PR for Startups

GRANT DRAPER MANAGING DIRECTOR

CAPSTREAMX.COM

Start-Up, noun. (Silicon Valley) an untested hypothesis in need of customer proof points.  

PR for Startups

PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY •  Competitors are everywhere •  More noise and clutter than ever before – # of marketing messages per day has risen

from a few hundred in the 1970s to between three to five thousand today

– Database tracking >10,000 working media in the energy, agriculture, food, water and technology sectors

•  In 2011, 2.2 billion people had access to the Internet

PR for Startups

PLAN •  Develop your PR plan when you set your

business goals and not after a failed sales effort

•  Make sure it includes strategy, tactics, scalability and a timeline of items for execution

•  Great PR won’t fix crappy products but it will help good ones

PR for Startups

AUDIENCE •  PR is social conversation •  People value and expect social context •  Expectation is to consume native content •  PR can play a valuable role at each stage

of your customer funnel/hierarchy – Awareness, interest, consideration, purchase

and all the way through to ongoing relationship building when you ask customers to amplify your story

PR for Startups

VALUE •  Effective PR builds business momentum

by supporting opportunistic business development, awareness building, etc.

•  Research has demonstrated executives equipped with PR expertise can increase their company’s enterprise value by up to 40%

PR for Startups

TELLING YOUR STORY •  Ask yourself why would a journalist be

interested in hearing from you •  Journalists are in the business of producing

newsworthy content so ask yourself how can you help them

•  Research shows stories with amusing, arousing or anger inducing themes more likely to be shared while inspiring and emotion evoking stories are more likely to be consumed

PR for Startups

DEVELOPING YOUR STORY •  What are your most interesting products,

customers, clients, etc. •  Which audience(s) would find your story

valuable to know •  Startup story archetype ~ hero’s journey – What quest were you called on – What huge challenges have you overcome on

your unclear path forward – How have demonstrated your courage, agility,

stamina, ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.

PR for Startups

MECHANICS •  Developing your positioning, messaging and

content delivery tools – Positioning statement (what does your company

stand for from a customer POV) – Messaging (does your USP explain why you’re

worth buying versus your competitors) – Media training (preparing talking points for

messaging specific to each story and content native to each platform)

– Dissemination (news releases, wire services, Google News, #s trending on twitter, etc.)

PR for Startups

PITCHING •  Start with the story and determine newsworthiness •  Depth is more important than breadth

–  Relationships matter – contact the reporters you know and you read/view, etc.

–  Read their latest tweets, re-tweets and stories –  Email a succinct (3-4 sentence) pitch that provides what

your story offers their audience –  Better to use hyperlinks than attachments –  Best days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday –  Follow-up with a call and if no response send a second

email with additional info that will interest their audience

PR for Startups

ROI •  What should you pay •  Should you go external or internal •  What are your requirements – 24/7 market coverage or support for an

upcoming sales campaign •  PR produces the greatest ROI when its

being effectively used to support focused and opportunistic business development activities and awareness building

PR for Startups