Gini Dietrich interview - founder of spin sucks
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As we all know, marketing has changed messaging and gaining publicity for your brand has changed dramatically in the digital age. Yesterday, getting publicity for your business involved sending press releases to the big three TV networks or the big three or four newspapers and hoping to catch Oprah's attention, but the world has changed. My guest today is Gini Dietrich. She's the creative and strategic mind behind spin sucks, a strategic consulting firm helping to solve complex corporate communication challenges.
David Avrin: Welcome to the customer experience advantage podcast i'm David Avrin, if you want to watch the video version go to my website go to the YouTube channel go to David Avrin comm slash podcast I think it is anyway so it's near the top.
David Avrin: i'm thrilled today to talk to Gini Dietrich she is has been I don't think she wants me to call her an icon cuz she thinks it makes it sound old, and if you can see the video version she got great hair she is not at all, but um.
David Avrin: But i've we've known each other for a long time and.
David Avrin: vistage world and things as well, but freaking brilliant you know we have a lot of the same background my background I don't know that a lot of people know this was in was in PR I spent a lot of years.
David Avrin: pitching clients getting them on on all the major networks and everything else, and actually the client on oprah and I got her on oprah because I got her on Good morning, America and somebody from.
Gini Dietrich: There, so he said tell people all the time, I say you want to get on oprah, which of course is all passe now because she.
David Avrin: made long gone.
David Avrin: That was.
David Avrin: That was the Holy Grail at the time.
David Avrin: Is that you want to get on oprah get your client on one of the other big networks, they don't want didn't want to discover people they want somebody who's already on their way up for whatever no more oprah.
David Avrin: Let me i'll give you a quick introduction to Gini and then we'll we'll jump into all of this.
David Avrin: She is the founder and CEO of Armand Dietrich, which is a digital marketing communications firm offering alternatives to traditional marketing.
David Avrin: She is best known by so many people, as the author of spin sucks and she's got a blog and a wonderful online community of other professionals who are learning together and she she teaches other PR and marketing people to be better at what they do.
David Avrin: And there are so many people who are not very good at what they do, and so I think that's really important but what's really important what we want to talk about today is how much has changed.
David Avrin: My world is so different and what's effective today is phenomenally different so.
Gini Dietrich: Welcome Gini well, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Gini Dietrich: i'm so glad to be here, I feel like i'm coming home.
David Avrin: It is, I well, will you do this, of course, as well, and I was.
David Avrin: I was recalling with with Gini before we went on air that last time I sorry I literally had run into her in a lobby of a hotel in Chicago after I had driven all night long because my playing got diverted.
David Avrin: I had a speaking gig and I can say in 20 plus years of speaking i've never missed a scheduled speaking gig and four times i've driven all night.
David Avrin: Of course, like in my jeans and a T shirt saying it's.
David Avrin: Great to be here had my luggage actually arrived as well, it would be.
David Avrin: But they like that.
Gini Dietrich: yeah no especially that group that nobody.
Gini Dietrich: Nobody cares.
David Avrin: They think it's really good so talk to me a little.
David Avrin: About or talk to all of us about where we've been to give us perspective of where we are today because it is.
David Avrin: more difficult.
David Avrin: But the opportunities and the vehicles in the venues to promote your brand and your message are astronomically bigger, but the competition is pretty fierce as well, so take us back to yesteryear.
Gini Dietrich: and
David Avrin: walk us through the transition to where we are today.
Gini Dietrich: I love to tell the story of when I started my career.
Gini Dietrich: And we would be pitching media, so we had a big product campaign launch or some some new feature launching or something that we would plan out our our media relations campaigns and there was no Google, there was no going to a media outlets websites to figure out who reported on.
Gini Dietrich: cranberry juice, you had to pull down out of the library these great big thick bacons books, they were gonna I.
David Avrin: Was gonna say yeah the big.
David Avrin: The Green one.
Gini Dietrich: yep and then you'd go and you'd say okay you'd go to the F and look for food.
