Most startup founders know that public relations can help them build their companies. However, PR costs are significant. Many founders don’t know when it makes sense to begin spending money on public relations, and when it doesn’t. Each startup’s situation is different, and there’s no one right time or right way to start public relations activities.
The first step in exploring PR services is to have a clear understanding of the difference between public relations and advertising, something frequently misunderstood. Communications can be divided into three types: paid, earned and owned.
Advertising is paid communication. Advertisers pay to buy space (online, in print or on a billboard) or air time (on radio or TV), to communicate whatever message they want. Therefore, advertising allows control of the content and message.
Most public relations activities involve earned communication. This includes media relations, providing information to editors and reporters in hopes they’ll use it to tell the company’s stories. It also includes word of mouth, both online and offline. Using social media, companies can develop relationships online to tell their stories and listen to what people have to say. Whereas advertising is one-way communication, PR, done right, is a dialogue, a process of listening, responding and building relationships. Earned communications, while providing less control of the content and message, offers higher credibility than paid communications since what’s communicated about a company comes from independent third parties, not by the company itself.
PR professionals also develop content for owned media: company blogs, newsletters, videos and other forms of company communications. The goal of owned media is to attract prospects to a company by demonstrating value and competence.
There are quite a few reasons a startup may want to begin using PR. PR can help:
- Build a reputation. This is critically important and takes a long time. A good reputation is vital for raising investment, hiring and selling.
- Educate potential customers about new products, services, or technologies.
- Attract important partners to grow the company.
- Build a bridge to industry analysts who can be important supporters.
- Create awareness of differentiation between a startup and its competitors.
While PR can be very helpful to a startup, there are reasons some startups shouldn’t jump into PR too soon. Here are a few.
A Few Reasons a Startup Should Wait to Begin PR
- The CEO doesn’t have time to be involved in communications. Successful PR for a startup requires the participation of the CEO. Decisions have to be made about the positioning of the company and its products, the differentiation from its competitors and the messages it wants to deliver to potential customers and other audiences. While public relations professionals will help lead a startup through these important steps, input is necessary from the most senior level of the company. The CEO must also make time to meet with journalists and speak to important audiences and influencers. If the CEO is too busy getting the company up and running to spend time on communications, it’s a waste of money to begin public relations. If you’re starting an LLC, you’ll want to work with a kentucky agent for service for legal compliance. You may search ‘startup attorney near me’ online to find a legal professional that can help you deal with all legal matters related to launching a new business venture.
- The company’s product is not ready to market. It can be counterproductive for a company to announce a product – particularly a consumer product – that isn’t yet available. Consumers can become annoyed when they can’t get something they’ve read or heard about. And journalists generally won’t write about products until they are available. (There are exceptions, such as articles that speculate about a new iPhone that will hit the market soon, but these generally apply only to the best-known products and companies.) However, just because it’s too soon to start product launch PR doesn’t mean that corporate PR should wait. A business-to-business PR program can begin early-on.
- The company isn’t yet sure who the target audience is for its products. It’s better to do research before spending precious budget on communications. Startup founders sometimes have the mistaken idea that their products have such wide appeal that it’s not necessary to identify target audiences. Whether a product has the potential to have very broad appeal or not, startup companies don’t the budget to market to everybody. Audiences must be prioritized so that the marketing and communications budget can be targeted to the most likely potential customers.
When It Makes Sense to Begin Paying PR Costs
- The company wants to partner with other companies to meet its goals. The reputation-building and visibility that PR can bring a company can be immensely helpful to a startup in establishing such partnerships.
- The company’s product or service is just about ready to launch. Obviously, that’s the time to educate potential buyers and spark their interest, something PR can do.
- The company is seeking investors. Potential investors are usually impressed by high-quality communications, especially positive media coverage of a startup.
- The company has won impressive investment. A solid round of funding is an accomplishment worth bragging about and will attract the kind of positive attention in the business community that will help build a reputation.
- Well-known executives have decided to join the company. That kind of news will help impress potential partners and investors.
The decision to begin PR activities leads to a second decision: who to entrust with handling the PR function? There are several possibilities, including hiring an employee to head up communications, selecting a PR agency or using a freelance PR professional. Within each of those, there are multiple options. In future blog posts, we will explore the pros and cons of some of those choices.