Startup PR for Success – Sihle

Using PR to grow your startup

In the early stages of a startup, trying out various growth channels is common, such as social media posts, content marketing, online community building, and growth hacks. However, there is one underrated marketing strategy that startups often overlook: public relations (PR).

PR is a strategic communication approach that helps businesses establish and maintain positive relationships with the public. It involves storytelling, reputation management, and crisis communications. PR activities include building relationships with relevant journalists, industry experts, and influencers to increase awareness of your brand, products, and company.

For startups, a key goal of PR is to obtain favorable press coverage in relevant media outlets, from major publications like TechCrunch to industry newsletters that attract attention from potential and existing customers, investors, and stakeholders.

This goal may seem daunting if you regularly read online media, where big brands and established companies dominate. However, even small and emerging companies can use PR to drive startup growth. By learning to pitch effectively to journalists and secure media coverage, startups can establish their brand in the eyes of the public, raise awareness of their products, and create a growth engine.

The Significance of Effective PR for Startups

Digital marketing often involves promoting your own company’s story through blog posts, social media updates, and email campaigns. While these strategies can be effective, they are inherently biased as every company believes in the value of their products or services. To attract new customers and stand out in a crowded market, it’s important to leverage the power of third-party endorsements through a dedicated startup PR strategy.

Here are some key reasons why PR for startups is essential:

Increase Visibility: Securing press coverage allows you to expand your reach beyond your current customer base and target new audiences who are interested in your product or service. By choosing the right media outlets, you can reach a target audience that is aligned with your brand.

Share Your Brand Narrative: Startup PR provides an opportunity to tell your brand story in a way that sets you apart from your competitors. By sharing your vision and values, you can create a unique brand identity that resonates with your target audience.

Drive Customer Acquisition: Positive media coverage can drive traffic to your website and social media platforms, which can lead to increased sales and new customers.

Heighten Credibility: Positive media coverage from reputable outlets or influencers can serve as a recommendation that readers can trust, which can increase your credibility and help build trust with potential customers.

Increase Hiring Pipeline: Positive press coverage can help attract top talent to your startup by providing external validation of your company and alleviating concerns that potential hires may have.

Secure Investor Attention: Positive media coverage can catch the attention of investors, potentially leading to new funding opportunities. Additionally, good PR can be included in your investment pitch deck to demonstrate early interest and traction.

Keep Growth Costs Low: If you choose to handle PR in-house, rather than hiring a PR firm or agency, it can be a relatively inexpensive growth channel that requires few upfront costs or specialized tools. To get started, all you need is an email account.

In conclusion, startup PR is a powerful tool for building credibility, increasing visibility, and driving growth. By crafting a compelling brand narrative, identifying the right media outlets, and building relationships with journalists and influencers, startups can leverage the power of third-party endorsements to attract new customers, investors, and talent.

Defining Your Media Narrative

When it comes to startup public relations (PR), it’s crucial to develop a clear point of view for your company that you can effectively convey to the world. Your media narrative is the story that you want to tell about your company, and it’s essential to take the time to define it. By doing so, you can create a cohesive PR strategy and pitch your story to the right journalists and outlets.

However, it’s essential to ensure that your media narrative is grounded in reality. If it lacks cohesion with the truth, it can quickly lead to bad press and erode trust. Instead, focus on mining the truth for novel and interesting angles that are not currently represented in the media.

There are four main types of media narratives that you can use for your startup: product focus, brand focus, data focus, and leader focus.

Product-focused narratives aim to build interest in your product by highlighting its unique features and distinct market position. When creating a product-focused narrative, ask questions such as what sets your product apart from competitors, how it allows customers to do something they couldn’t before, and what emerging technologies it employs.

Brand-focused narratives, on the other hand, focus on big-picture storytelling about your company, such as its industry, beliefs, or unique operating style. When creating a brand-focused narrative, ask questions such as how your company has impacted customers’ lives or businesses and what atypical company practices, policies, or traditions exemplify your company values.

Data-focused narratives leverage existing or new data to tell an interesting story or say something new that would interest your target audience. When creating a data-focused narrative, consider what compelling proprietary data you have access to, what trends or behaviors your customers exhibit, and what data-driven content you can develop and distribute to the media.

Finally, leader-focused narratives highlight a key member or members of your team as thought leaders and experts. This type of narrative can focus on your C-suite executives or other employees with specific expertise. When creating a leader-focused narrative, consider what members of your team can speak authoritatively about, what expertise they hold that they can provide insights on, and what compelling career stories they have that relate to why they joined the company.

