out how I can distribute those funds and still pay everyone. Yeah. So I like that kind of budget. For instance, I might go, here's a really nice story online.
If that story, if I can see that story's not going really well, like it's not getting enough hits, then I will put something on LinkedIn. 'cause we reach about 8,000 people on LinkedIn, share their story. Then you get more comments, you get more people going there. If it's still not working as well as I'd like or they'd like, then we might do a really fun reel or a post tag.
Some other people get them to share it. And essentially we just keep working with clients until they can see that they're really getting, you know, good ROI and that, that's, I always say to the small businesses, there's no way I'm gonna overcharge you or fudge the figures because ultimately I wanna see that it works.
If it doesn't [00:23:00] work, there's no point in me going out and hiring a writer and getting a shoot done. And,, it's and today it's really difficult to fudge figures because , it's all there.
Liz Nable: Yeah. And
Michelle Hespe: you can get reports. All our clients get wrap reports so they can see how many.
Clicks and impressions and you know, they know when the content's coming out as well, so they can see a sp spike on their own website. And that's, yeah, that's come back.
Liz Nable: How how, what's the feedback been like from, I guess the success stories that you've had? Like how do people, I guess, , they can obviously pull reports and get analytics and all that sort of stuff, but is there any kind of tangible things that you've seen in some of the stories that you've covered through the magazine of, , people's, , the response in people's businesses or I guess, , growing their brand or uptick in sales, that sort of thing.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, , so one of our clients that I've worked with for quite a long time with a smaller budget is black chicken remedies and she always makes a joke. Her name's Shay. She always makes a joke that we introduced Black [00:24:00] chicken to Regional Australia. And we did. We always we'd just do like half page ads for her products with deals, and then we'd sometimes do a bit of social media, et cetera.
We also have Catherine Manuel Designs. She does beautiful luggage. She always says that print has worked better for her because she, people will come into her store and say, I, I saw this. You know, whether it's a story or an ad. We've had, I mentioned Bar Crusher. They, they would always look for during that two month period when the magazine was on planes whether their visitors spiked on the products they were showcasing.
But yeah, I think there's a lot of great cases there. Like we've got, and we've got some bigger companies too, like position partners working mining. They do all technical gear and engineering gear, et cetera for mine sites. And they've been with us for like five years because they know that they, the stories are read that people come to them.
That they're getting business from being there. Yeah. And we've got some finance clients as well, like, Saxo Investment, they, [00:25:00] us, they've been our back cover for a while. And they love the stories because they yeah, they, people tell them that they're on a and they see them and they go, oh, that's you guys.
Liz Nable: Does it help to have a visual business if you're pitching to a magazine like yours? Like you just mentioned, you had finance and equipment businesses that are your clients. Obviously it's a little harder to illustrate a story. How do you do that with a non-visual business? And is it easier if you've got, like a winery or like a jewelry store, or is it easier if you've got an image friendly business?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, I look, I today and yesterday I was putting together a couple of big stories on the Gold Coast and the Air Peninsula. They're two big clients that I'm working with at the moment to put together big campaign packages. And I always say to all the little small businesses in them, 'cause we try to basically, if we are covering a region, we'll give the small businesses in that region 50% off if they wanna be in the story as well, so that they're not left out of it.
And it's just the big guys. So what I always say to them though is that make sure you have a photo [00:26:00] shoot done. Even if it's somebody you know in your town who is a great wedding photographer, get them to come and shoot your products. Or if, you know, it's just worth that investment of you can get a photo shoot done from between anywhere between say $500 and $3,000.
But there's always something visual to focus on. You know, the mining sites can look. Even beautiful, you know? Mm-hmm. People love going to those trade shows where they see all the big shiny tractors and all that kind of stuff. So with good photography, you can make something look beautiful and it, from an editor's perspective it's whether they're in a story or not.
Like, say they haven't paid for that part. If the tourism body, for instance, shows us this beautiful image, you're gonna choose putting that in the magazine rather than. Somebody's photo taken with an iPhone, that's a bit blurry.
