BEST PR TIPS FOR STARTUPS – TOP TRENDS FOR 2020

What makes great PR? What was the best PR story you saw and loved? Last year saw Greggs drive record sales through its Vegan sausage roll – helped no doubt by Piers Morgan! But the creativity of the idea grabbed a topical moment and turned it into a product. Not every business can turn around product and marketing activity so quickly but knowing that product and PR activity do best when collaborating together is a valuable lesson on business growth.

As part of our Plus X startup growth support series, we have put together some top tips for planning and creating publicity campaigns. We’ve shaped our tips on the assumption that you may not yet have a PR agency in place and likely to be at early growth stage but the lessons here still apply – whatever your scale.

Build your PR toolkit

Before you get in contact with any media titles or influencers, you need to have your PR toolkit ready. These are the basic materials that journalists will ask for. They should include you( your Founder) biographies, FAQ/key fact sheet on your business/product, high quality imagery of your product and core team and if you are ready to tell your launch story, then a press release and video too. Good copywriting is key but there are plenty of free formats available to write a quality release such as press release format

What’s your elevator pitch?

Your key business mission statement or elevator pitch should sit within your press release story so take time thinking about how you would frame your business concept. Practice telling that concept to a stranger within 5-7 seconds! So ideally just 2-3 lines of descriptive copy.

Get stat ready!

Journalists need credible business statistics to help build an editorial profile. Sharing your own business financial milestones, investment figures, growth stats or research data that supports the basis of your business concept are ideal.

Its all about timing

You know the saying. Fail to prepare. Prepare to fail. Planning a basic PR campaign time-plan is key to effective PR results. Ideally plan a 6 month time-frame and research topical calendar dates you may want to tie in with. For example, International Women’s Day is a great story telling opportunity for female founders or themed awareness days may tie in with your product solution. When you think about timing for your campaign, also plot in your product release dates, relevant expert speaker opportunities (putting yourself forward to join panel discussions) and trade shows. Keeping an eye on developing news is key too. You may have a valuable contribution to make to an emerging news story? Even if it’s a local news story – all positive online coverage is good exposure – especially if the coverage links back to your website. We’ll share about ways to amplify your website in later topics.

Content is king

Well written business copy is expected but often startups fail by not having enough visual assets to help illustrate their story. Invest in high quality imagery or video that can really help uplift your backstory. There are many talented cost effective videographers that can help you create a meaningful film. Check out https://the-dots.com/ for a variety of skilled content creators.

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