Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Katrina Owens. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Katrina , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

The foundation of my business is empowering small businesses, like service providers and solopreneurs, with the knowledge they need incorporate public relations into their overall marketing strategy,

I actually didn’t start my business with this intent in mind – I have a background in corporate marketing and PR – so when I started my consultancy, I figured I would run a more standard agency, focused on serving large corporate clients. While I still do this for a handful of larger organizations, my passion really lies in education and empowerment. I would always feel a bit sad when my corporate retainer prices were out of reach for a small business, so I wanted to develop ways where I could serve these clients with amazing stories, but by providing them with the knowledge and tools I use, so they could have what they need to successfully pitch themselves.

I realized how meaningful this work actually was when I was booked to give a presentation to a local business association about the power of PR. Before I got on stage, an attendee asked me what my presentation was going to be about, and when I told him “PR”, he said, “you do know this is an event for micro businesses, right?” And that perception right there reminded me just how much public relations remains elusive and mysterious to us. We think that PR is just for celebrities, or big brands like Coca-Cola and lululemon, but there are SO many opportunities and tactics that are just, if not even more, available to small businesses. And I need people to know that!

Katrina , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My career started in PR about 10 years ago, I was working in the sports industry here in Canada, which was my dream job all throughout university. Honestly, when I landed my first internship in sports PR I thought I had made it. I was successfully pitching to Canadian news outlets like TSN and CBC and felt on top of the world. Once I spent a few years grinding it out – working late nights and weekends and being dramatically underpaid – I transitioned into a corporate marketing role in commercial real estate. That job really allowed me to refine my marketing strategy skills, but it also showed me the impact of community and industry relations, aspects of PR that are often forgotten about.

Overall, I had a 10-year corporate career that spanned industries from sports, to higher education, to retail and real estate. I left my last corporate role because of drastic misalignment in values between myself and the company, and for once in my life, I decided to prioritize my mental health. That’s when I started picking up a few of my own clients – mostly social media marketing and branding – but even then I didn’t think I would turn it into a business that could pay my bills and then some.

I’m only 15 months into my business, and it’s evolved a lot in a short period of time. When I started, I was all over the place in terms of my offering, but now I really just focus on Brand & Publicity (hence, my job title). I do this because a lot of more traditional PR firms do NOT touch the branding element of their clients, and I was sick of taking on PR clients that actually didn’t have a press-worthy brand in place. People often think we can just call up our contacts for a favour every time we have a client launch, and that’s just not true anymore. Podcasts, digital publications, collaborations with other creators — these are the PR tactics that move the needle on sales and exposure, but if you don’t have a brand that captures the attention of your audience, or the media, it’s going to be really hard to run a successful PR campaign.

So on the corporate side of things, I work with larger organizations ‘from the brand up’; so we do everything from the actual visual development of the brand, building out the website and social media accounts, and then the ongoing launch to the press, content planning, etc.

I also offer Publicity Coaching programs, which enables me to work with small businesses that don’t have the budget for the traditional retainer model. In these programs, I develop the strategy and media assets (like a media list, media kit, etc.) just like I would for a corporate client, but then I train the business owner on how they use these tools themselves. I provide pitch templates, how-to guides, and a media list with 100% accessible media targets for that business. I have a couple programs that vary in length, but once the initial strategy and set-up is done, I continue to run alongside that client and support them throughout their outreach, so reviewing pitches and follow-ups, or helping them strategize how to land their next speaking opportunity. It’s such an empowering program because there is truly no better feeling than successfully pitching yourself to the media, and when you realize you can actually do it yourself, FOR yourself, it’s a total mindset game changer.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I love this question, because honestly when I first started my business, I didn’t think it was possible for me to build a following on social media. There’s so much chatter about Instagram being “out”, or “the algorithm sucks”, I really fed into that, and also had some self-confidence issues that made me shy away from being myself online.

It’s important to have a strategy, and social media (which is a part of your ‘owned media’, as we say in PR) is a crucial part of a public relations campaign. So when I started treating Knockout Directive as a client in itself, I could separate my personal feelings from the business and feel a little less shy about creating content, speaking directly to the camera, and giving my audience a bigger glimpse into my personality. Since I’ve made this change, the feedback has been quite unbelievable. Being a little goofy or vulnerable, alongside openly sharing my client / business wins and challenges has really been the thing that turns followers into clients.

I work with a lot of service providers, and when you’re selling a service, you become part of the ‘product’, so you have to understand that you must form a deeper connection with your target audience, you can’t just rely on having a pretty website or clean ingredients (haha); understanding how your personal brand is actually a strategic element of cultivating a warm audience and eventually making the sale is crucial. What really pulled me out of my shell in terms of content development, was working with other service providers in the content space that encouraged me to try new things, or different styles of video. Do not be afraid to invest in external support. I am a marketing expert, yet I will still invest in outside marketing expertise to support my brand, because additional perspective and support allows you to think about things differently and bounce ideas off of someone else.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“Debt is bad.”

Even saying that here and knowing that my parents will read this incites a bit of fear in me, haha. But I was really raised to believe that you must be so efficient at saving money, that taking on debt shows that you’ve failed in that respect. Now, I don’t want to misrepresent my parents here, because maybe that’s not exactly how they see it, but that really was the perception I had of debt as I moved through adulthood.

Now that I’m a business owner, I understand that debt is a tool. While I’m not going out and putting designer handbags and luxury vehicles on a line of credit, as a business owner I want to feel empowered to make investments into my business, knowing that I will reap the rewards in the future. I’m very lucky to have an accountant that has provided me with a tonne of education and support on this topic, but in the early stages of my business I was reluctant to invest in the software and the help that I needed to take my business to the next level, because my risk tolerance was so low mentally. Now, I’m in a place where I still feel uncomfortable feelings creep up now and then, but I actually don’t use the word ‘expensive’ when it comes to sound investments or opportunities to level up. I only use the word ‘expansive’.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.knockoutdirective.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knockoutdirective/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owenskatrina/
• Other: My Favourite PR Resources for Personal Brands (Email List Opt-in): https://knockoutdirective.myflodesk.com/freebie

Image Credits
Kiana Bourne, Kahiki Photography