Publicity 101: 6 Proven Tips to Secure PR for Your Startup or Small Business
Getting publicity for your small business or startup can seem like an insurmountable task for even the most seasoned founder, entrepreneur, speaker, or coach. But it doesn’t have to be. When you have the right knowledge and tools in your marketing arsenal, securing media coverage in any publication or on any podcast or television show is attainable.
Continue reading to learn how you can secure media coverage for your startup or small business within the next 30 days! You will save tens of thousands of dollars on hiring a public relations agency.
If you’re a small business owner, coach, speaker or startup founder, crafting a compelling story for the media can seem like an overwhelming and intimidating task. It’s one thing to produce content for your social media channels, your company blog, your email newsletter, or communicate with customers over email and a live chat, but it’s an entirely new ball game to come up with content for a journalist, editor, television producer, or podcast host.
It’s important to understand that publicity is crucial to the long-term success of any business; however, trying to figure out what story or pitching angle that will resonate with the media the most is very difficult even when you have a PR background or a newspaper or magazine’s editorial calendar in front of you. So, don’t be fooled—PR people have just as hard of a time as regular entrepreneurs.
But to help you maximize your chances of securing media coverage while shortening your learning curve, I’m going to share my top tried-and-true PR tips below.
1. PR Newsworthiness and Media Interest: Figure out what makes you and your small business or startup newsworthy to secure publicity. Before you pitch any story, you will need to determine what makes your business newsworthy. A newsworthy story can be anything from a prestigious new hire, opening a new office in a new city, releasing a book, taking a controversial stand, or hosting an event. Announcing the launch or the release of something can be considered newsworthy. Just keep in mind why the media should care about this launch and how this angle will be of interest to whatever outlet you’re pitching. My best piece of PR advice is to consider how your story will help the media or be of interest to the media’s audience/viewership.
2. Where Your Story Can Fit in What Outlets and What Columns: Now that you know what makes your business newsworthy, it’s time to determine where your story can fit in what types of publications, as well as which column. I encourage you to read all of the websites, blogs, magazines, and newspapers, as well as watch/listen to the television stations and podcasts where your story can fit.
Start by looking at your local news. If you own a restaurant or brick-and-mortar business, then your story can fit into your local newspaper, magazine, or on a local television segment. However, if you own an e-commerce shop, then depending on what you sell, your story can fit into a wide range of media. For instance, if you own a women’s apparel brand, you may be able to secure publicity on ELLE.com or Glamour.com. If you own a SaaS business, then try looking at Mashable.com or business outlets. Determining where your story can fit is just as important as figuring out what makes your business newsworthy enough to generate PR.
3. Create The Media List of Your Top 10 Outlets: Now that you know why you and your business could be considered interesting to the media as well as which outlets that may want to run your story, it’s time to figure out which media professionals to pitch. I like to build my media lists in Google Sheets and segment it by Name, Outlet, Title, Location, Email, Beat(s), and Status (so you can keep track of who you pitched and when). Beats are topics that editors cover, btw. Keeping a spreadsheet allows me to know who, when, and what I pitched and helps me stay organized because it’s easy to forget who you pitched and when with what story angle. There’s nothing more annoying to journalists than sending the same pitches to them over and over again.
Please note--today it’s easier than ever to find the right media contact through LinkedIn.com, on Twitter, or Instagram. You can also find the right media contacts by looking at the masthead of a magazine, newspaper, or website. If email addresses are not visible, you can use this useful tool to find out the right email format. This resource will show you the format for the largest and notable magazines, websites, and newspapers.
4. Start Building a Relationship with the Media Before Pitching Your Story: So now that you have your media list, it’s time to build a connection before pitching your story. But I’m sure you’re asking, “Kristin, how do I introduce myself to an editor or journalist without sounding awkward or like an idiot?” Well, I like to reach out to an editor or journalist before I pitch them, so they become familiar with who I am and the types of clients I represent. A short introduction goes a long way. I would use an introduction like the following one.
Subject Line: Introduction to Name or Company Name
Hi Name, (Make sure you spell their name correctly because it shows laziness if you don’t).