Gini Dietrich: or food and beverage and you would copy all the pages, because you couldn't keep the bacons books out of the library for very long copy all the pages, but the BAT the book back and then you'd go back to your office and you would start making phone calls making phone calls.
Gini Dietrich: Right and every porters would actually pick up the phone.
Gini Dietrich: And that's how we started like that's how I started my career and anytime that you discovered that somebody had left you would go back to the bacons book and you would annotate in the.
Gini Dietrich: on the side of the note to say Okay, so it says no longer there, but this person has taken over and here's his or her information so.
David Avrin: That hasn't been every year, we had to go back because it all had changed.
Gini Dietrich: All of it.
David Avrin: The people had moved as well, and for clarification and I am remiss in not that you have worked with major brands, such as ocean spray sprint denny's G abbott and others as well, so you know where you're coming from, but it was very different in yesteryear.
Gini Dietrich: Very different yeah yeah.
Gini Dietrich: I mean kids today i'm so it happens so easy all they have to do, food and beverage reporter.
David Avrin: Well, remember, we were we were kids we didn't know how to spell something you'd be like mom out of your.
David Avrin: campaign and they look it up in the dictionary.
Gini Dietrich: yeah dictionary yeah.
David Avrin: yeah those kind of things well so talk about the monumental shift, and I know your address this in your book spin sucks but this monumental monumental shift to digital and what that meant in terms of challenges and opportunities and where we are today.
Gini Dietrich: sure that I think the big shift was probably in that 2007 to 2010 maybe 2011 range.
Gini Dietrich: Because we had several things happen, we had the great recession which took a lot of businesses either out of doing communications, all together, or are scaling way back.
Gini Dietrich: Right, we had Twitter that became a household name, we had Facebook go from universities into corporations linkedin launch so whether there was all this stuff.
Gini Dietrich: Companies began to understand that they could do this newfangled thing called blogging and actually tell their own story without relying on.
Gini Dietrich: editors reporters to do that for us, and so there was all of this stuff that was happening at the same time, and because it happened at the same time as the great recession.
Gini Dietrich: It gave organizations and business leaders have the opportunity to say Okay, what can we do with all of this now, and how will it help us grow in the future.
David Avrin: But with any new medium it's immediately either well not either it's all sort of simultaneously it's done poorly sorry, and it was the difference between.
David Avrin: Selling on social media and sharing on social media and that, because of a mind shift, but then it's also abused and taken over by everything from spam, which in my day was a luncheon meat, made up of poor pork products.
David Avrin: And then.
David Avrin: But but, but then also the nefarious forces the scammers the pornography and.
David Avrin: All of those things as well, what was the magic formula that you arrived at early on to cut through some of the clutter and what's working well today.
Gini Dietrich: So we actually really looked at one of the challenges that I had in my business as a PR firm was we had these peaks and valleys and you could get.
Gini Dietrich: On gma and then be on oprah and then you'd have could easily have six months of nothing.
Gini Dietrich: And when you're working with with business leaders this Okay, they don't like that they're like wait I just went from good morning American oprah to.
Gini Dietrich: Not having anything so there's these peaks and valleys that happened when you're doing just media relations and the reason I I really took a hold of this for my own business and then.
Gini Dietrich: wrote a book about it, and all that is that it gave us the opportunity to smooth out those valleys so.
Gini Dietrich: You have a big piece on Good morning, America and then oprah gets a hold of it, and then in today's age, you would take that and you would repurpose the heck out of it, you would do blog posts and you would do social and you do some paid campaigns, you might do some.
Gini Dietrich: email marketing and some conversion rate optimization on landing pages and things like that you would combine it all together in a in a really big integrated campaign so it gives you that opportunity to.
Gini Dietrich: To not have the peaks and valleys, but just have a nice good cadence of brand awareness and lead generation.
David Avrin: what's we're seeing a lot is is content used to be episodic it happened.
Gini Dietrich: Right.
David Avrin: Even in the days of the old burrell's loose where we would do the press clippings which physically were people cutting out.
Gini Dietrich: Right and then we would do.