Mapping Out Your Startup PR Outreach Strategy

After you’ve identified the PR narratives you want to share with the press, it’s time to develop a PR outreach plan to engage with journalists and secure media coverage for your startup.

Founder-Driven Outreach

Founder-driven outreach can be effective because journalists often prefer to hear directly from the source rather than through intermediaries. If you’re the founder of your startup, consider reaching out to journalists yourself in the early days and pitching them potential stories and angles about your company. This personal touch can be appealing to journalists and help your startup get noticed.

In-House PR Team Outreach

As your company grows, you may have less time to focus on PR and crafting pitch emails. In this case, a generalist marketer may take on the role of an in-house PR practitioner. They’ll spend time researching the right journalists, perfecting pitches, and sending them out. If a journalist expresses interest in a pitch, they’ll still likely want to speak with a founder. However, this approach frees up the founder’s time and allows someone with an intimate knowledge of the business to conduct outreach that’s more targeted and relevant.

PR Firm Outreach

As your company continues to scale, you may decide to outsource your press relations to a PR firm. However, this can be hit or miss. A good PR agency will take the time to deeply understand your business and have a broad network of media contacts and outlets they’ve worked with in the past, which can lead to relevant coverage. However, some PR firms may send non-targeted outreach that doesn’t produce results.

Before hiring a PR firm, do your research and check with previous clients to understand their level of service and track record in generating earned media. Ask about their PR strategy and the metrics they use to measure success, and make sure they have experience working with startups rather than just established brands.

Hiring a PR firm can be expensive, but it can be worth it if you’re in a growth stage. This approach frees up your team to focus on other priorities while having someone else handle research, outreach, scheduling, and measurement.

Crafting a Winning Pitch: Tips and Strategies

To start with, placing a story in online news publications, media sites, blogs, or newsletters requires finding the right journalist or person. Sending a press pitch to the wrong person is a common mistake that can harm your startup PR efforts. It’s crucial to target the right journalist who covers your niche and aligned topics. To do this, you must find relevant media outlets aligned with your story and potential readers. Delve into your niche, think about your prospective customers, and consider size and reach.

Monitoring your competitors is also helpful to figure out your own positioning and discover journalists who cover your industry. You can use Google Alerts, social media mentions, and your competitors’ websites to keep tabs on their press coverage.

Networking intentionally with journalists and building media relations is also crucial. Engage with journalists on social media, comment on their articles, and attend industry events to connect with them. Building familiarity with journalists can be valuable when you pitch them in the future.

Expanding your PR strategy beyond traditional outlets and journalists is also essential. Working with influencers and online personalities can help shape your company narrative. However, it’s important to remember that influencers operate under a different ethical code than journalists and often charge companies through paid media partnerships.

Instead of pitching a journalist, consider pitching an editor to have your story placed in their publication’s editorial section or as a guest post. This way, you’ll have the benefit of telling your company’s story in your own words while working with an editor to shape the story.

Building Your Media Kit: Essential Components and Best Practices

Crafting a compelling pitch and effectively selling your company to a relevant journalist is more crucial than PR tactics or press releases. A focused email pitch that provides newsworthy context about your business, including its product, brand, data, and leadership, can persuade a journalist to cover your story.

Before drafting your pitch, it’s essential to determine how to send it to a journalist’s inbox. To find a journalist’s email address, you can follow these steps:

Check their Twitter bio: Some journalists may have their email address in their Twitter profile’s bio to make it easy to access.

Browse their personal website: If a journalist has a personal website, you can check if their contact information is available there.

Look at their publication byline page: If a journalist writes for a particular publication, check the article index page to see if their contact information is listed.

Learn the publication’s email convention: Each publication has its email convention for journalists, ranging from firstname.lastname@[outlet].com to [first initial][lastname]@[outlet].com. You can analyze journalists across a publication to identify a pattern and make an informed guess.

Use an email address finder: Email address finder tools like Hunter, Zoominfo, or RocketReach can help you find and verify business email addresses.

Subject line:

To grab a journalist’s attention, a startup PR pitch must be exceptional. Given the current competitive media landscape, journalists may receive multiple pitches daily. Therefore, a subject line that stands out is essential. Your subject line should convince your reader to open your email and provide sufficient details about why you are contacting them.

Here are some examples of email subject lines that work:

“We surveyed 500 remote workers on the future of work! Surprising results…”

“So long, Spotify. We’re a tech startup disrupting music streaming.”

“At [Company], we’re embracing AI at work.”

Here are examples of email subject lines that do not work:

“Will you cover my company?”

“Introducing myself!”

