SUMMARY
PR is absolutely essential for the growth of your startup.
PR is absolutely essential for the growth of your startup.
The reasons being:
- To build credibility, trust and to achieve acclaim
- To announce new partnerships and client acquisitions
- To share novel reports and research data
- To establish yourself as an industry leader
- To tell the story of your business and your mission to the target audience
There’s so much more to a big announcement than sending a generic press release to all media outlets and praying they cover the news about your startup.
Getting your story written by the best journalists and media outlets requires a lot more work.
From the most requested content formats to the right time to send your pitch, the iScribblers team has compiled a list of 48 statistics you should know before pitching to the media.
These statistics cited in the infographic are from the following sources:
- What 1,300 Publishers Want From Your PR pitches (Fractl)
- Global Trust in Advertising report (Nielsen)
- Buying Trances: A New Psychology of Sales and Marketing (Joe Vitale)
- Journalists Spend Less Than One Minute Reading Each Press Release (Adweek)
- Get Your Pitch Noticed By a Major Publisher (Harvard Business Review)
Additionally, here are a few tips to maximize PR efforts for your startup – to assist you in gaining the attention of the media.
#1. Figure out a unique story
Both the media and the readers love a good story. It is your responsibility to figure out stories they’d love to write about.
So what makes a story interest-worthy? Not a product launch. Nor relaunching your brand. They happen every day. This would be a great technique for a Fortune 500 company. But not for a startup.
Rather, it is the story about how you started your startup, how you met your cofounder, the struggles you’ve overcome and the story of how your company helps people.
The other way to think about is – how to make the story unique for the writers’ audience? Before sending them a pitch, think about – is this extremely interesting for their audience?
#2. Build personal relations with the press
Now that you have an exciting story, how will you get the writer to hear you?
Before you ask them for something, offer to help them. Which outlet do they write for? What kind of story will work for their readers? Create GREAT content on those lines, which helps people and is not about you.
Chose the media outlets where you want to get featured. Learn about the writers covering your field. Locate them and start establishing a relationship with them.
So how will you start? First, read their articles. Second, promote their work. Use social media to comment on their posts. Share with your network or leave a comment directly below the article.
Instead of pitching your product, get your name out there by adding value. This makes it easier the next time you reach out to them.
#3. Learn to pitch your startup:
Make the writer’s life as easy as possible. Hook them with an interesting story simultaneously giving short and precise answers.
Here’s a list of commonly asked questions you should answer while pitching for coverage.
PR Questionnaire – The Essential List of Questions A Startup PR Pitch Should Answer
- Tell us about your company, when did the company start? What is the addressable market and underlying opportunity you are going after?
- Tell us more about your industry, competition and what is your product differentiation? (Will be great if you can share certain market trends with numbers)
- Who are all the founders and what is their background? What was the trigger/inspiration for starting this venture?
- Tell us about your journey so far. What is the current team size, revenues and customer base? (Please feel free to elaborate as much as you can)
- What was your go to market strategy and how did your early consumer adoption happen?
- Some exciting learnings/moments in your journey so far which you would like to share with all of us?
- How do you see the entire thought process behind product development evolving over the years?
- What can we expect from you in the coming months?
A few tips to remember
1. Ideally, your pitch should be between 500-700 words.
2. Elaborate those pointers which the journalist asks you to know more about.
3. Make sure the pitch is grammatically correct and has no spelling errors.
