How to Get Adequate PR for your Startup
Brands like Volkwagen, Apple, Nike, and Coca-cola are known for their sophisticated marketing and promotional campaigns that catapult them way ahead of their competitors. However, a startup is usually not able to spend mega-bucks on a public relations campaign crafted by an external PR agency. How, then, can it get the media attention it needs to garner more revenue and increase its customers?
Without customers, no business can flourish — no matter how good its product or service is.
Here are some ways to generate PR for your startup without having to overspend. Do remember that these are not quickfire methods to get noticed; you need to put in adequate time and remain persistent to make things click.
1. Create a good story.
Before attempting to reach out to media persons, it is necessary for you to build a compelling story about your startup. Simply bombarding editors with a grocery list of the benefits of your product/service will not work. When creating an interesting pitch, you must think of answers to the following questions:
· What does your business do differently?
· Why should anyone pay attention to you?
· Where can you provide insight as an industry expert?
Everyone has a story to tell — the difference lies in how you tell it. Packaging your messaging in an attractive way to make it interesting for journalists and readers alike is important.
2. Answer source requests.
Media persons constantly look for sources and evidence for their reports. If you can offer insights on an industry niche, you can score a cheap yet effective way to get mentioned in stories. Popular online tools that connect media persons and sources are a good place to start.
· Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a platform that broadcasts journalist requests thrice a day. By paying a small subscription fee, sources (like you) can look through the database of registered journalists and find appropriate requests that they can respond to.
· Similar platforms are Source Bottle, HeyPress, and Journorequests.
Although this is a passive method to get your content noticed, it is possible to get featured in publications like Mashable, WSJ, and Entrepreneur in this way.
3. Position yourself as an industry expert.
People tend to value the opinions of perceived experts.
· To position yourself as an expert, choose a niche that you are comfortable with and have experience in. Read up and stay updated on this area — and ensure that the content you disseminate is accurate.
· Stay abreast of events related to your chosen niche and look for online and offline platforms (magazines, television) that may appreciate your information and insights.
· Take ownership of the content you put out and actively air your views on appropriate social media platforms, such as LinkedIn. If you have some cash to spare, you can advertise via offline channels as well.
As you build authority and credibility, you will find increased backlinks to your content from various publications, and journalists will begin to regard you as an expert in your chosen niche.
4. Develop relationships with media persons and influencers.
Media persons get cold-called or cold-emailed a lot, and the truth is that they simply do not care. You should not expect a journalist to respond just because you sent them an email detailing your “brilliant” product/service. Building a network of contacts takes time and patience, and you will see the fruits of your labor only after putting in adequate effort.
To start building relationships with journalists and influencers,
· Find journalists who cover stories in your area of expertise or share posts related to your industry. Find influencers who have the kind of followers you are targeting. Engage with these people by liking, sharing, or commenting on their work. It is important to be genuine here — don’t overdo it. Eventually, you can build recall and pitch your story to them at the right time.
· Media platforms like Entrepreneur, YourStory, Forbes, and BuzzFeed are good places to be featured on.
· Once you begin to build a network of journalists, create a targeted mailing list and send brief and relevant email updates with proper context. This will keep you and your business fresh in their minds.
5. Become a guest author/invite guest bloggers.
Apart from getting featured on popular platforms, you can also tell your side of story as a guest author. However, ensure that you do not simply boast about yourself and your startup’s achievements.
· Your content should have something of value for readers. You should be able to provide unique insights or actionable advice, and people will begin to consider you a guru in your field.
· Invite guest bloggers of repute to add solid content to your blog on a consistent basis. In this way, regular readers will anticipate new content and visit often.
· You will likely need to publicize your guest posts on social media to drum up additional interest.
6. Consistently produce high-quality content.
There is no substitute for high-quality, actionable content. The power of content can help you fight competition from bigger brands.
· You should craft your content in such a manner as to subtly highlight the advantages of your business instead of blatantly trumpeting them.
· Focus on producing different forms of content, such as whitepapers, infographics, videos, social media posts, and newsletters.
· All content should be written keeping the target audience in mind to enable them to connect with the piece.
· It is also important to be regular in posting fresh content — this helps keep the reader’s interest alive.
7. Employ digital marketing.
A strong online presence is of great importance in today’s digital world. Search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and pay per click (PPC) management are some good techniques to start with.
To operate a digital strategy on a shoestring budget, you can:
· Own a hashtag. Using a catchy hashtag is helpful in making content go viral. Instagram and Twitter make use of hashtags widely.
· Employ more visuals. Shrinking attention spans have necessitated the use of more visuals and infographics in content. According to marketer Jeff Bullas, articles with images are viewed 94% more times than articles without images. Good-quality, relevant photos can turn casual browsers into customers.
· Employ analytics. Analyze your social media posts to identify trends with respect to location, number of likes, shares, and comments using services like Simply Measured and Iconosquare. This will help you understand your target audience and cater to them more efficiently.
Conclusion
Getting free PR for your startup may not be easy, but it is certainly possible. It does require a certain amount of perseverance and time, but the rewards are manifold once you have established yourself in the industry.
