Episode 205: PR + AI: The Now-or-Never Publicity Opportunity for Small Businesses
In this episode of the Gloria Chou PR Podcast, I reveal why right now is the golden opportunity for small businesses to land major press—without hiring an expensive PR agency.
We’re talking about gift guides, AI search visibility, and free PR tools that make pitching faster and easier than ever. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to start PR, this is it.
Whether you’re a product-based founder, a one-person shop, or a busy parent building a brand, this episode shows you how to get featured in national media with zero ad spend.
Why Gift Guides Are the #1 Way to Get Featured in Q4
Gift guides aren’t just for Christmas. Editors are actively building guides for every season—Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Graduation, Back-to-School, and beyond.
By getting your product into these articles, you’re meeting customers where they’re already primed to buy. Even better? Gift guides give you lasting SEO that outlives paid ads and Instagram posts.
How AI Search Is Creating a PR Gold Rush
More consumers are turning to ChatGPT and AI search tools for product recommendations. That means if your brand shows up in credible media, you’re signaling to AI that you’re trustworthy and relevant.
This window won’t last forever—founders who act now can dominate search before the market gets saturated.
Free and Accessible PR Tools Every Founder Should Use
You don’t need a $5K/month PR agency to get results. In this episode, I share how small business owners are using tools like:
Perplexity.ai → to uncover real-time trends and angles journalists care about
ChatGPT → to fine-tune pitches into clear, concise stories
Email + LinkedIn → to reach editors directly, no insider contacts required
Avoid These Costly PR Mistakes
You don’t need to:
Send out tons of free samples
Write vague, one-size-fits-all pitches
Wait for the “perfect” time to start
Instead, focus on clarity, relationships, and consistency.
The CPR Method: Your PR Roadmap
I walk you through my signature CPR Method, a framework that helps founders land not only media coverage but also wholesale opportunities.
CPR =
C: Credibility → your story and why you’re legit
P: Point of View → your unique angle
R: Relevance → why now, why this outlet
Final Takeaway
This is the most powerful moment in the last 10 years to start pitching your business. You don’t need ads, agencies, or huge budgets.
What you do need is:
✅ A clear message
✅ A relationship-first approach
✅ A repeatable system
If other small businesses can land BuzzFeed, Refinery29, and Vogue, you can too.
Resources Mentioned:
Join the PR Secrets Masterclass
Join the Small Biz PR Pros Facebook Group
DM the word “PITCH” to us on Instagram to get a pitching freebie https://www.instagram.com/gloriachoupr
Connect with Gloria Chou on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/42863325495194
Additional Resources:
Listen On Your Favorite Podcast Platform
Join the PR Secret Masterclass
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TRANsCRIPT
00:00:00 Gloria: What's up, Small Business Heroes? You know that moment when you realize, oh my goodness, this is the time that if we look back on it and if we didn't take action, we would have missed out on so many opportunities. Now, this is kind of what I mean. So this episode is going to be a little bit different because right now at the time of recording, we are getting into this trifecta of a golden opportunity in PR that no one's even talking about. Now, as you know, gift guides are all year round. You can get featured. I've done so many podcast episodes on how to get into gift guides. I bring in gift guide journalists who feature our members. But right now, the trifecta has created a crazy opportunity for small businesses that even if you just get one or two PR features, you are leveraging something that is going to cause a massive momentum and growth in your business.
00:00:49 Gloria: Never before have we had consumers turn to AI and ChatGPT for recommendations on what products to buy? And never before have we had cheaper and easier PR tools to use to actually get featured. So let's start with the first one, which is why gift guides, right? Let's just back up a little bit. Now, as you know, gift guides are getting into a best gifts for dad or skincare gifts, or could be Christmas gifts, but gift guides are all year round. It's a free way to get featured in an article like let's say in BuzzFeed or Refinery29 or Vogue of things to buy. And Q4 more than ever, people are whipping out their credit cards with the intention of buying things. And it doesn't matter what the economy is.
00:01:29 Gloria: People will be buying things in Q4 with or without seeing your product on the gift guide. So the time is now, the time is now more than ever to get featured and to put your name in the hat so that your product can be recommended. I've done so many PR episodes on this and you don't need to have a fancy following. You don't need to have a lot of revenue. You just need to have good product photos and a bundle or something that makes sense for a gift guide. So if you have a bath bomb, maybe that's not the best gift unless it's a stocking stuffer. You might want to put it into a self-care bundle. So think about what are the best bundles that you can sell this season to make your average car order value a little bit higher, right?
00:02:10 Gloria: And you might be thinking, what types of gift guides are there? Well, it's never been easier to do a search and get featured. So I use perplexity.ai. I'm absolutely like gung-ho about it. It's free. It's easy to use. And the reason why I like it over a ChatGPT for research is that it scrapes the internet for real-time information and insights. And it helps you find out all of the consumer behaviors of what people are buying, what magazines are publishing and that will get you featured because it's going to get your products in the hands of magazine editors and different readers who are looking for products to buy. So what better way to make sales and become an established brand and get traffic and visibility than getting into those gift guides that people are reading?
