20 steps to getting press for your startup

Did you know that 14% of startups fail due to poor marketing? Founders get stuck on their ideas, work on great products and somehow forget about the one metric that matters early on — the number of customers.

So, if you’ve built a great product and assembled a team, it’s time to start thinking about user acquisition. That’s where PR comes in.

Step-by-step guide to getting press for your startup

The press can make or break your company, it can help you validate your idea, gain investors’ attention, reach first users or simply build trust and authority in the industry you’re in.

Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to hire a PR agency or have a full-time PR person before profits. However, you still need some PR to get some profit so here we are — chicken and egg all over again.

Which is why I’m writing this, every step I made in getting press for people I worked with. In the past four years, this has helped me bring a mobile app from 10,000 to 500,000 users, gain over a 100,000 signups with different SaaS products and enable over 2,000 entrepreneurs to reach their first customers.

So, here we are, let’s dive into the magic of getting PR for your startup. Don’t expect it to be easy, fun or comfortable. You might hate every moment of it but once you get your first feature — everything will be worth it, I promise.

Before you start

1. Figure out your target audience

Ok, you’ve built this great product, and you’re trying to gain traction. Now’s the time to start focusing on people you built it for. Who are they, where they hang out, how old are they, what they like, what are their pain points, what frustrates them and what makes them sort of happy? It’s up to you to figure that out. I’ve also written about how to find the perfect target audience here.

Figure out who you want to talk to before you start blasting out your message hoping someone will catch on.

2. Go out and meet your audience

No, however revolutionary your Uber for hamsters might be, people will not magically start using the product just because you made it. You’ll need to get out of you little box and start talking to the people that might want to use your product. Try to find out:

• What problems they have that you might be able to solve?
• How often do they need a solution?
• How frustrating is this problem?
• Are there other solution and are they using them?
• What’s different about your solution?
• How would they go about finding a solution to this problem?

Think about how all of these questions influence your message, genuinely get to know your audience, whether through research, customer development, simple surveys or available data. If you’re solving a problem for yourself, please don’t focus just on what you need, meet other similar people and get to know them.

Knowing your audience will pay off massively, so get to it before crafting your message or starting with marketing.

3. Figure out your value proposition

How does your message resonate with your potential users? Why would they want to use your product or service? Figure out a message that ties in benefits for them with the your most prominent feature and stick to it. You might be on to something now.

Ask yourself:

• Why would anyone want to use this?
• What’s the main benefit for the customer?
• What’s the main feature of the product?
• How does the customer’s life change after using my product?

The best way to craft the message you want to target users with is to go out, talk to people, listen to the questions they’re asking and incorporate this into your pitch.

4. Craft your pitch

Supposedly, by now you know a bit more about your users and have a definite message you want to send out. It’s time to make the pitch.

Pitches come in handy at conferences, when talking to other entrepreneurs or investors and finally — when talking to customers. It’s important to have a few messages ready for every time someone asks you about your company. Here are a few rules to stick to when it comes to pitches:

• Don’t brag or focus on just the product, talk about the benefits
• Listen and ask questions, don’t be self-absorbed
• Win their interest before you lose their attention
• Personalize messages for different audiences

5. Find a story to tell

Whether it’s “start with why” or “once upon a time”, figure out what aspects of your journey are the most interesting and craft a nice narrative you can lay out every time someone asks: So, what’s your story?

Think about:

• What’s unique or different about you?
• What makes you stand out?
• What’s something about you anyone can relate to?

And use those to craft your story.

Why should your startup have a story?

Stories are attention grabbers, everyone likes a good story and we all have our signature ones we tell at parties. It makes sense to take a familiar format so people can relate. Finally, no one asks you if you’ve read any good press releases lately?

I also wrote a whole guide to telling your startup story, check it out here.

6. Set smart goals

Think about why you need the press and what it might bring you. Some of the goals PR can help you with are:

• Industry attention
• User acquisition
• Investors’ attention
• SEO
• Building trust / establishing authority
• Brand awareness

Once you’ve set your goals, it’s easy to determine what outlets you want to get press in. Look for the audience you’re trying to reach and talk to the media they trust. By the time you have a target audience and a goal, you’ll know what media outlets you want to reach.

NB: Make sure you set up metrics according to your goals and have everything in line to start tracking your success.

Bonus: Google Analytics are the obvious way to track visits and signups on your website and if want to make analytics sexier, try Hunch Insights for Slack. Hunch analyzes your data and sends automated reports about how you’re doing.