David Avrin: Do what we call the waist measurement of public relations where we would go back to the client say look at all the clips.
David Avrin: and enjoy and extrapolate in some bs kind of a way in terms of what those impressions actually meant.
David Avrin: I remember there's an old line and marketing that people used to say, I know that half of my my advertising dollars are wasted I just don't know which half.
David Avrin: Right right yeah today we know exactly don't we and so that episodic content has become.
David Avrin: We can turn that into campaigns.
David Avrin: talk to us a of all of that as well.
David Avrin: And how some of the best companies in the ones that you work with are doing this well it's not about you know we got that hit and how long can we write it.
David Avrin: it's as we create as you it's sort of mentioned people creating their own content and our own channels for distribution, but that has a shelf life that can be amazing.
Gini Dietrich: So i'm going to give you a really good example that just happened.
Gini Dietrich: When we have a client that ripken baseball is one of their partners and ripken just open they have several fields in Aberdeen Maryland that look that are replicas of actual fields, so they just open to new fields one.
Gini Dietrich: Oh shoot is going to skip me now one first city bank which I think it's Pittsburgh.
Gini Dietrich: not available for some.
David Avrin: sacrifice my man card Center yeah I should know this off the top of my head I don't but they open to new fields.
Gini Dietrich: That are replicas and I did a ribbon cutting so I sent the client the CEO of the clients business and the customer service person, and then I sent our videographer and our social media person.
Gini Dietrich: And they all went to the ribbon cutting and as part of this, I discovered that Jeff mayor, who is the now man who ruined game, one of the world series in.
Gini Dietrich: baltimore with the ball between the orioles and the Yankees in 1996 he caught the ball.
David Avrin: yeah.
Gini Dietrich: You remember the wall.
David Avrin: He did yeah I remember that.
Gini Dietrich: Well Jeff mayor is now a 36 year old man with three kids and he works for my clients organization, so I had him two days before I had him record a video just not as face or anything just talking about the importance of ripken.
Gini Dietrich: baseball experience and that he has sent his son sons there.
Gini Dietrich: And then the CEO showed that video to cal ripken junior and said, do you know who, this is, and he was like no and he said it's tough mayor and, like the whole reaction and then cal ripken says on video I forgive you it wasn't really.
Gini Dietrich: You I mean it's it's.
Gini Dietrich: Great great great.
Gini Dietrich: Fantastic we are going to use the crap out of that like we've sent it to all the baltimore media, we sent it to all the big sports stations, we have all of this footage that's really great.
Gini Dietrich: will use it on social we've already used on social will continue, we use it on the blog like we're continuing to use that in a really interesting way because I mean that's not going to happen for every organization.
Gini Dietrich: I had no idea that I created my your creative mind finds that mine.
David Avrin: Opportunities and nukes the crap out of.
Gini Dietrich: Milk the crap out.
David Avrin: But this is, this is one of things I think you're very good at it and i'm and i'm sucking up a little bit mostly just because I like you a lot is that is that you understand all the differences back in our day.
David Avrin: We had paid media, which was advertising.
David Avrin: Right and then what people mistakenly called free publicity right.
David Avrin: Well, free publicity is free if it happens organically which wasn't even a term at the time but.
David Avrin: you're paying for a firm you're paying for people and.
Gini Dietrich: Nothing is free.
Gini Dietrich: there's no it's not free.
David Avrin: Right, you know, and so, but it's grown right with paid media and earned media and all of those as well you've created a process that you call peso with the p so.
David Avrin: Take us through all of it, because what I think is so brilliant about it, is it really helps to sort of demystify all the different ways, you can take a concept or content or brand and all the different channels to maximize the exposure take us through what that is.
Gini Dietrich: So I was talking about those peaks and valleys earlier and really it used to be that we would go out and we would pitch some media and then that was it.
Gini Dietrich: And now we have the opportunity to say okay like I said, we can we can replicate that or we can reproduce or repurpose in all different places, so.
Gini Dietrich: When I was writing spin sucks the book, I talked about this process that we used internally and it didn't have a name yet and and I didn't it wasn't it wasn't formulated with like a graphic and a name and copyright and.