00:02:54 Gloria: 67% of shoppers are saying that they're more likely to buy a product if it's in a gift guide. Because here's the thing, marketing is you talking about you, right? Ads, blogs, emails, social media. But if I am seeing you in a magazine, that's your industry talking about you. And that is a third party validation that consumers need when making a purchasing decision. We know that consumers are more discerning than ever, and there is so much market saturation. So getting featured in magazines, getting that PR, getting into a gift guide. And there's so many opportunities, by the way, this season. There's no better way to get in front of customers who are willing to buy.
00:03:30 Gloria: Think about it this way. Who's more likely to buy? Someone who adds you on Instagram randomly and sees your posts in the algorithm that nobody knows what the algorithm is? Or someone who's clicking on an article with 10 best skincare serums of 2025, right? Probably the person clicking on the gift guide. So for all those reasons, gift guides are the best way. And right now there are so many editors and magazines churning out these gift guides. They're looking for fresh new products, not just the boring old big box brands. They're looking for fresh new discovery of new brands to recommend. So why not put your name in the basket? Why not have you be the featured brand among others, right?
00:04:12 Gloria: We've had so many people get featured in gift guides and they're riding on this SEO and people are still finding them years later. So your ads won't give you that SEO and neither will your Instagram. That's going to expire after 24 hours, but not getting featured in a gift guide. That will be on the internet. And once you get featured in a gift guide, you can turn that into social media posts and other marketing assets. So I will do that all day. I'd rather focus on the highest leverage activities, getting featured in a gift guide, meeting my consumers exactly where they are, which is wanting to buy, than spinning my wheels on social media and spending so much money on ads that you don't even know if it's gonna convert or not.
00:04:49 Gloria: And we know that ads have gone up 400% and they're only going to continue going up. So that's the first thing of this trifecta of golden opportunity is we are getting into Q4 gift guide season. And no, it is not too late. You can still pitch in September, October, even November for last minute Christmas gift guides. But right now, September, October are arguably the best in prime times because you want to get into the editor's inbox before it gets super saturated and before they have already picked the finalists for who is going to be featured around. And yes, you can have one product or one bundle or one subscription box and get featured in multiple gift guides. It's not a once you get featured once, you won't get featured again. Absolutely not true.
00:05:31 Gloria: Let's talk about the second reason why now is the best time to get featured. The reason why is because people like me and you are overwhelmingly turning to AI for product recommendations. And the reason why is because we kind of trust AI, like ChatGPT, to give us fair and accurate answers. You know what I mean? So instead of going to Google where you're looking at blogs or reviews or somebody talking about a product that's not your opinion, ChatGPT and AI and large language models are scraping the internet and kind of synthesizing the best answer. And that's why we trust it more, is because it's supposed to be able to come up with the best summary of the best product to recommend for whatever your prompt is, for whatever you are searching for.
00:06:14 Gloria: And how do they do that? They do that by seeing if you've been featured, because that is a huge trust signal to the AI algorithm that you are a great product to recommend. And if you are featured in the media, like in a gift guide or a product run up or just any kind of podcast or anything that's online, that will tell the algorithm that you're 300% more likely to be featured in an AI search. And somebody actually found me on ChatGPT. So this really absolutely works. And 99% of other product founders aren't even focused on this right now. They are not realizing that we have a three to six month golden opportunity to dominate AI search. And the things that you do now will make it so much easier than if you were to wait after these three to six months, because then it's going to be so saturated and impossible to break through.
00:07:03 Gloria: By the way, no one's really talking about this, but getting as many PR backlinks, getting as many gift guide features and organic media features, that's going to help signal to the algorithm that you should be a recommended product. So I really do believe that if you focus with discipline, you want to get featured the next three months. That could help you save so much time later on by trying to compete with other people. Because again, no one's really thinking about AI search and SEO, but I'm telling you here, because I super care about small businesses, and I can just see what's happening is that we're all going to AI Search. We trust AI Search more than Google recommendations, and we want things to be simplified, and AI does that for us. So let's really focus on what's really going to move the needle for your business, which is getting those PR backlinks, getting featured in media so that you can be recommended on AI Search. Super powerful.
00:07:56 Gloria: The third reason why this is the best window of opportunity in the last 10 years is that PR tools have never been more accessible and AI has never been more accessible. So traditionally, PR agencies are really expensive, right? They're like $5,000 to $10,000 a month. And who has money for that as a small business? My whole mission is to make PR accessible so that the rest of us can be seen. And, you know, I've never come from a PR agency background. So I really do believe that we need to level the playing field. And AI is one of those things that has made it so easy for small businesses and product makers, even with a tiny following, to get featured and not have to feel like it's such a learning curve to sit and stare at a blank screen and think, what should I do to write?
