Whether you’re ready to take the leap of faith and start your own business or you’re already running one, having an effective online marketing strategy in this digital era is critical to your company’s success. As a small business owner, you may not have a lot of resources or a huge budget to buy extensive advertising. Creating buzz for your business can be a challenging task. That’s why more and more startups are resorting to public relations to get the word out.
Public relations can be one of the best ways to promote a business and gain visibility. It helps you stand out from your competitors and gives your business more credibility. According to a global survey by Nielsen of 30,000 respondents in 60 countries, two-thirds (66 per cent) trust reviews and opinions posted online and editorial content from newspapers and magazines. Compared to traditional advertising, PR content is almost 90 per cent more effective in influencing consumers’ decision-making process.
It goes without saying that earned publicity will benefit your business. However, engaging a PR agency or employing a PR consultant can be very expensive, and most small, budget-conscious businesses can’t afford them. Unless you have a PR background, DIY PR can be a daunting job that many entrepreneurs struggle with.
For this reason, I’ve put together this article to help startups and small business owners get press coverage for their businesses on a limited budget. In the past few years, I have successfully achieved coverage for my clients across 20 markets globally. Most of my clients are startups in the technology space: adtech, edutech, 3D printing, aviation technology, fintech/crypto, health tech, online gaming, app developers – you name it.
In this piece, I’ll take you through the do’s and don’ts of PR and give you time-tested tips on how to get guaranteed press coverage for your tech startup.
Identify the right news element
There are several ways to reach out to the media and get coverage, but the quickest and most effective way is to submit a press release. A press release is an official statement announcing a company’s news. That means there needs to be a news element that is actually newsworthy.
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In many instances, business owners want to issue a press release because they want to generate brand awareness, their products are so great, or they have been so successful. But when probed for a news element, they can’t come up with anything. Sorry, but readers – and therefore, media outlets – do not care about your brand awareness or growing sales. There is zero news value in those.
So, what are newsworthy company announcements? Think about mergers and acquisitions, funding rounds, new partnerships, upcoming events, product launches, new staff hires and community and charity participation. News about mergers, acquisitions and funding rounds have especially high news value and can almost always guarantee press coverage if the press release is written professionally.
For an Atlanta-based 3D printing technology startup that just acquired a key competitor, the PR campaign successfully leveraged this news and got coverage in top trade publications such as 3DPrint.com, Fabbaloo and 3D Printing Industry.
Don’t break the news yourself
When you plan to launch a PR campaign, hold off on publishing your news online yourself. I’ve had clients who plan to distribute a press release announcing their company’s news that was published online a while ago. Business owners need to understand that once you publish the news on the internet, it’s considered old news, and no media outlet wants to pick up on old news. Always let the media break the news for you.
Newswires: To use or not to use?
Many press distribution services and newswires claim to send your press release to thousands of journalists and guarantee publication of your press release on 150-plus sites for as little as US$50. Sounds fantastic, right? Quite a few clients have asked whether to use these distribution services. My recommendation is, “Don’t waste your money.”
Most of these newswires publish your press release on spammy sites that no one knows about and have zero traffic. You can publish anything you want – even your upcoming BFF anniversary if you like. Why? Because no one sees it anyway.
If you pay close attention, most of these sites don’t even get indexed by Google or get your press release published on the root domain (for example, feed.nytimes.com or www.nytimes.newspapers.com instead of www.nytimes.com).
Unless you know a reliable press distribution service that can guarantee publication on the root domain of well-known news sites and ensure that it’s indexed, you can probably achieve more publicity with a post on your own LinkedIn profile.
Make life easy for editors
When you write a press release, make sure it’s written in a format that is applicable to your market and free from any errors. Nothing is more frustrating for editors than having to fix your article because it’s full of typos and spelling errors. Chances are, they will just reject your story completely.
Also, most publications have specific requirements about what they are willing to accept in terms of topics and formatting (e.g., word counts, tone, attachments, etc.) Please read those requirements carefully and give them what they ask. The Washington Post, for example, only accepts op-eds that are exclusive to them, and they prefer the pieces to be less than 750 words. Sending a piece that is too long and has been sent to multiple outlets already will just reduce your chances.
Whom to pitch
A common misconception is that you should always pitch your story to individual editors and contributors. This is not necessarily true unless you have a strong relationship with the editor; otherwise, it can be more effective to pitch to the editorial department instead.
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Why? It’s simply more practical. If it’s a sizable outlet, chances are that there are multiple editors covering similar topics. So, who do you pitch in that case? Plus, editors and contributors are busy people with many engagements and priorities. Even when they express interest in your story, it can take a long while before they can actually attend to it.
That’s why you should consider pitching the story directly to the editorial department. They will have someone who coordinates assignments and delegates your story to a writer who is immediately available to cover it. In my experience, sending the story to the general editorial department usually gives me coverage within one to two weeks, whereas pitching individual editors may take several months.
Leverage the PR power of other businesses and individuals
As a startup, it can be hard to obtain publicity, especially in overseas markets where you don’t have a physical presence or publications that cover a different industry than yours. Many publishers cater to an audience in a specific geographic area or industry. If your business does not fall within their target market, they will likely ignore your story because you are not relevant to their niche.
In that case, you need to look for an element that is relevant to the publication’s target market. For example, Fourdesire, a wellness app developer from Taiwan, launched a new alarm clock app in collaboration with a well-known mobile game developer. Without this new partnership, it would be hard to get Fourdesire featured in gaming publications due to the lack of relevance. However, by leveraging the new alliance, Fourdesire was able to obtain coverage in one of the world’s biggest gaming publications, GamesRadar.
Every business can benefit from public relations. It’s not just for large corporations and multi-million-dollar companies – PR can be a game changer for your tech startup when done appropriately. It’s an effective way to get your brand the visibility it deserves and should, therefore, be part of your overall marketing strategy. It may take some time and effort to learn the tricks of the trade, but the benefits it yields are definitely worth the investment.
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