David Avrin: It was good, what you did.
Gini Dietrich: Right.
Gini Dietrich: it's just right what we did right and I had a brilliant publisher who, after the first draft, said to me, we need a name for this and we need an image to go along with it, so I went on to up work and I hired a designer and he created this image for me like it was not.
Gini Dietrich: But it turns out that a couple of things number one pesos stands for paid earned shared and owned.
David Avrin: And it against slowly for those who are listening.
Gini Dietrich: Paid sorry.
Gini Dietrich: Paid earned shared and own so you have paid media and we're not talking about super bowl ads and billboards and things like that we're talking about.
Gini Dietrich: Boosting content we're talking, you know the things that communicators would be responsible for boosting content native advertising the advertorials of old that are now sponsored content those kinds of things.
Gini Dietrich: Sure earned errand is the media relations we're earning the opportunity to have somebody else sort of give us that rubber stamped.
David Avrin: By being persuasive that the story that we are pitching is a value to that outlet and their audience yeah it is earned we earn it through our persuasion.
Gini Dietrich: Yes, share to social and then own just content, so when you think about it from an integrated perspective and you look at it all together, you start to understand that.
Gini Dietrich: you're not just doing one thing you're not just pitching media you're not just writing a blog post you're not just doing this video with cal ripken and that's it you're doing.
Gini Dietrich: That and then using the other media types, to help promote it, so one of the things that people say to me all the time is, but you wouldn't really start with paid and that's true.
Gini Dietrich: But when we were naming the model what usually you would start with owned and then go to share it earned and then paid but os is harder to remember or.
Gini Dietrich: So, like I can't.
Gini Dietrich: burn rate cost.
Gini Dietrich: Great.
Gini Dietrich: It does help yeah so usually you do start with with own content so just like in the.
Gini Dietrich: example I gave you we own that content we created that content and now we're using earned media to give it that third party credibility stamp to say, this was kind of cool.
Gini Dietrich: we're using social to promote and amplify it and then we're using paid to give it a boost to get to new audiences, so it starts to work together and integrate it in a way that we've never been able to do.
David Avrin: So when you have a story idea you've got a client who has something to promote a brand to build and some of the more current vernacular.
David Avrin: Where do you start.
David Avrin: As part of that that that acronym or is it let's be clear who needs to hear what it is you're promoting and how do you take them through a process that they understand it better.
Gini Dietrich: yeah usually we'll start with objectives and key results will look at kpis you know what are the metrics that we have to do.
Gini Dietrich: Who is it that we're talking to do you have brand personas and if you do, who are they and how do we approach that one of the things we learned recently with a client is that they were calling their audience something different than what the audience calls themselves.
Gini Dietrich: Nobody knew that and as part of this process of us asking questions, it was uncovered so.
Gini Dietrich: We go through all of that, and then we start the peso model program so you do all your research and your planning and your objective building and your metrics and all that, and then you create the.
Gini Dietrich: peso model program and for for us, we do, mostly SAS businesses so we almost always start with owned we always start with the content piece, and then build the rest of it out.
yeah.
David Avrin: You know when you're talking about the that what they're searching for and there's sometimes there's a disconnect and that's one of those things that is really foundational so much of what we think as business owners.
David Avrin: makes us special isn't you know and the thing that I laugh all the time is I work with organizations and they say what's your big competitive advantage.
David Avrin: And and they'll say, first and foremost it's quality, you know and and i'm like so you're seeing your competitors don't have quality.
David Avrin: Right and we're at the beginning of the day it's about quality and i'm like I think at the or the end of the day, it's about quality i'm like I think quality is the entry fee the end the beginning of the day it's it's it's it's quality at the end of the day, it's competitive advantage.
Gini Dietrich: Right.
David Avrin: What they think that people are looking for is them and what they're looking for of course is the problem that they have.
David Avrin: There is that disconnect.
David Avrin: yeah that's good let's go back to the own media.
