Chapter 4

The offer

Three tiers. The £299 membership is the core and everything else exists to serve it: the £49 course is the entry point and the churn catcher, the £1,500 Campaign Partner tier is the ceiling that stops members asking the membership to become a retainer. What is left out matters more than what is in, because Sam has ten clients and a finite week.

The three tiers
£49The Press Kit · per month, or £499 once for the current version, permanently · 12 modules, every template, the media list as a snapshot refreshed twice a year · no live access · unlimited places
£299The Press Room · per month, or £2,990 a year (two months free) · everything above, plus the live media list, one written review a month, the monthly clinic, the annual campaign plan, the directory · capped at 60
£1,500Campaign Partner · per month, three-month minimum · everything above, plus two 60-minute calls a month and Sam's edit on every asset · capped at 4 at a time · never includes Sam contacting a journalist

Ratios 1 : 6 : 30. Wide enough that £299 is the obvious answer for anyone with a real release, and £1,500 is bought for Sam's attention rather than for more content. All prices exclude VAT if and when Sam is registeredS40.

What is in each tier

EntitlementPress Kit
£49
Press Room
£299
Campaign Partner
£1,500
Sam's cost
The 12-module course, video and written, with a deliverable per moduleYesYesYesOne-off build, then a quarterly refresh
The template library: press release, three bio lengths, tour and album announcements, pitch emails by outlet type, follow-up sequence, embargo note, interview prep sheetYesYesYesOne-off build
The classical media list, snapshot: UK, France, Germany, US. Outlet, desk, what they cover, lead time, how they want to be approachedRefreshed twice a yearLive, refreshed monthlyLiveAbout 3 hours a month total, across all members
Monthly press-readiness review: one asset, written response against a fixed rubric, returned in five working daysNoOne per member per monthUnlimited within reason, plus Sam's editAbout 12 minutes per member per month. This is the price.
Live pitching clinic, 90 minutes monthly, recordedNoYesYes1.5 hours a month regardless of member count
Annual campaign plan: one page, dated, for the member's next twelve monthsNoOnce a yearTwice a yearAbout 45 minutes per member per year
Directory placement: a public page listing members and their next dated projectNoYesYes, featuredNear zero
The members' room: a place to ask, and other members at the same stageRead onlyYesYesModeration, about 30 minutes a week
Two 60-minute calls a month with SamNoNoYesAbout 1.5 hours a week per place. This is why there are only four.
Sam's edit on every asset, not just one a monthNoNoYesIncluded in the above
One warm introduction a quarter, at Sam's sole discretion and only where she judges the fit is genuinely rightNoNoYesReputational, not time. The single most valuable thing in the whole offer and the one thing that can damage the agency.

What is deliberately left out, and why

This is the most important section in the guide. Everything below has been asked for by members of every product like this, and every one of them, if granted, converts a £299 product into an unpaid retainer.

Left outWhy members will askWhat Sam says
Email and DM access to Sam"It's just a quick question.""Everything goes in the members' room and I answer it on the clinic, so everyone gets the answer. That is deliberate, and it is why this costs £299 rather than £1,500." Say it in the welcome email, before it is ever asked.
Sam sending a pitch on a member's behalf"Could you just forward it? They'd open it from you.""No, at any tier. My relationships with those journalists are the business my clients pay for, and spending them on a membership would devalue them for everyone including you." This rule protects the agency and it is not negotiable.
Named journalist contact details in the media list"Can I have her email?"The list carries desks, beats, lead times and approach notes, not personal email addresses harvested and redistributed. That is both an ethical and a data-protection position, and it is also what makes the list better than a scraped spreadsheet.
Any guarantee of coverageBecause every bad publicist implies one."Nobody can guarantee coverage and anyone who does is lying to you." Put this on the sales page. It is a differentiator, not a weakness.
Unlimited reviews"I've got two things this month."One a month, and the second goes to the front of next month's queue. At 60 members, two each is 24 hours a month of Sam's time.
1:1 calls at £299Because everyone prefers a call to writing.The written review is better for the member (they keep it) and survivable for Sam. Calls are what the Campaign Partner tier is.
Press release writing"Could you just write it?"The membership teaches them to write it and tells them what is wrong with theirs. Writing it is agency work.
A private Slack or WhatsAppBecause it feels friendlier.One room, on the platform, with a searchable archive. A WhatsApp group with 60 members is a 24-hour obligation.
Anything for record labels beyond the roster licenceBecause labels will try to buy campaign work at membership prices.A label buys seats for its artists. A label that wants a campaign is an agency conversation. Chapter 11.

The positioning line

"Instead of £4,500 to find out whether a publicist can help you, £299 a month to learn to do it yourself with my media list and my eyes on your material."

That sentence works because both halves are true and checkable. The £4,500 is three months at the reported independent-publicist floorS5. The media list is worth £6,450 a year in its general, non-classical formS7. Nothing in it claims a result.

Three things that would change this offer

  1. If Sam has fewer than eight hours a week. Drop Campaign Partner entirely, cap the membership at 30, and run the low case. The offer still works; it just earns about £7,000 a month by month twelve instead of £18,000S27.
  2. If £1,500 is close to what a retained client pays. Delete the Campaign Partner tier. A tier that undercuts the agency is worse than no tier. Ask before publishing.
  3. If the first thirty conversations say the review is not the thing they want. Then the price is wrong, not the product. Reprice to £149 with the clinic and the list and no individual review, and cap it at 150 instead of 60. That is a different business and a viable one, and it is better to find out in month one than in month nine.