PR for Startups provides a "How To" guide for entrepreneurs to develop a PR plan by identifying target audience(s), developing and pitching stories and measuring results. Slide deck was presented as part of the RoyseLaw Silicon Valley AgTech Incubator program in March 2015.

1. PR for Startups
GRANT DRAPER
MANAGING DIRECTOR
CAPSTREAMX.COM
Start-Up, noun. (Silicon Valley) an untested
hypothesis in need of customer proof points.
PR for Startups

2. PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY
• Competitors are everywhere
• More noise and clutter than ever before
– # of marketing messages per day has risen
from a few hundred in the 1970s to between
three to five thousand today
– Database tracking >10,000 working media in
the energy, agriculture, food, water and
technology sectors
• In 2011, 2.2 billion people had access to
the Internet
PR for Startups

3. PLAN
• Develop your PR plan when you set your
business goals and not after a failed sales
effort
• Make sure it includes strategy, tactics,
scalability and a timeline of items for
execution
• Great PR won’t fix crappy products but it
will help good ones
PR for Startups

4. AUDIENCE
• PR is social conversation
• People value and expect social context
• Expectation is to consume native content
• PR can play a valuable role at each stage
of your customer funnel/hierarchy
– Awareness, interest, consideration, purchase
and all the way through to ongoing
relationship building when you ask customers
to amplify your story
PR for Startups

5. VALUE
• Effective PR builds business momentum
by supporting opportunistic business
development, awareness building, etc.
• Research has demonstrated executives
equipped with PR expertise can increase
their company’s enterprise value by up to
40%
PR for Startups

6. TELLING YOUR STORY
• Ask yourself why would a journalist be
interested in hearing from you
• Journalists are in the business of producing
newsworthy content so ask yourself how can
you help them
• Research shows stories with amusing,
arousing or anger inducing themes more
likely to be shared while inspiring and
emotion evoking stories are more likely to be
consumed
PR for Startups

7. DEVELOPING YOUR STORY
• What are your most interesting products,
customers, clients, etc.
• Which audience(s) would find your story
valuable to know
• Startup story archetype ~ hero’s journey
– What quest were you called on
– What huge challenges have you overcome on
your unclear path forward
– How have demonstrated your courage, agility,
stamina, ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
PR for Startups

8. MECHANICS
• Developing your positioning, messaging and
content delivery tools
– Positioning statement (what does your company
stand for from a customer POV)
– Messaging (does your USP explain why you’re
worth buying versus your competitors)
– Media training (preparing talking points for
messaging specific to each story and content
native to each platform)
– Dissemination (news releases, wire services,
Google News, #s trending on twitter, etc.)
PR for Startups

9. PITCHING
• Start with the story and determine newsworthiness
• Depth is more important than breadth
– Relationships matter – contact the reporters you know and
you read/view, etc.
– Read their latest tweets, re-tweets and stories
– Email a succinct (3-4 sentence) pitch that provides what
your story offers their audience
– Better to use hyperlinks than attachments
– Best days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday
– Follow-up with a call and if no response send a second
email with additional info that will interest their audience
PR for Startups

10. ROI
• What should you pay
• Should you go external or internal
• What are your requirements
– 24/7 market coverage or support for an
upcoming sales campaign
• PR produces the greatest ROI when its
being effectively used to support focused
and opportunistic business development
activities and awareness building
PR for Startups