Golden Rules Of PR By Christina Forsgård
Tech start-ups come up with great ideas and build brilliant products but often lag behind marketing them. Main reason for that is usually lack of resources: entrepreneurs would rather spend their limited funds on developing a product than on marketing it. However, most agree that it’s important for your product to be known and talked about. We talked with one the main PR gurus in Finland Christina Forgård (founder and Chairman of the Board of Netprofile) who shed light on the world of PR and shattered some common myths and misconceptions.
Start Early
A lot of Finnish start-ups spend majority of time and money initially on R&D to make their product ready. Only once it’s ready they start thinking about users and how to tell them about their product. What you need to do is completely the opposite: you need to think about PR from very early on, before your product is even ready, and tie everything you do to your business road map. Think of ways to create interest around your company from the start and if you don’t know how to do that or how to work the media to get that message across – get help.
Think Of Users
You need to make your story interesting, surprising and easy for people to share. Sometimes you need to do something altruistic like give something for free to attract interest. You need to create a win-win situation where your clients become perceived as cool and innovative early adopters.
PR Is Not What You Say, It’s What You Do.
You need to have a constant dialogue with all of your interest groups: employees, clients, prospects, media and third parties. You build trust capital with them by giving out promises and delivering on them. If you say you’ll launch in September – launch in September. If you launch later – what’s the story? People and media have a memory and you don’t build trust by giving out empty promises.
Pace Yourself
Sometimes it is not in your interest to get something out right now. You need to be able to change the speed with which you communicate with public, not race continuously at 120/km/h. If you send 10 press releases a week, no one will listen. Speed and amount are not key in PR. Like any human relations, in PR you need to adjust to other people’s pace and leave yourself time to listen.
Listen To The World Around You
Sometimes entrepreneurs are so focused on their own thing, they don’t see the risks and opportunities around them. Part of PR strategy is to see what’s happening on the market at the moment and tap into that conversation. For example, at the moment companies are often asked about social responsibility, sustainability and green values. You need to be prepared for questions concerning those issues and show with your answers that you are not selling your product in a vacuum but you understand what’s going on around your company.
Think Of Risks
It’s always hard for start-ups to talk about risks. They might come up with great ideas but they might not think about consequences their products would cause. Since disruptive start-ups aim to break old habits, they are inevitably stepping on someone else’s toes. That’s why they need to be prepared to deal with challenging questions and come up with good answers beforehand. Otherwise they risk getting negative publicity.
Build Relationships With Media
If you are approached by a blogger or a journalist about an issue not related to your company, don’t try to promote your start-up – answer their question. This will create a trustworthy relationship between you and that journalist. Next time when you need to announce something, they will be more responsive.
There are always rumors and bad talk about companies. Journalists can and do write about those but if they have a relationship with your company, they are more likely to call you and ask about it. It’s always better to have an opportunity to defend yourself before information goes out there. Because once it’s in the press, it’s almost true.
Never Lie
There is nothing but disaster down that road.
Pay For Space
Sometimes you cannot build all of your visibility with earned media. That’s why in some cases it makes sense to buy space. For instance, if you try and try and try but you still don’t get noticed even though you think you need to be visible – pay for the slot. Put ads, sponsor events, buy seminars with media, speak at events etc. That way you’d get heard and might benefit from earned visibility later on.
What You Can Do Yourself
You can get a lot of publicity yourself. For instance, if you are a good speaker - tape yourself, publish, tag and share it. Invest your time into getting yourself heard and people will remember you.
Final remarks
PR is not what makes or breaks start-ups – it’s a combination of things. But when it comes to PR the most important thing is to think about people. You need to identify the social butterfly in your team who’d start building relationships with various actors and get business advice. Equally important is to think of a roadmap for your business and build a PR strategy that supports it.
There is no single right way to do PR – there are many ways. But for it to work, you need to figure out and decide what your core business is and where you want to take it.
Image from Netprofile
Very good points, as always, from Christina.
Maybe the most important thing I have learned about marketing and PR along the way, is related to Start Early.
First of all, I believe having an open PR strategy and active external marketing is not for everyone. It is a significant, long-term investment and there needs to be valid reasons to select that road. If a company does e.g. B2B niche technology, it often makes sense to keep low profile - especially if you have very experienced sales team and funding in place.
On the other hand, most companies really need to create a strong buzz from the beginning in order to grow fast enough. The top benefits include shorter sales cycles, easier access to funding and attracting the best talent.
The most important thing: Decide very early if you want to be loud or quiet, depending what fits best to your business/sales strategy.
It is very very difficult, often even damaging, to change your PR strategy later on. If your company doesn't have a publicly accountable history from the very beginning, you have to do 10x as much work to build it. On the other hand, if you start with being open and loud and then suddenly go quiet (after getting the first traction with funding, sales, etc.) it raises suspicions and people lose interest fast, making hiring and further sales tougher.
Thx Juhani,
You are absolutely right. A great comment. There is no one size fits all PR. Like there is no one size fits all business strategy. But PR strategy must be in line with business strategy.
One needs to understand there are many different ways of doing PR, sometimes media silence is the best way to create the right kind of interest and drive business goals.
However, I have seen more companies do PR too late and too little than too early and too much - and some who have failed big time for not understanding PR at all.
PR stands for public relations. I like to emphasize the word relations - no company survives without relations, especially the public ones. And it is not what you say, but what you do.
"If your company doesn't have a publicly accountable history from the very beginning, you have to do 10x as much work to build it." YES, YES, YES. To the point Juhani!
People have CVs - companies have press releases, announcements, media stories, tweets, blogs, public appearances...all telling a story of credibility and drive.