According to Startup Genome, 90% of startups fail. Your tech company defied the odds, growing over 20% in revenue or employees for three years to become a scaleup. Your model is profitable and scalable, you’ve gone from entrepreneur to CEO. Now, it’s all about driving revenue, market share and setting your company up for increased and sustained success. For that, you’ll need a committed public relations (PR) program that works on many levels.
From B2B SaaS to health tech, PR enables scaleups to build credibility and establish strong reputations through interviews with the media, analysts and influencers and positive coverage. It can distinguish you from competitors and raise visibility while gaining the trust of potential customers, investors, partners and stakeholders. PR can also promote thought leadership showing your team knows the industry, where it’s going, and is leading the way.
You have something special – but more than a few tech companies have lost out to lesser, more vocal competitors. For scaleups, it’s essential to cement that reputation, lean into PR, and make some noise to increase your overall brand mentions and industry awareness. In this Spotlight on Scaleups Series, we will show how to get it done.
What does a PR program for scaleups entail?
Scaleups are proven and have a sound base of customers, advancing them to the big leagues. Competing against large enterprises requires an internal or agency PR team and sustained presence, not just ad hoc activities. Scaleups may not have as deep pockets, but they are more nimble and fast—and the right PR and brand awareness strategy can enable them to be heard cost-effectively above the market noise.
You might be surprised by what your scaleup has to say. This will be especially true if you bring in an objective set of eyes and ears that understand the media and what interests reporters most. Still, factors can limit PR activities, ranging from your funding stage to industry regulations. For the most part, though, PR components are standard across industries, differing only in the depth in which they are pursued and built upon.
The following looks at the more common PR activities and how to leverage them:
- News: A steady cadence of news means things are happening at your scaleup and this isn’t lost on reporters. Product launches, partnerships, customer wins, executive hirings, industry recognition – the list of potential news to announce is endless. This must be supported by media outreach to generate coverage and ensure targets are up-to-speed on your latest and greatest. Still, understand that not all news will warrant heavy follow-up or generate coverage. Demonstrating growth is the key here.
- Case studies: Arguably, nothing appeals more to a reporter than if you’ve got a great deployment and a customer who’s willing to talk about it. Write your own case study and/or pitch it out to the media and let their coverage do the job. By bringing customers into the spotlight, you’ll also further your relationships.
- Thought leadership: From speaking events to media outreach, you can leverage executive thought leadership to drum up attention. A promising way to get exposure and control the outcome of coverage is through contributed articles authored by your executives on issues critical to your customers and prospects. Take an education-based approach that moves both the industry and your scaleup forward.
- Analyst and influencer relations: Early analyst or influencer validation is great for building credibility and getting the attention of media and prospects. Analysts can provide supporting quotes for press releases, act as media references, include you in reports, and occasionally, they may even send a prospective customer your way.
- Joining industry conversations: No matter if it’s a key industry pub or a national business outlet, when industry news or breaking events happen, the media looks for expert commentary. If you’re ready and can move fast, you may be able to piggyback on the latest big story, gaining exposure on key issues and potentially appearing alongside some major names.
- Research and industry data reports: Maybe your R&D has conducted research that could be turned into an interesting report? Perhaps there’s an industry issue just begging for a survey? Keep such efforts objective and pass along something of value and you’ll garner interest.
- Social media: Meet your prospective and current customers where they are. Based on where your audiences engage online, having a strong social presence helps expand your content distribution and meets your customers where they are. Be deliberate about where and how you share information, and focus on the right social channels versus blanketing them with everything. Build content for the specific networks you target and share your earned media coverage there, too.
- Owned content: Strong resource libraries that include a range of content – like blogs, webinars, white papers and podcasts – not only propel sales and marketing efforts, they provide opportunities to expand into earned media coverage. Tightly integrating marketing and PR campaigns helps to amplify your brand promise.
- Partnership marketing: Leveraging your company’s partners for joint marketing and PR activities is a great way to expand your audience and share resources.
How does a scaleup prepare for PR?
To get started, you’ve got to determine what you have for PR fodder, who should be involved and if you build an internal PR team or bring in an agency. This is the structure needed to scale your PR efforts. To that end, here’s your homework.
- Think about the potential news you can announce and link it to your roadmap.
- Identify the executives you want to own a subject and create a spokesperson bench. Spokespersons should range from the C-level to technical experts.
- Begin to identify topics you want to discuss with the media—preferably ones that support your work and your goals.
- Look into your resources and personnel to eventually determine whether you’ll handle PR in-house or if the expertise and capabilities of a PR firm will deliver stronger results more cost-efficiently.