Ready, set, go!

I know, it’s a drag to have to do all this stuff before even starting with actual PR work. But if you don’t get your hands dirty, results will hardly ever happen. So onto the good stuff:

7. Start your research

Once you’ve set your goals, it’s time to find media outlets you want to appear in. It will probably be easier once you have the audience you want to talk to and the story you want to tell but here are other ways to find tech media you should try to get featured in:

• Find media that’s popular within your niche
• Find media read by your target audience
• Find outlets that have a high rank for keywords important to you
• Find media that already wrote about your competition ;)

8. Find journalists you want to talk to

Now that you (presumably) know what outlets you want to appear in, it’s time to hunt down authors who might be interested in you.

Here are some foolproof tips on how to do that:

• Find authors who wrote about the problem you’re trying to solve
• Find authors who’ve written about similar product/services
• Find authors who might relate to the product/service by being part of the target audience
• Find authors who cover up-and-coming startups
• Find authors who actively cover your industry

I’ve written more about finding relevant journalists to talk to in my free PR email course, check it out!

9. Relationships, relationships, relationships

After you’ve found people to talk to, it’s very important not to mess this up by sending off a mass email and hoping you’ll score a feature. Try to build genuine relationships with people who can help you promote your startup.

Some things you can do before contacting them:

• Follow them on Twitter
• Share their articles
• Try to start a conversation

Engaging online before sending an email will help your contact remember your name, so when you first reach out to them, you’ll be at least a tiny bit more familiar.

10. Find their email address

According to Muck Rack, journalists have a strong preference for email pitches. In fact, 92% reporters said they prefer to be pitched via email.

Here are my go-to tactics for finding any email address:

• Check if they have a personal website
• Check if they have contact information on LinkedIn
• Search Twitter for @theirusername + email / gmail / @ / at (This is usually how I end up finding the contact)
• Guess (Rapportive helps with that)

For more tools and tips for finding email addresses, check out this article. I also use eTools for finding relevant email addresses on any domain.

The anatomy of a great email pitch

So, let’s dig into what makes a great pitch.

11. Make it about them, not you

Resist the urge to talk about yourself and for once — listen. Ask questions, show you’ve done some research, compliment them and try to make a connection.

12. Be genuine

Don’t just flatter people for the sake of it. Try to learn about the people you’re contacting and be genuinely interested in what they do. After all, they’re the ones helping your company take off, the time you invest will pay off.

13. Start a conversation

In order to get writers interested in you, you must be interested in them and their opinion. You can show that by striking a conversation about a recent article they posted or industry gossip. Showing writers you care about their opinion won’t go unnoticed.

14. Provide information

When sending any email, don’t forget to include:

• Basic info — Company name, URL, description and your title
• Elevator pitch — Short and sweet
• Value proposition and why it matters to them
• Some evidence of traction and/or interest
• The story angle — how you think they could cover you

But also, don’t include attachments, don’t send more than 3 paragraphs or a press release. I’ve written more about cold emails here.

Pro tip: Make your company URL the only link in the email, you don’t want your reader to wander around clicking a bunch of links, keep them focused on your email.

15. Don’t oversell

This is not about you or your product, have that in mind when contacting anyone. If they’re interested, they might ask for more, but don’t burry them in information (or attachments) before they’ve shown they’re interested.

16. Follow up

Followups get up to 30% more replies than first emails. Journalists are busy and they might miss your email from time to time. Which is why it’s ok to have one followup. Here are some tips on effective followups.

If you’re looking for samples of emails I sent, I’ve uploaded some here.

The afterparty

So, your article is published but your work isn’t done yet.

17. Be available

Make sure to provide all relevant information if they ask for more, have a press kit ready in case more people contact you after and keep an eye on the published article. Track if the article is getting attention and try to engage in the comments so people aren’t left hanging.

18. Say thanks

This one’s kind of obvious but you’d be surprised by how many people flee after getting what they want. Be polite, leave the conversation open so you can reach out to them again.

19. Promote the article

A lot of writers get rewarded for better social engagement on their articles. Help the writer you work with and share and promote the piece. Submit your article to communities, share with users, send to influencers who might be interested, there are so many ways to promote a well-written piece of content.

20. Rinse and repeat

Well yes, it doesn’t get much easier.

If you’re interested in PR and how it can be useful to startups, check out my free email course.
If you’re sick of doing public relations yourself, reach out and maybe I can help.