RMC Client Featured on MSNBC's Your Business Show

Northern Virginia-based Olde Towne Pet Resort (OTPR), presently a Ruiz McPherson Communications (RMC) PR client, has been recently featured in an national broadcast episode of MSNBC’s Your Business show, a program exclusively focused on issues affecting small business owners.

The specific OTPR segment shared above, which aired this past Sunday, March 4, 2012, highlighted OTPR’s pet boarding business and the recent expansion of its second location into Loudoun County, Virginia amidst a challenging economic climate. “The decision to expand our pet resort into the Loudoun community was easy to make,” shares Steve B. Jones, President of OTPR’s parent company, Fried Companies, Inc. during the interview. “The county’s overall strong demographics and its proximity to Washington DC were key in selecting Loudoun as the new home for our second location.”

The popular MSNBC show, which regularly airs on Sundays at 7:30 am and Saturdays at 5:30 am eastern and is hosted by Today Show small business contributor JJ Ramberg, also highlighted OTPR’s pet boarding site at its first and original Springfield, Virginia location. Additional spotlights as to how the two OTPR facilities in Springfield and Dulles collaborate and support each other’s operations is also part of the upcoming segment.

“We are very excited to have this highly visible, national opportunity to share our passion and love for dogs with MSNBC’s Your Business viewers. Any chance we are afforded where we can share our story and convey just how much effort we put into elevating pet boarding service levels in the Northern Virginia region is one we will rise to happily,” shares OTPR’s President and founder, Ms. Leah Fried Sedwick.

“Ms. Sedwick and her family are long-time dog and animal lovers. During the Katrina hurricane that hit the Mississippi Gulf coast back in 2005, Ms. Sedwick and her family provided temporary boarding for many of the dogs caught up in the aftermath of the storm,” recounts OTPR marketing coordinator Sadaf Atashbarghi. “The Fried family has many such a story like the Katrina one. We are so proud their tradition of compassion and support for pets far and wide is one MSNBC finds is one worth sharing.”

On the RMC side of things

RMC, a local PR and marketing ingenuity practice based in the heart of the Dulles Technology Corridor, set out late last year to develop a series of micro-pitches for targeted media outlets. “Naturally, most PR clients really want to focus any and all publicity exposure on their specific products or service offerings but sometimes, pitching ‘secondary story’ angles works better in attracting the media,” says long-time digital publicist Mayra Ruiz-McPherson who founded RMC in 2007. “In the case of OTPR, we felt that while the pet boarding and pet care angle are key, secondary angles such as ‘family owned business’ or ‘women in business’ (for starters) were really strong story twists worth pursuing.”

The RMC team worked over a period 3-6 months performing extensive research on the pet care industry first at the local level and then worked their way outwards specifically identifying key audiences at regional and national levels. “We did a very deep dive and identified countless publications, authors, editors, bloggers, community leaders — both online and off — that would find specific angles of the OTPR story to be of interest for their readership, audiences and subscribers.”

Once key PR targets were selected, RMC began to reach out to everyone in a very personalized way, one by one. “Sending a ‘one-size-fits-all press release’ to each identified contact as a blast email no longer has positive PR impact. The outreach we perform must be relevant and highly personalized and this takes time,” shares Ruiz-McPherson who led the initiative. “We have to read whatever content the target is publishing first to understand what matters most to that target’s audience. It is from that specific starting point where we then re-craft and re-purpose our story sharing efforts, one individual at a time.”

With regard to the MSNBC show Your Business, RMC had selected the program and its producers as key targets at the national media level. Explains Ruiz-McPherson: “We strongly felt this program would be interested in the OTPR story from numerous high-value angles. We outlined various talking points and story ideas to the producers … and the positive outcome of our efforts have clearly been realized.”

About Olde Towne Pet Resort

For almost 10 years, the Olde Towne Pet Resort (OTPR) has provided quality boarding and spa services for dogs and cats in Northern Virginia. With locations in both Springfield and Dulles, Virginia, OTPR is known to spare no detail to ensure the utmost of comfort, safety and joy for its customers’ pets. For more information about boarding or day camp services, please visit http://www.oldetownepetresort.com.

About MSNBC Your Business

JJ Ramberg is the host of MSNBC’s Your Business, the only television show dedicated to issues affecting small business owners. Now in its fourth season, the program has profiled hundreds of small business owners and offered advice from countless business experts and investors. Ramberg is a regular contributor to The TODAY Show about small business and financial issues. To learn more about the show, which regularly airs on Sundays at 7:30am and Saturdays at 5:30am EST, please visit them online at http://openforum.com/yourbusiness  or their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/MSNBC-Your-Business/62499551911.

Mayra Ruiz Mcpherson

Brand Journalist and Digital Strategist Mayra Ruiz-McPherson is founder of Ruiz McPherson Communications (RMC), a marketing ingenuity practice based in Herndon, Virginia. Mayra — who also founded and launched the online career community SocialMediaJobsDC.com — often presents various digital and social media-focused topics tailored to business owners and senior-level marketing managers. She also instructs a number of courses, workshops and training sessions as well as provides private, on-site training on social media tools and strategies.

In between professional engagements, Mayra guest blogs and contributes content regularly to a number of publications both in and outside the Washington DC metro area. Mayra is also the editor of The Better Social Business Blog, "Pet Tech" columnist for the Virginia Maryland Dog Magazine, contributes an “e-Trends” column to the Loudoun Business Journal and is founder of the Loudoun Fairfax Local Bloggers Meetup group which mentors and helps local bloggers network, learn and exchange ideas.