Liz Nable: Yeah. Tell me a bit about the regional coverage, because I did notice that, you know, say for example, tourism Tasmania, how does that work?
They pitch you and they say, listen, we'll give you $50,000 if , cover us over a series of issues. How [00:27:00] would a small business know that's happening? And yeah, tell me a bit about that process and how a small business might be able to piggyback that opportunity.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, so that, that's me, that's my job.
So I'm the one pestering them. I'm always reaching out to tourism bodies, big and small. I've gotta say the big tourism bodies tend to go with the bigger publications. But the tourism bodies, we focus on Shires and group Shires as well. Like say it's Outback Queensland tourism Association.
Or it might be you know, at the moment I'm, like I said, I'm working with Air Peninsula. And essentially what we do I do is I'll go to the council and say, if you guys can help support your local operators, I'm happy to give everyone a discount. If we all sort of pile in a little bit each, then we can make more content.
Yeah. So then they'll leave, either leave it to me to contact the local operators and see if they wanna be involved. 'cause I'll be like, look, we are doing a special on orange at the moment. If you're a local operator, you can be a part of this or the. The [00:28:00] council, especially if they've got agreements with their client, with their operators that they'll help get them coverage.
They'll send out, look, here's 50% off if you guys wanna be included. So for me, it's a matter of I look up things like events. Like say I'll go the Elvis festivals coming up in parks, they wanna want to get people's attention a few months beforehand so that they can plan to travel there.
Mm-hmm. And in that sense, if we're doing a special on parks, then it's because we know that there's gonna be a lot more people in town. So here's where to, here's where to eat, here's where to dine. And that's actually why I launched TrulyAus podcast because they're basically 10 minute podcasts of.
Before you get there, this is what you can do and this is what you can see. And that's where I put all the local businesses in as well. Yeah.
Liz Nable: And that's a good economical extension of your brand anyway, to helps give your clients more coverage, which is awesome.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah. Yeah. And it works for them because even if they go, oh look, I can only afford a half page, but I'm giving them 50% off.
Then they also get, when the big story go, gets pushed [00:29:00] out there through all the outlets, then they get the bonus of everybody sharing it because they're in it.
Liz Nable: Yeah. So it's really you know, the amount that they're investing, whatever their budget might be, is really just for the magazine itself.
It's multiplied, it was syndicated on so many different platforms these days. It's, you know, it's pretty good bang for your buck, particularly if you're a small business.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah. Look I always say to people when COVID hit, I did this I God did this would've
Liz Nable: been stressful.
Michelle Hespe: Oh my God.
So we, look, I'll be honest we had. For publication. So we had Tiger Tails Alliance and North true Blue Forex. All of it just disappeared overnight. But so that was a blessing in disguise because then we focused on TrulyAus and AusBiz and we focused on the digital side of it. And I remember putting together an email for everyone to saying, everybody calmed out.
I think it was even called Calm Your Farm. I was like, everybody calm down. There's gotta be a way out of this because obviously the magazine was no longer on Tiger. People had invested money. We wanted to make sure that they still got coverage, things like [00:30:00] that. So I said to everybody, look, if we all share, if we put these stories together and then you all share that story with everybody else's story in it, then you are gonna get the coverage that every, you're gonna get some of everybody else's reach.
Liz Nable: Yeah.
Michelle Hespe: And then I did this other campaign with. TFE hotels. A good friend of mine, Jody and I worked on it and the whole point with it was called state of Mind, and it was basically based on the whole New York state of mind about exploring your state. And what we did is pulled together stories based around TFE hotels in that state, but then also pulled in local operators and added more and more content to that.
So, so that basically nobody could leave their state at the time,
Liz Nable: but
Michelle Hespe: more. More voices made it louder. So
Liz Nable: yeah. And that ended up being really good for regional tourism. Right. And domestic tourism because no one could go any, you know, we, there were varying different boundaries of where you could go at different points in the two years, but a real focus on our own backyard.
