PR for Startups: Why It's Important

After spending months or even years on your business idea and plan, you now have the money to share it with everyone.

Before you publish your first post or spend money on ads, you need a public relations (PR) strategy for your startup.

A PR strategy for startups helps align brand-building efforts with goals to create a positive perception among their target audiences.

In this blog post, we’ll share...

• Why PR for is important
• How to establish a strong company press release so your startup gets the attention it deserves.

What is Public Relations for a Startup?

According to Oxford Languages, public relations is “the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person.”

PR activities typically involve third-party media companies. PR professionals provide information to the media to positively influence the public’s perception of the brand and its content.

Creating and maintaining positive PR is important for all businesses, but especially for small business startups.

Strong PR can help startups by:

• Building brand awareness – Startups are often at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with established companies for market share. This is mostly because, while the public doesn’t know about the startup yet, the established company has been in the public’s hearts and minds for years. Strong PR coverage can help startups compete with established companies early by building brand awareness.
• Attracting investors – Unless your startup relies on a substantial personal cash flow, chances are you’ll need investors. Without investors, your startup won’t have the funds to make it long-term. A strong startup PR strategy can help your business raise capital by amplifying your brand and its news to potential investors to showcase the worth and viability of your business.
• Motivating Employees – While startups can be rewarding, their early days are often fraught with indecision, anxiety, and employee turnover. In fact, most startups don’t make a profit in the first year. As a result, employees may lose sight of why the startup was founded. PR can boost employee morale and create a positive work environment by generating excitement about the company.
• Increasing backlinks - By building brand awareness through earned media mentions, digital PR campaigns can help startups build backlinks . Backlinks are links on a website or platform that link to another website. For startups, a backlink could look like a hyperlink in a Yahoo! Finance article talking about your latest round of funding. That hyperlink back to your website in their article is a backlink.

Now that you know why PR for startups is important, let’s dive into how PR for startups differs from that of established businesses.

PR for Startups vs. Established Businesses

When you look at a startup compared to an established business, one’s trying to become relevant while the other is trying to remain relevant.

Though it seems different, both share the common goal of capturing and keeping their target audience's attention.

While the goal is the same, the strategy is different.

Established businesses already have viable relationships and historical successes which help attract interest and solidify credibility.

Startups, on the other hand, must start from scratch and navigate how to get press .

Unlike traditional PR for established businesses, PR campaigns for startups generally focus on brand visibility.

To this extent, most startup PR campaigns have the following goals:

• Education – Startups need to explain why people should invest their time, attention, and money in their companies. Traditional PR campaigns focused on education often share information about new products and services. Education’s especially important if the startup provides technology or financial services that are unknown to the public.
• Attraction – As stated above, attracting investors is one way PR can help startups. But strong PR campaigns can also help attract another important group: the industry’s top talent. Attracting the best-of-the-best is incredibly important when it comes to company culture, product innovation, and acquiring market share. The best PR campaigns show prospective employees why they should join your exciting new startup rather than join an established company.
• Consistency – While consistency pays dividends in most businesses, consistency’s especially important for startup PR campaigns. New businesses should consistently release information about new products, partnerships, management structures, etc., to keep audiences engaged. In short, sometimes, no news can be bad news.  Here’s a free press release template you can use to get started!

How Much Should Startups Spend on PR?  

 
The amount of money a startup should spend on PR is unique to the company.

However, HubSpot suggests that startups allocate around 11% of their revenue to PR.

With that in mind, it’s important to set short- and long-term PR goals and create strategies that help you meet and exceed them.

When creating your strategy, be sure to do the following:

• Perform yearly market analyses 
• Shop around for the best PR firms 
• Forecast how much annual revenue you’ll gross

These tasks are a solid start for you to get a better gauge on what’s working, what’s not, and if you’re using your PR budget efficiently.

 
3 Tips for Establishing Strong PR

1. Know Your Industry (And Who’s Writing About It)

The strength of your PR is in some ways contingent on the strength of your relationships with the media.

To establish strong PR for a small business startup, do your research when it comes to your industry’s best journalists and publications.

• Who’s writing about what?
• What topics are driving the most interest with their audience?
• How does your brand align with their past articles?

 
Additionally, you should:

• Go for it. If there’s a publication and/or journalist you like, do your research and create a pitch so good they can’t ignore it. 
• If a journalist or publication isn’t interested in your company, don’t pester them. The last thing you want to do is create a bad name for yourself. 
• Use social media to form connections with journalists and stay on their radar.

In short, all good PR starts with relationships. And relationships start with research.

2. Personalize Your Pitches
Always personalize your media pitches to cater directly to the contact you’re reaching out to. The last thing you want is to send an impersonal mass pitch that sours the writer’s perception of your startup.

To personalize your media pitch, start by:

• Researching each media outlet’s characteristics, editorial board, etc. 
• Rewriting each pitch to make it outlet-specific 
• Never reusing pitches in their entirety 

 
3. Make Your Pitches Pop with Data

Let’s face it, most journalists don’t have time, nor do they want to read a lengthy pitch.

They want the most important details, why it’s important, and why their audience would care – quickly.

Satisfy their needs by including supporting statistics and data when possible.

For example, if you’ve already sold 150,000 units of your jade face roller – include that in your pitch.

It’ll show the journalist your startup is worth looking into.

For the Best Startup PR, Choose ACCESSWIRE  

By making it our mission to connect your news with the most important industry insiders, our press release distribution services make it possible for you to engage with your target audience.

And the best part? We help you save money through flat-fee pricing.

It’s time the world learned your name— amplify it with ACCESSWIRE.