David Avrin: And so, this is one that I think I think many organizations, some of the smaller businesses have yet to really understand back in the day will take us back to yesteryear, we pitched to try and get our content our client on somebody else's channel.
David Avrin: It right at the time was a physical channel they clicked on the dial.
David Avrin: And so, today we create our own channels don't we we can have our own YouTube channel so when we're talking about owned content is content that we create that we can distribute through our own networks, our own channels and others as well talk to us a little bit about that.
Gini Dietrich: yeah and I want to be I think people start to get a little frustrated to this point because.
Gini Dietrich: When we talk about owned content we're talking about the content that we've created that lives in industry and is distributed through something that we own.
Gini Dietrich: So, through our website through our blog through our email marketing those things where we're using the other media types, such as social shared earned.
Gini Dietrich: and paid is we're now using other distribution channels are things that we don't own so I always like to start, and especially for a small business.
Gini Dietrich: You don't want to create all this content and then put it on Facebook and linkedin or instagram or tick tock or whatever happens to be or YouTube.
Gini Dietrich: And then one day wake up to learn that that business has gone out of business and all of your content went with went with it and that just happened it happened to.
David Avrin: Your audience and your audience and your audience.
David Avrin: I talked last week I am I podcast I had a gentleman who was in the cannabis, industry and had done a lot of things through linkedin and then all of a sudden it got shut down and so they've created their own through leaf wire their own ecosystem.
David Avrin: That conversation within that industry but.
David Avrin: yeah on rented putting your content on rented land is a real challenge.
David Avrin: doesn't mean we have orange right.
David Avrin: that's the best part right a pace that's associated.
Gini Dietrich: yeah.
David Avrin: He owned is really important, and will be more so moving forward.
Gini Dietrich: yeah and I think a lot of small businesses have this inclination to say Okay, well, I can just build something on Facebook, because it has an e commerce platform, and I can just do that and it's fine but and it's probably fine for now.
Gini Dietrich: But Facebook may not be around forever, I mean the the issues that they're going through from a government perspective, a global government.
Gini Dietrich: perspective, it could mean that they could be shut down and then Gore online stores to that's not good.
David Avrin: yeah Oh, I had, I had a major life space presence and.
David Avrin: Actually, not true.
David Avrin: You know it's funny my my first.
David Avrin: Not who you know it's who knows you, which is strategically.
David Avrin: Located next to my head.
David Avrin: Of course, yes in the in the chapter because it's it's an old book now, there was a whole chapter on on MySpace and so.
David Avrin: that's when I came up with my updated version I just just.
Gini Dietrich: threw way that check that out.
David Avrin: yeah, but I think you're right.
David Avrin: But it doesn't mean that some of these channels, because that's where the people are certainly of great value, you cannot also just solely put things on own space where people post things on their on their website and nobody's going to their website it's not an either, or is it.
David Avrin: it's an asthma and and an act.
Gini Dietrich: Correct yeah yeah I just literally right before you and I started talking, I had a conversation with a colleague.
Gini Dietrich: And she said, well, I just don't know if we have to stress about it, because people aren't coming to our blog every day and clicking to see what we've published and I was like no.
Gini Dietrich: But they're getting it in the email, which has a really high click through rate and they're seeing it on social and she goes oh yeah so it's not it's it's not just publishing it on the blog or the website its publishing it and then just distributing it and all the different places.
David Avrin: But the other thing is and i'd love you to talk about a little bit about this, but there's a life span, I mean there's it is.
David Avrin: I used to have this this line I used to say that I tell my kids who are no longer kids and their friends, I said, be careful about what you post, because I had asked me, you know the difference between love and the Internet, the Internet is forever.
David Avrin: Ever knew.
David Avrin: Its horror kusa.
David Avrin: Ever says it, that is a cynical.
David Avrin: That is easy thing to say, to.
Gini Dietrich: me.
David Avrin: The reality is.
David Avrin: It is.
David Avrin: Right, it is.
David Avrin: Whether it's whether it's the offensive comment, we used to in our day even early on, with email is like.
David Avrin: take a deep breath.