00:08:42 Gloria: I used to teach pitch writing, but now with Perplexity and PR tools, it actually tells you exactly what to write and what to say. So Perplexity, which I absolutely love and just like soak on hoe about it, it scrapes the internet. And you can even prompt it like, I am a founder of XYZ. Here is my website. Here's who it's for. Here's a price point. Please scrape the internet and find me ways that I can be relevant to Q4 product gift guides with insights and customer data. And it'll give you all of the best angles. I'll give you an example.
00:09:13 Gloria: One person in my PR program makes tote bags. Very saturated, right? So many people make tote bags. But with Perplexity, it actually gave us a couple of different angles that tied directly to her product and then it positioned her as the best solution. So one of them was that people were really interested in catch all durable bags that were foldable because it's great for travel. And so we made sure then to highlight that. And they actually gave us a quote from Vogue Business citing the actual statistic about how people are looking for catch all bags and how the search volume for that product has gone up.
00:09:46 Gloria: So Perplexity is your brain in a way that allows you to not have to like fiddle around and be like, what am I going to write? It tells you exactly what are the data points, what are the trends, and then how to tie it to your product. And so there you have your first draft of your pitch just by using Perplexity. And then you can pull that into ChatGPT to kind of fine tune it. ChatGPT for me is an everyday Swiss army knife for information synthesis. It's kind of like a pasta maker where you give it a big shapeless piece of dough and it comes out in a certain shape, right? But Perplexity, I always start with perplexity because Perplexity is what is going to give me the real time insights and data backed insights with the actual link back to the research article for me to substantiate my pitch.
00:10:31 Gloria: So that way when you're pitching to the journalists, you're not saying, hey, I think tote bags should be featured. No, you're saying according to Vogue Business searches for tote bags have gone up 300%. Do you see how much more powerful that is, right? So I always say PR is just writing a relevant pitch and sending it to the right person. And Perplexity has made that pitch so easy to write because it does it for you. So there you have it. You literally have no excuses not to pitch. You have no excuse not to start your PR because not only is this so easy where you don't even have to write a pitch from scratch, it does everything for you, but it also allows you to dominate AI search in this window of opportunity where not many people are focused on it yet.
00:11:13 Gloria: And so the things that you do now will literally pave the way for so much growth in your business. You know, I read a quote somewhere that said, you know, 20% of your business activities amount to 80% of the overall growth in your business. And I do believe that this, right now, this wave of opportunity of getting into gift guides because it's Q4 and also using it to dominate AI search using these free AI tools is probably the top 5% of activities that's going to result in 95% of the growth in your business. And it's why I'm so focused this season on this. Because I know that if I just get as many PR features and signal to the algorithm that I am a trustworthy person, trustworthy brand to recommend, it will be so much easier for me to come up as a recommended PR coach.
00:11:59 Gloria: And I actually just did a search on perplexity. And I said, who's the number one PR coach for small businesses? And I actually came up as number one. And so I think the reason why is because we've been so focused on this effort, focus on getting onto podcasts, focus on getting featured so that the algorithm is basically scraping the internet and finding trust signals that I am the recommended and number one small business coach and solution for small businesses.
00:12:24 Gloria: So I want to keep this short, but this is an urgent plea. And it's really to tell you that we haven't had this window of opportunity ever as small businesses. And if you can leverage the fact that we are in gift guide season, the fact that people are looking to buy more than ever, and the fact that you can get featured very easily, more than ever, and using these free AI tools so that you can also dominate AI search, you are killing like 20 birds with one stone. So if you have any questions about this, I would love for you to DM me the word AI @gloriachoupr. That's AI @gloriachoupr. DM me and let's start a conversation. I can show you the simple workflows that I'm showing my PR members and the ways that small businesses are getting featured in under five minutes a day.
00:13:07 Gloria: I had someone who had just joined my program and she got featured six times in the last 30 days. And she is a one woman shop. She is a busy mom with kids and she's been able to do this. So no longer will you have to stare at a blank screen, brainstorm, oh, what am I going to pitch? Because again, all the AI tools do that for you. The time is now. And if you don't take advantage of this opportunity, the window will be closing. So I really urge you to think about all the things that you're doing and think, is this really the best way to use my time? Is this going to result in sustainable growth and searchability for my business? And PR, my friend, getting into gift guides right now is the thing. So that is why right now is a golden opportunity. And I really hope that you don't miss it. Until next time.
00:13:52 Gloria: Hey, Small Business Hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire, PopSugar, and so many more even if you're not yet launched or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact method thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig, or just reach out to that very intimidating editor, this class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. That's gloriachou, C-H-O-U, pr.com/masterclass so you can get featured in thirty days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free, so get in there, and let's get you featured.