2. Why Use Public Relations?
Startups can gain more notoriety, build a community, and
increase users with a strategic public relations campaign. There
are many PR tactics that are free or low cost, so even startups
on a budget can use them to make some noise.
So startups that want to get in front of potential investors,
customers, and industry influencers, try these five PR hacks.
3. Never Pay for a Media List
Here’s how to find reporter information
(two-part hack)
1
4. First: use the free trial of all of these to grab email addresses:
➔ https://press.farm
➔ https://anewstip.com
➔ https://muckrack.com
➔ https://www.hey.press
➔ http://contactable.io
Don’t pay for contacts, but take advantage of free trials and
memberships.
5. Second, if you know the person you want to contact:
➔ Name2Email - Use this Chrome extension to automatically
generate the most common corporate email address patterns
for this person.
➔ All My Tweets - Plug reporter’s Twitter handle into All My
Tweets, hit Ctrl + F, search “email,” and every tweet or reply he
or she has ever sent will be on one page (including his or her
email address).
6. Get your Emails Opened
Reporters get so many per day so stand out 2
7. Always include the reporter’s first name in the subject line (it
increases open rates) and begin your emails with something that
they can easily remember.
What makes you or your company stand out among the dozens of
pitches reporters receive every day? For example:
○ Your startup is a Techstars graduate
○ Your founding team is all under 25 years old
○ You previously worked at Facebook
8. Launch on Product Hunt
Skip all the press release noise (and expenses) 3
9. Your only way to make it to the front page is to be hunted by a
moderator/Product Hunt employee or power user. Reach out to
these people nicely and organize your launch around having them
post for you. A good place to start is 500hunters.com.
Ask them to test your product (offer it to them for free if it’s a paid
one) or offer them immediate access if your product is still in beta.
10. Use HARO to Submit Quotes
Use ‘Help a Reporter Out’ for 10 minutes per day 4
11. Sign up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and get emails when
reporters need sources for stories. If you are a source, reach out
accordingly.
If you don’t have time, and reporters just want a quote, send them
a blurb from your blog on the topic area.
Spend 10 minutes per day on this, and you should start to get
some coverage.
13. Maybe you get that top spot on TechCrunch, but did it even get
you more downloads, engaged users, sales? Measure efforts to
see what actually works:
➔ Count social shares of each piece of press coverage you
receive with Buzzsumo.
➔ Measure if your domain authority or Google keyword rankings
rose after your press piece went live using Moz.
➔ Track conversions: How many sales resulted from each press
piece? How many engaged users (not just total number of
users)?
14. Want Even More PR Hacks?
Download 50 Public Relations Hacks
for Startups to find out how to find,
pitch, and stay in the media.