Don’t pitch company news, pitch the moldy english muffin story
The New Rules of Growth PR: Link Building for Customer Acquisition
Depending on who you talk to, PR is either dead or rising from the ashes. Influencers play the role of journalists and Instagram stories replace the press release.
But Danny Groner, the Director of Growth PR at real estate tech company SquareFoot thinks about earned media a little bit differently.
PR isn’t about brand-centric feature stories anymore. It’s about growth: link building for customer acquisition.
And any early stage founder or small team can leverage Danny’s strategies. You don’t need an in-house media expert or a PR agency.
Growth PR just requires you to reverse engineer your thinking about media.
Instead of asking, “what company news do I have to share?” ask “what’s that reporter thinking about right now, and how can I help them?”
You might not get a feature in The Wall Street Journal immediately, but you could be mentioned in the 12th paragraph of an interesting WSJ story.
And that link back to your website in the 12th paragraph is just as valuable.
So, what is Growth PR?
It’s not corporate comms, or influencer marketing.
But it’s designed to help digital first or digital-only companies grow fast — and it more closely resembles SEO than it does traditional media relations.
Growth PR isn’t about prestige. It’s about volume.
Link building is the priority, while brand building is a great added benefit. Danny’s long tail SEO strategy can generate reliable, high quality inbound leads. It’s rocket fuel for an organic search strategy, leverage to continue to grow your organic search traffic, and complements the technical SEO investment you’ve made behind the scenes.
But like any SEO strategy, growth PR requires a deep understanding of your market and a good deal of patience.
Danny shared his key tips in a live Facet mentor session — here we share his key takeaways.
The New Rules of Growth PR
1. It’s Not About You — Pitch the Moldy English Muffin Story
If you’re an early stage company trying to start your press flywheel, your new product or funding announcement isn’t exactly news.
So how do you get coverage?
Think about what’s going on in your industry and work backwards.
You don’t want the reporter to think, “ugh this person wants me to do free marketing for them.” You want them to think, “you read my mind.”
And you have the opportunity to drop in their inbox right when they need a source for a story idea.
Danny gave the example of a story that he pitched to Fast Company about moldy food and decaying office plants in Manhattan. As some employers think about sending their people back into the office, brokers are finding all the things left behind by employees back in March.
“No one really tidied up their office, like, ‘Oh, let me clean up my office because I might not be back here for a year, or there might be people coming around to take our office.’ That thought didn’t cross anyone’s mind,” says Emilie Goldman, a broker at the commercial real estate company SquareFoot in New York.
This isn’t a story about how SquareFoot is conquering the market or rolling out new offerings — Fast Company doesn’t really cover real estate.
Instead, it’s a culture story that feels human and relevant, no matter where you live. Plus, the Fast Company link is great for SEO.
2. Don’t Obsess Over Tier 1 Reporters
According to Danny, building relationships is overrated. It’s only required when founders are exclusively honed in on tier 1 publications.
But growth PR is about link building — not prestige. Which means you can and should get started now. You just need to focus your efforts. Here’s how:
Tier 1: These are your top 10 national publications with wide reach. You’re going to need to build a relationship before you hit them with the news, and you can’t pitch them all the time. It’s a narrow window.
Danny recommends at least a few touch points to build the relationship:
- Start by introducing yourself via email: “I liked your story, if you’re ever covering that topic again please get in touch.”
- Follow the reporter on Twitter.
- A few weeks later, send them another email: “I really liked the story you wrote and here’s why.” The goal is just to get them to respond — they will probably say thanks.
- Several weeks later, you can hit the reporter with some news: “I was thinking about you when I was talking to my team about ____ today. Would you like a first look?”
Tier 2: These are the smaller publications or well recognized industry blogs (think Curbed for the real estate use case). There are probably 20 great targets in this category.
These writers need to churn out content, and they don’t require as much of a song and dance. Play to that. You can get started pitching them now.
Start with something like 2021 industry forecasting, then make a list of new industry ideas they will want to cover soon.
Tier 3: These are publications #31–200, and they’re your top target for growth PR. They may not cover your industry directly, but there’s overlapping interest.
This is your blue ocean opportunity — you just need to make a compelling case as to why your industry matters to them.
Give them a hook, and an opportunity to speak with an expert on your team. This isn’t their direct area of expertise, after all.
3. The Headline Doesn’t Matter
Don’t obsess where you are in the story. You don’t need every story to feature you in the headline or even the first few paragraphs.
But the story should include a link back to your website, whenever possible. A link from the last paragraph of your target publication is just as valuable as the opening line. Prioritize SEO over brand awareness.
Back in March, SquareFoot was featured in The Atlantic. But it wasn’t a story about their tech — it was about shaking hands in a rapidly evolving Coronavirus business context.
When you pitch your company as a reference source for key stories, you increase your site’s organic search visibility.
4. To Come Up with Ideas, Talk to People
Lean into your natural curiosities. Talk to your team, other people in the industry, and read…a lot.
And according to Danny: “The absolute worst way to come up with ideas is in a brainstorm.” (It’s true.)
You have to train your brain to come up with ideas that reporters will find interesting, especially as a founder. You’re managing 100 priorities and being pulled in a few different directions, but growth PR can have 100x return.
But how do you know when it’s time to hire someone to manage pitching for you, either full-time or with an agency? You’ve started the flywheel and you need a dedicated resource to help it go faster.
Danny Groner is the Director of Growth PR at SquareFoot, the “hardest working man in the relo biz,” and a mentor in the Facet community.
This content was originally shared in a Facet Founder conversation. Check out our next open events, or apply to join our network and sounding board for first-time founders.
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