“An idea for you to write about…”

Make an effective pitch:

To make your PR pitch effective, it’s crucial to personalize each email to show why you’re reaching out to a particular journalist. While it’s important to pitch widely, it shouldn’t feel that way to the recipient. To achieve personalization, research the journalist’s beat and tailor your pitch accordingly. It’s also recommended to include a personal touch, such as mentioning the journalist’s name and the outlet they work for, as well as highlighting any previous work of theirs that you’ve read and enjoyed. Connecting your pitch to their area of interest and beat is also helpful. By personalizing your email, you demonstrate that you’ve done your homework and are targeting the right person.

Storytelling:

When crafting your pitch, it’s crucial to provide enough context and details to create a captivating narrative. Instead of simply stating that your company is competing against a well-established corporation, delve deeper into the specific challenges within your industry and how your company is uniquely positioned to solve them, ultimately resulting in benefits for your customers. Alternatively, connect your brand to a current trend or topic that is top-of-mind, focusing on selling the story of your company rather than solely promoting it.

Newsworthy:

Make sure your pitch is newsworthy by including elements such as a key announcement, recently published data, or a breakthrough technological development. Even if your pitch isn’t groundbreaking, try to add something interesting to the conversation and make it relevant to the broader public. Keep your pitch concise, under 250 words if possible, and use formatting such as bullet points, bolding, or underlining to make it easy to skim. By following these tips, you can increase the chances of your PR pitch standing out and grabbing the attention of journalists.

Get to the point:

A compelling pitch needs to accomplish several objectives- it should be personalized, tell a story, and be newsworthy. However, it’s important to do this using as few words as possible. Keep your pitch concise and avoid burying the lead. The most interesting part of your email should be included in the first few sentences. Try to limit your pitch to under 250 words and use formatting such as bullet points, bolding, and underlining to make it easy to skim.

Anopol suggests that a pitch should be short, to the point, and engaging. It should also contain relevant facts and figures, as well as a clear call-to-action. Providing all necessary information to the journalist is also helpful, including access to sources, images, and other relevant material.

In summary, crafting an effective pitch involves personalizing it, telling a story, making it newsworthy, and keeping it concise. Remember to use formatting to make it easy to skim, and provide all relevant information to the journalist. By following these guidelines, you can increase your chances of getting your story noticed and covered by the media.

Followup:

Following up with a journalist can increase the chances of getting a response, especially if you haven’t received one after a few days. It is acceptable to follow up once, briefly mentioning your previous pitch and reiterating important details while being respectful of their time. Remember, it is not uncommon for emails to get lost, so a follow-up can be helpful.

Stay Connected:

If a journalist responds to your pitch, but isn’t interested in covering the story, don’t give up. Instead, politely offer to be a subject matter expert for future pieces they may cover. This can help establish a mutually beneficial relationship. Additionally, don’t be afraid to pitch another story down the line.

Avail Yourself:

When a journalist is interested in covering your story, they may request a phone interview. It’s important to make yourself available for the interview instead of relying on your PR or communications team members. Journalists appreciate speaking directly to the source. Make scheduling the interview as easy as possible by working with their calendar.

Media Training

The way your company, product, brand, and people are portrayed in the media largely depends on how well you engage with journalists during interviews and requests for comments. Knowing how to interact and engage with the press effectively will help you position your company properly and avoid any potential startup PR disasters.

Understand Your Narrative:

Although you shouldn’t come to interviews with a pre-scripted PR statement or rehearsed talking points, you should have a clear idea of what you want to convey about your company to the public. Here are a few key areas you should be prepared to discuss:

The founding story and the origin of your company

Company growth metrics and any relevant numbers you’re willing to share

How your company is distinct from other businesses and competitors

Your company’s goals and aspirations

Your brand values and cultural priorities

It is important to be aware of how you can control the narrative surrounding your company. By understanding your own story and being prepared to discuss it in a thoughtful and engaging way, you can ensure that your message is conveyed accurately and in the best possible light.

On the record:

To avoid any public relations mishaps for your startup, it’s important to understand what a journalist can use from your conversations. Unless agreed otherwise, everything discussed is considered “on the record” and may be included in their article, even seemingly casual remarks. Therefore, it’s crucial to be polite and considerate during interviews, including when discussing any challenges or competitors. Avoid saying anything that may cast your company in a negative light.

Transparency:

Providing transparency isn’t just appreciated by journalists, but readers as well. By offering as much information as possible, you can create a more engaging story that appeals to potential customers, employees, and others who come across it.

Be truthful:

Even though an interview with a journalist may seem like a casual conversation, many news outlets have a rigorous fact-checking procedure that takes place after the interview. It’s important to be honest and avoid fabricating or exaggerating anything about your company, including growth metrics and operational practices.