Michelle Hespe: Yeah. [00:31:00] It was good and bad. 'cause it was bad in that all of the publications that normally focus on overseas were then sort of in our backyard and there's only a few. We really focused on Australia in the country. So, yeah it, it was tough times for sure, but I know it was tough times for everyone, for small businesses, for travel agents, everyone, you know.
Yeah. We're lucky to be here, to be honest.
Liz Nable: Yeah, we are. We all are. Yes, very much so. Do you have any sort of tips if someone's sort of listening to this saying, oh, that could be something that I could be interested in, or something I could dabble in as, as well as their earned media doing this hybrid situation.
What do you sort of, what's a, is there sort of a bit of a checklist of how to know if this is a good business to, to come to you with? Or, and you help them come up with the story ideas and those sorts of things?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, I, because I've been publishing so long, I'm always comparing media kits.
Yeah. And I think it's a good idea, and this is me just being completely honest and not [00:32:00] saying, just go with us. Yeah. Is that I, if I was a business owner, I would go out there and get the media kits relevant to who you are trying to reach.
Now that might be even going for competitors. It might be looking at Qantas's Media kit versus our media kit versus Australian Traveler and signature like, like luxury travel, a few of those. And then just really bothering to read it because we all, publishers put so much effort into their media kits.
It's they know their audience better than anyone else. Like I can definitely say I know the Rex audience, I know the National Jet express audience. So if you actually take the time to thoroughly research various media kits that you think. Do are aimed at your audience. I think you'll benefit from that because comparing what you're getting as well, you might go, okay, this media kit says it's $3,000 for a half page ad, but I also get this another media kit might say, we'll completely tailor everything for you from scratch.
Great, if that's the way you wanna go. But everybody has different prices on [00:33:00] things. I think in Australia, we all know each other's companies quite well, so there's probably some like similar ground with everybody there. But I think it's your, the research is just as important for the publisher as it is for the business owner, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Like I'm always researching businesses to see what they want, but they also need to research us to, to make sure or just jump on a zoom, because I'm happy to sit on a zoom with someone and say, what do you wanna know? Yeah. And it just has to be backed up by facts as well, because these days, like I said, it's not really, it's not about fudging figures and going, oh five people read this magazine or whatever.
It's just. It's about who you're getting in front of.
Liz Nable: Yeah. And to clarify for our audience, a media kit when you are referring to publications or media organizations, is literally if you go to , the homepage of , your publishing company, for example, they'll normally be like an option in the menu to have a look at the media kit.
And the media kit is, you know, the customer demographic who reads it some analytics and reports on who [00:34:00] your target markets are correct.
Michelle Hespe: Correct. And then it also has other useful information such as types of stories that we do style of approach things like. Understanding a snapshot of the audience as well.
Rates, sizes, all that kind of stuff. But I think in media kits, most media kits that you'll come across as well have nice case studies of other people. So it might be like this small business did that. 'cause then you can get a bit of inspiration as well for what you are looking at. Yeah, and I think also knowing the website really well is really important.
Like don't just jump into something straight away. It's really worthwhile. Going back to that website and seeing how the content changes what's up there at any one time, what kind of ads they do. 'Cause for instance, I'm, I can't stand it when I'm on a website and you just keep getting all those popups and we choose our ads rather than have those popups because I know they annoy people.
Liz Nable: Yeah, and I think it's important to note that you don't have to go into pages and pages of a media kit, do you? You can really see from probably the [00:35:00] front page of a media kit gives you a good snapshot. So I think a lot of the listeners to my podcast or perhaps people who've never done their own media before, think, well, who has all that time to research every single publication?
You don't have to do that. You can literally get a pretty good idea from the front page of a media kit, right, of where that audience is, who they're targeting. Age, you know, sex or interest or whatever that might be.
Michelle Hespe: Yes, you can. And that's why I think looking, taking the time to visit regularly, visit the websites and get their newsletters as well.
