The Scoop: Jake Ross of Build You

Jake Ross, rising senior at Babson College and the founder of Build You, shares his unique journey to entrepreneurship, tips for local small businesses looking to elevate their visibility, and more.

Jake Ross is a rising senior at Babson College in Wellesley, MA and the Founder of Build You, a full-service marketing and PR agency that serves as a trusted partner to small businesses, providing comprehensive solutions to boost their online presence, engage their target audience, and foster organic community growth.

Jake is passionate about empowering small businesses to thrive and building vibrant communities through strategic marketing and public relations initiatives. In just over a year, Jake and his team of 5 employees have partnered with 45+ brands, landing client coverage in numerous local papers and TV spots in Massachusetts including the Boston Globe, CBS Boston, NBC 10 Boston, and more. 

Jake, your journey as an aspiring PR industry leader is quite impressive. Could you share what initially drew you to the field of communications, and how that’s mapping against your studies at Babson today?

It genuinely happened naturally. During my first-year at Babson College, I felt the need to start a business (given Babson is entrepreneurship-centered), so I began buying, selling and trading sports cards, while creating content on YouTube as well about the hobby. I amassed over 11,000 subscribers and a discord community of over 2,500 collectors. Despite the success of this startup, my parents still wanted me to work an internship, so I applied to a few marketing agencies, given my content creation experience.

I worked for a year at the Belfort Group in Boston, MA where I was introduced to PR. I never pitched, but I sourced a lot of reporters for various stories and got to see how the releases were written. The best feeling was hearing a reporter wrote about the client’s story that you sourced. So after my stint at the Belfort Group, I decided to do some freelance work for a Babson alumni creating YouTube videos and writing his newsletter. Slowly, more and more companies and people reached out to work with me, but I could not handle all the work and school, so I established an LLC, hired my first employee, and slowly expanded my services.

Our fourth client, Maxie’s Delicatessen, asked if I could get them in the local paper. We had never offered the service, but I knew how to do it. So two weeks later, we landed them a half page in Sunday morning’s Boston Globe, and the story took off.

My studies at Babson don’t necessarily coincide with the PR portion of the business, but a lot of Babson alumni and current student entrepreneurs reach out to me for PR opportunities. I also have built an awesome connection with Babson writers and their director of social, which has been amazing for story distribution that include Babson students.

Given your focus on small business brands, you recognize the importance of building strong media relationships. What are a couple of best practices or strategies that have consistently worked for you and your team when it comes to media relations?

It really all comes down to reporter-story fit. If you have a solid story that is in the realm of what the reporter writes about, then it is a no-brainer for them to write about it. After that, I always like to ask them if I can stay in touch with them with other stories I may have in the future. I have actually found reporters reach out to me asking if I have other stories before I feel like I have another story for them. It shows that our firm was easy to work with, provided great content, and reporters trust us.

I also keep up with the writer's content. That is key – read their stories because it can help you pitch them even better stories that fit their style and overall content. If you can be that person that when you send them an email, they KNOW it will fit their writing, they will open your email, read your story, and potentially write about it. This helps build trust and reliability which are key.

What’s one thing you wish journalists knew or better understood about working on the flipside in Public Relations?

The value of feedback. Understandably, reporters receive numerous pitches every day, but sometimes a sentence or two about why they don’t take your story would be extremely helpful because it would allow PR professionals to provide them with stories that align better moving forward.

As you’re well aware, the media landscape is ever-evolving. From your perspective, what is one key trend you’re tracking in the media industry at large, and how do you see this trend impacting the strategies employed by PR professionals?

I may get some slack for this, but I would say that it is as simple as cold email metrics to gauge how strong of a story you have.

First, I focus on cold email open rate – let’s get 60% of our cold emails open. This tells you how strong your subject line is and the headline of your story. If 6 out 10 reporters are opening your COLD email, I’d say that you have a strong headline that gets people to click. Think about how many stories they receive everyday, and that 6/10 opened yours - that’s pretty solid.

Second, let’s increase click rate – this allows us to ensure that our brief email pitch propels. A key part of PR is your initial pitch – the 2 line pitch of your story alongside a quote from the story. I like to attach the press release in a PDF format and I use a software that tracks if/how many times the press release was viewed. If the unique click rate is high (# of times the release was clicked per email open), then I know my ‘elevator pitch’ of the story is where it needs to be at.

Third, conversion rate – the amount of stories landed (articles published) per reporter outreached to. This is a great overall metric to see how your process is and where you can improve your operations to land more stories for the businesses you work with.

Your agency, Build You, has achieved notable success in a short time. Can you share a few examples of projects or campaigns that you're particularly proud of, where your agency has helped small businesses significantly improve their online presence and/or community engagement?

#1: PR Engagement with Maxie’s Delicatessen

Just about a year ago, Maxie’s Delicatessen hired us to help place them into local papers (as shared in an anecdote above). In about 2 weeks, we landed them a half-page in the Boston Globe. Following that feature, they have been highlighted in NBC 10 Boston, the Enterprise, Patriot Ledger, NESN, WCVB, Yahoo News, and so many more. Their story is still alive and well, having an in-studio podcast filming session scheduled for the middle of September with the Boston Podcast and a feature in CBS Boston approaching. 

Co-founder and operator of Maxie’s Delicatessen Steve Robbins says, “They have really turned this place around, I feel like I am the only business they serve. That’s how personal the connection is. I can just give Jake a call and he is on it!” They have seen constant growth, new regulars, and are selling more food than ever before.

#2: PR Engagement with Junk Teens Junk Removal

Junk Teens Junk Removal is a local junk removal company ran by a high school student at Westwood High and a second-year student at Babson College. They hired Build You to get some more PR attention after having been featured in the Boston Globe. We took this momentum and had them featured in the Boston Business Journal, CBS Boston, the Westwood Minute, and many other local papers. 

This soared the number of leads they received for junk removal. We also found this really helped word-of-mouth because these new customers began to recommend them to friends and family, growing their business exponentially.

#3: Instagram & Facebook for Lanes Bowl & Bistro

Outside of our PR efforts, we create a lot of social media content for our clients. One of our favorites to make content for is the Lanes Bowl & Bistro in Mashpee, MA on Cape Cod. We go down to the alley, film food, drink, cornhole, and bowling content to post on Instagram reels and on Facebook. We have found notable success from our organic content – racking up over 1M views and 1k+ followers, while bringing people into the casual, upscale dining and bowling alley. 

PR undoubtedly involves overcoming challenges. Can you tell us about a specific challenge you've faced in your journey so far and how you and your team navigated it to achieve a positive outcome?

We had a reporter take on a story, interview our client, and then we got ghosted. It was a weird experience since it has never happened before. We simply reached out to another reporter at the outlet, inquired about our obstacle, and the new writer ended up liking our story and took it on herself.

As a successful entrepreneur who’s doing it all right now—building an agency while completing your undergrad studies—what advice would you give to other aspiring PR professionals who are looking to make their mark in the industry, especially early on?

Just try it. Reach out to a local business and offer to create a press release for them for free, source reporters and send email campaigns. Just see what happens. There are thousands of stories coming out everyday. Writers are always looking for new ideas and sources...you’d be surprised how easy it really is. Don’t know how to write a release or source a reporter? Check out blogs and YouTube videos to learn how to source reporters and write a strong press release.