David Avrin: Right sit on it for a day before you hit send well now it's instantaneous it's like oh really yes son of a bit and then they're going to.
David Avrin: respond yeah yeah.
David Avrin: You think that level of crispness of bacon you're choosing see my God it's D what an idiot.
David Avrin: Who fares how crispy bacon that that's that's not as a cheap way of getting likes.
David Avrin: But, but the longevity of it from a negative perspective, but certainly from a positive.
David Avrin: Many of us are finding that we're getting gigs whatever gig looks like to to the audience from somebody who saw something that you posted or shared years ago, but they discovered it because it came up in a search.
Gini Dietrich: yep that's exactly right and that that's the I mean that's called it has a name as long tail search and search engine optimization.
Gini Dietrich: And that's how that's supposed to work, so I also like to go back in with some of that older stuff that has such a great long tail and updated like you said with your book taking things out that no longer apply.
Gini Dietrich: You know, making it making it more evergreen updating it so it's a little more relevant, you know, there was a lot of content that I created during the pandemic that.
Gini Dietrich: You know today needs to be updated so thinking about that kind of thing like.
Gini Dietrich: All of this content you created Now you can go back and update it and repurpose it with not that much effort and it's great because you don't have to create something new you've got something that you can just tweak.
David Avrin: and talk to.
David Avrin: You needs.
David Avrin: Gini Dietrich with spin sucks and also Armand Dietrich the the firm as well take us back in a couple minutes we have left so, what was the the genesis for the book title.
David Avrin: That has turned into this amazing Community blog podcast and everything else.
Gini Dietrich: I had an intern who said to me, you know if we're going to try this blogging thing we should call it spin sucks and I was like.
Gini Dietrich: Can we do that, and he said that's all you ever say because you know you get on an elevator with somebody and you have you.
Gini Dietrich: are on a plane, or you know at a cocktail reception and people say what do you do, and you say PR the inevitable response back is oh you're one of those who lies for a living and i'm like.
Gini Dietrich: No i'm not so yeah so I have always said that spin sucks and this intern who's brilliant and will always get credit for it was like no that's what we should aim it then so we did.
David Avrin: that's awesome so who are who do you work with today who are they I mean you don't have to name specific names, but you had mentioned something about SAS software as a service.
David Avrin: Which is those kinds of organizations, what do you like about those what kind of of worker you really get you up in the morning you love doing today.
Gini Dietrich: it's the it's the best because we work we work directly with growth oriented.
Gini Dietrich: Vertical SAS businesses, and the reason we like that the best is because we can see.
Gini Dietrich: The work that we're doing have an impact, really fast, so we we know how to do it, we know we have a really great process.
Gini Dietrich: And when it's implemented you just I mean you can see it, you can see it in terms of qualified leads, you can see it in terms of sales conversions you can see it in revenue and it's like I love it.
David Avrin: Well, and I think there's something to be said for looking at those growth industries, I used to do a lot of work with sewing machine manufacturers and video cassette recorders, and so there was just a limited and camera repair shops you there's always going to be a limit.
David Avrin: Right to those as well.
Gini Dietrich: Oh English.
David Avrin: just trying to think what else is it.
David Avrin: and white.
Gini Dietrich: white.
David Avrin: White out of Korea manufacturers typewriters.
David Avrin: and pay phones yeah all of that.
David Avrin: If people want to get in touch with you how do they do that.
Gini Dietrich: spin sucks calm.
David Avrin: There you go easy breezy hang out we'll talk real quickly on the other side i'll do my little.
David Avrin: Alto look her up get involved in the spin sucks community is great conversations in there as well, you can pick up a copy of my new book.
David Avrin: behind me here the morning huddle powerful customer experience conversations to wake you up and shake you up and win more business, and if you want to learn more about the video series go to the morning huddle.
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David Avrin: episodes you can learn more about my keynote speaking and my consulting at David Avrin calm thanks for tuning in this the customer experience advantage podcast leave a comment subscribe and a big thanks to Gini Dietrich for being my guest today i'm David Avrin be good.