Yeah. Because most businesses now, whether you are selling dog collars or you know, it's a tourism body, selling packages or whatever it is everybody tends to have a newsletter these days. And I think you need to, you need to gauge if you like it or not. Yeah. And if it's suited. Suited to your brand.
Liz Nable: Yeah, exactly. Saves you a lot of time, effort, and disappointment if you understand the audience of the media that you're pitching. So my last question is speaking of newsletters and staying in touch, how [00:36:00] would someone get to know a bit more about TrulyAus or AusBiz, like stay in your world?
Do they sign up to the newsletter? What's the best way to sort of, kind of start that research and see if they're the right fit for travel magazines or airline magazines or those sorts of things?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, look, I would definitely one go to the website, check out the style of content, type of content, make sure you like it.
Sign up to the newsletter to look at the style of what you can get. 'cause newsletters always have different offerings, like ads in them. They might have just editorial, they might have advertorial giveaways, et cetera. And then definitely follow social. 'cause I think it's really worth seeing people's reels.
That'll give you a flavor for whether it's fun or serious or you know, what kind of, what kind of people they're reaching as well. Because if it is fun and exciting and all the rest of it, then you, your product might suit that more than something that say a bit more business like and corporate.
And I think as well, just to have the, if there's a print magazine, just make sure you've got a couple of copies and just flick through it, see what you like, see what you don't like. It'll give you a good [00:37:00] idea.
Liz Nable: Do you think is it still, like, is it still, can you still repurpose? Say for example you get featured in, you know, the regional exp express in the Rex Airline magazine in Trulia, Oz.
Can you still sort of use that, repurpose that to your audience and say it's earned media? What's the line there? Like, how do you can you boast about that feature, you know, to your, on your social media and to your own newsletter database?
Michelle Hespe: Yeah, look, definitely. 'cause I think, 'cause we take our writing seriously.
We, you know, and anyone, whether it's myself, my deputy editor, my assistant editor, or some of our contributors I know they're genuinely great writers. They're, you know, thank, we don't write fluff. Yeah. So I think if you've got a story that you've paid for, I don't think there's any crime in that because essentially.
You're you. You're either paying a PR to get that coverage for you, or you are sharing your. Investment across PR marketing [00:38:00] or you're going directly to the client to the source. So whatever way you look at it, I mean, I still see it as paid in some way. Unless, of course, it's just one of those stories where, like I said right in the beginning if.
Somebody just genuinely, like, something really amazing happens. Like say they win an art prize or something and somebody writes a story about them with nobody else involved, no pr, no marketing, nothing, then sure that's something to really boast about because it was just that somebody out there found their work exceptional.
I just think there's nothing wrong with shouting from the rooftops about your business and trying to get the right attention. And if you have to pay for a bit of coverage, well. So be it. You can still share that. And it's 'cause ultimately people are only going to read and digest content if they like it.
Liz Nable: Mm-hmm.
Michelle Hespe: So if you are reaching people and they're bothering to read your content and go to your business, it's because they think you're, they think you're doing a good job.
Liz Nable: Mm-hmm. Awesome. I love that. It's been such a pleasure talking to Michelle and understanding a little bit more about independent [00:39:00] publishers and how you guys operate.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Michelle Hespe: My pleasure. It's been really nice chatting.
Liz Nable: This episode of Media Magnet was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, the Media Masters Academy. The Media Masters Academy is a live online six week course taught by me and designed to teach you how to become your own publicist and give you exclusive access to pitch the country's top journalists and editors doors open just three times a year.
Check it [email protected], along with a ton of free resources to help you get started taking your business from best kept secret. To household name write now, if you love this episode of Media Magnet, please share it with your business buddies or on social media and tag me at at Liz Naval. And if there's a specific guest you want to [00:40:00] hear from on the show or a topic or question you want to know more about, please tell me so I can make sure the show stays dedicated, especially for you.