I read your (article name) in (X publication) and I found it useful (in Y way). I wanted to reach out to introduce myself. I’m (name) and I do (insert job title), and in case you’re ever in need of (X), I’m available to comment on:
· Topic 1
· Topic 2
· Topic 3
· Topic 4
· Topic 5
Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Kristin
End with a short media bio. Here’s an example of mine.
In some cases, you will hear back from the editor or journalist, which is exactly what you want to happen. When you do hear back, be sure to respond within 24 hours with what the journalist is asking for, if not sooner. But if you don’t receive a response, it’s okay because now they’ve seen your name and your pitch yourself accordingly. Just be polite and respectful when you do send your pitch.
5. Making Sure to Pitch Your Story to the Right Media Professionals: Okay, so you’ve reached out to the top 10 outlets to introduce yourself to all of the places where you want to be featured, but now you’re stumped on how to draft a pitch that someone actually wants to read and respond to. Your pitch should be relevant and timely, as well as concise and written in the tone of the outlet in which you’re pitching. Your pitch’s subject line should include who, what, and why, the text of the pitch should be fewer than 500 words, answer the five W’s and how in the first paragraph, include a handful of bullet points, and a media bio or boilerplate. Here’s an example of an outline/format of a pitch that I use for all pitches.
Subject Line: Include What You’re Pitching, When, and What Type of Story You Are Pitching
Hi Name,
You recognize what beat the editor covers and the topic you're pitching (one sentence)
Your introduction (one sentence)
What/who you're pitching and how it relates to the editor's readership (one to two sentences) Why/where/when/how you're pitching it (one to two sentences)
Five to seven bullet points (each one has its own line)
Closing (one line)
Contact information (Telephone number, company, and email address)
Bio or Boilerplate (Four to five lines) Website (one line)
Social Media links (two lines)
If you haven’t heard back from an editor, journalist, or television producer after the first pitch, you can follow up two more times (over the course of two weeks) before marking that publication’s pitch a “no” and moving into the next publication. It doesn’t necessarily mean you were rejected, but it’s more than your story wasn’t the right fit at that time. It happens all of the time, so try not to let it bother you. You can always reach out with a new angle a few months later.
6. Syndicate your placements to leverage bigger media opportunities: You’ve secured publicity—a story on an industry website or the digital version of a national magazine or newspaper. That’s very exciting but it’s only the first step. To ensure you promote this credibility and attract more and larger media opportunities, you should syndicate your media features. Here are a few ways we encourage our clients to promote their publicity features.
· Social Media: Promote all of your publicity features on your social media networks. Twitter.com, LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, and Instagram.com are the best places to promote your PR stories.
· Videos: Create videos featuring your publicity stories and upload them to Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, and YouTube.
· Email Marketing: If you send out newsletters, include all of your media features in the footer of the emails. These features enhance your credibility.
· Email Signatures: Include links to your publicity in your email signatures.
· Your Website: Add a media or press page to your website and include an “As Featured In” section on your website’s homepage. Featuring press on a single banner on the homepage is a great way to show off those media placements along with increasing your credibility.
· Tag the Media that Cover You and Your Small Business on Social Media: Tag all the media in your social media posts that featured you. In some cases, they will repost your posts. This also helps make the editor’s job easier because the media run will get more traffic, reads, and shares.
· Blogging: Write blog posts about each PR feature. This is great for showing off your credibility and can help improve search engine rankings.
· Internal Team: Ask your team members to promote any and all features in their email signatures.
· Content Syndication: Create a publication on Medium.com and post all of your media features there.
Keep in mind, if an editor or television sees you were featured in a top-tier publication—whether it’s on your website or in a magazine or newspaper--they will be more likely to reach out to you for a comment or quote, over someone who has not had any publicity. A perfect example of this is, a client of mine had been featured in many top-tier women’s publications, so an editor from one of the biggest women’s beauty magazines used her expertise and quote over all of the other experts in her field. This was due to the fact that my client had earned a tremendous amount of publicity and was notable.
o Please remember this one thing when it comes to content syndication, Google can penalize your content if it’s duplicated on multiple websites. My recommendation would be to add canonical tags to your duplicate content to prevent any penalties. You can learn more about canonical tags here.
Getting publicity for your startup or small business can seem like a grueling task for an entrepreneur, but if you follow the six steps above, it will make the process of getting PR a lot easier than hiring a PR firm--which can cost in the mid-four to low five figures per month.