Maximizing Your Media Coverage: Post-Publication Strategies

A media kit is a comprehensive multimedia package that is easily accessible and often placed on a company’s website. It contains essential information about the company that can be used and referred to by journalists and other members of the press. Typically, a media kit can be found on the company’s “Press” page on their website, sometimes alongside previous media coverage.

A well-designed media kit should include the following items:

Fact sheet: A PDF that contains vital information about the company, such as the year it was founded, the company’s location, mission statement, core values, team size, product suite, co-founder names, investors and board members, and other relevant information.

Product screenshots: Multiple screenshots of the company’s products across various devices, including desktop, iOS, Android, and Windows.

Logos: A transparent PNG version of the company’s logo for use in press articles.

Brand guidelines: Any brand guidelines that specify how the company’s logo and brand colors can and cannot be used.

Team photos: Photos of the company’s team members that can be used by the media, including headshots of co-founders and team photos that showcase the company culture.

Customer quotes: Testimonials from satisfied customers that highlight the benefits of the company’s products and the target audience.

To get inspired for creating a media kit, check out examples from companies such as DigitalOcean, Slack, Zoom, and Notion.

Metrics that Matter: Evaluating the Impact of Your PR Efforts

Don’t let your PR efforts end after landing media coverage and news articles. Instead, maximize the benefits of being written about by engaging in post-publication activities.

Leverage social media

Take advantage of social media to share your press coverage. Make original posts linking to the coverage, share posts from the news outlets, and repost the journalist’s posts. Sharing coverage on social media can help increase brand awareness and establish your company’s legitimacy in the eyes of current and prospective customers.

Add coverage to your website and press kit

Dedicate a page on your website to showcase your press coverage. This not only highlights your accomplishments but also boosts your credibility and reputation.

Continue pitching

While some journalists prefer to cover more established companies, others are open to discussing small or lesser-known startups. When pitching in the future, you can mention your previous media coverage to hint at your company’s growing reputation. Just make sure to pitch a new story or angle.

How to Measure Impact

Tech startup founders often avoid investing in PR because it can be difficult to measure its impact. However, there are various metrics that can help assess whether a piece of press coverage is valuable for your brand and business. When measuring PR efforts at DigitalOcean, Anopol pays attention to the following key indicators:

Total media hits and media impressions: This refers to the number of mentions in the media and the quality of the attention you receive.

Share of voice: This measures the amount of coverage related to a specific theme or industry in which you operate, compared to your competitors.

Website and app traffic and conversions: Analyze your website/app traffic using Google Analytics or another analytics platform to see if a traffic bump follows a piece of news coverage. Track referral traffic to identify the source of any new traffic, and set up a segmented cohort to see if visitors from that segment lead to immediate or later conversions.

Backlinks: Being published in a recognized outlet can lead to mentions elsewhere on the web, so track backlinks using a tool like Ahrefs to monitor referral traffic to your website and how it affects your SEO.

Social media engagement: Track whether mentions of a published piece, from both your own company and other social accounts, are earning impressions, engagement, and shares across social media platforms.

Brand sentiment: Measure whether your brand sentiment is trending positively, neutrally, or negatively using tools like Brandwatch.

Further press inquiries: PR coverage can lead to more coverage, so track whether there is an uptick in inbound press requests.

Additional press coverage: Monitor whether news published in larger outlets is further picked up or syndicated in smaller outlets.

While measuring the direct success of PR efforts can be challenging and not always 100% accurate, consistency is key. One story won’t make or break a business, but consistent and diligent efforts to engage with the media will pay off in the long run. PR can be a powerful addition to a startup’s marketing mix that helps build brand recognition and reach your target audience. With a dedicated PR and communication management strategy that includes active PR outreach to journalists, building media relations, and crafting a thoughtful brand story, your company can reach new customers and build an impactful reputation.

Key Takeaways:

1. Define Your Story: Establish a clear and authentic narrative that explains your value proposition, differentiation, and vision.

• Build Relationships with Journalists: Identify journalists and media outlets that cover your niche, and reach out to them with personalized pitches, story ideas, and media kits.

• Create Compelling Content: Develop high-quality content that informs, entertains, and engages your audience, including blog posts, videos, infographics, and social media updates.

• Use Social Media: Leverage social media platforms to amplify your content, connect with influencers, and build relationships with your audience.

• Monitor Your Results: Use tools like Google Analytics, social media monitoring, and media monitoring services to track your website traffic, social media engagement, and media mentions.

• Stay Agile: Be open to feedback, adapt your strategies, and experiment until you find what works for your startup.