When you’re building awareness about your company, it’s helpful to first map out the company story and what editorial content you want to share with the world. That requires a regular cadence of news and stories that you produce and promote on your owned channels. From there, pick out a few timely pieces of news that you can use to pitch the press.

But how do you know if your startup is prepared for the spotlight?

In this guide, we’ll answer top questions, including

1. ‍What's the role of a PR firm?
2. When is the right time to seek media attention?
3. What are common PR mistakes by early-stage startup founders?

PR agencies help clients create and maintain your brand reputation through earned (media clips) and owned (content for your brand’s channels) media. They come with press relationships and awareness of editorial and event calendars and can craft and pitch stories, prepare you for media interviews, write and distribute press releases, build and disseminate surveys, and handle crisis management. They can also offer outside perspectives to help you manage your and your stakeholders' expectations about what the outside world will find interesting about what you're building.

Additional activities include growth marketing/lead generation, product marketing, content marketing, and syndication.

External-facing brand assets, marketing decks, customer-facing collateral, website copy, press releases, and content all require a framework of messaging that can help your business achieve its goals. Below are activities informed and enabled by those assets:

1. Reputation management
2. Executive presence/thought leadership
3. Customer testimonials and surveys
4. Media relations
5. Interview prep/media training
6. Stakeholder communication including distribution partners and local officials/regulators
7. Internal communication
8. Market research
9. Speech writing
10. Events
11. Crisis management‍

What all these activities require are crisp and compelling messaging that support your business. If someone on your team can handle many of these responsibilities but needs additional help crafting and improving messaging and supporting the outreach and amplification, a PR consultant or agency can be effective partners. Here are things to consider when considering a PR firm.

Sequencing your brand/comms work is everything. You may find that it’s too soon to hire external people because you first need to build your brand story, customer testimonials and overall impact, and insights about your field. If you don't have someone on your team to do this, a PR firm or strategist can help you do this early and important strategy work. You need enough happening in the company to be able to start pitching media.

Is the right time to pitch media when you’ve raised money? No. Today, the act of raising money is not a differentiated enough story. There are fewer media outlets than ever, so it will be important to work with your team or a PR firm to identify what is newsworthy and help you prepare to tell a more interesting story.

If you’re early and you’re seeking to recruit talented engineers, the stories may be rooted in the founding team (founder-market fit) and the unique way that you’re approaching a difficult problem. Make sure to focus on the audience you’re trying to reach and the goal you’re trying to help them achieve.

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Your narrative has to have enough of a stretch, and your story needs to be emotional—not transactional. That said, it also needs some data, results, and market share before it will catch the interest of the media.

5 reasons to work on earned and owned media

Here’s why it’s important to start crafting your messaging now:

1. Recruiting: Make key hires by telling and sharing a differentiated story.
2. Sales: Shorten sales cycles, and deliver quality leads in the fastest possible way.
3. Customers: Increase retention and acquisition through a campaign that includes earned media.
4. Competitive landscape: Differentiate against the competition, and drive awareness to leverage industry opportunities.
5. Fundraising: Build momentum and excitement about your company and your leadership before you begin fundraising.
   

Why you should identify a point person for the firm

It’s never too soon to think about identifying someone internally who can start to build a communications plan. Whether internal or a firm, they can help you strategize and execute on:

1. Identify key audiences you want to reach
2. Developing content and gathering data and insights and testimonials that establish you as an expert in the field
3. Goals for each and timing
4. Channels, assets, third-party experts: What content and insights (#2) might interest identified stakeholders that you want on your side?
5. Media relations: Who already covers you? Start following them, and listen before engaging.

Hiring a PR agency does not mean that you’ve outsourced the work. Be prepared to carve out time to work on your content and work with outside agencies and consultants helping you craft your message and pitch on your behalf. Be ready to treat them like an extension of your team. Be honest with them about what is so impactful about what you’re building and what you want to achieve with them.

Four public relations experts share their best advice—and common mistakes that they’ve seen early-stage founders make along the way.

Brooke Hammerling

Founder, New New Thing

Big idea: “The New New Thing reflects what I saw in the evolution of an entrepreneur. I work with people who care not just about an article but about how to become part of the consciousness.“

Best advice: “It’s not about getting the most amount of press. It’s not about that. A slow burn is better … Also, there's nothing more boring than a funding announcement. The world has changed so much.”

Common mistake by early-stage startup founders: “They’re absolutely unwavering in their belief in how the rollout should be that they don’t take feedback. Listen to your community and team. Also if your story is complicated for people to understand, make it not about everything all at once: simplify it.”

You can’t force virality.

Brooke Hammerling

Gabriel del Rio

Senior Publicist, GdR PR

Best advice: “Be ready for PR. A dedicated retainer is best reserved for a startup who has a series of stories and wins lined up. PR isn’t a faucet that turns on and off—it should be a permanent part of the company’s brand building and only lifted when it’s ready to pay off.”

Big idea: “Ultimately, [PR] should make the company money. I’m a believer in narrative economics—a good story will motivate audiences toward a business transaction.”

Common mistake by early-stage startup founders: “They confuse PR with advertising. PR is not an acquisition channel. To drive acquisition, you need thousands of repeatable moments, and you don’t get that with editorial coverage. Instead, stories build a brand, establish a voice, and create credibility with curated messaging within stories. Founders who understand PR will avoid an expensive experiment.”

Marisa Ricciardi

Founder and CEO, The Ricciardi Group

What an effective partnership looks like: “Mutual respect and understanding. We look for clients that treat us like a partner and not a vendor. We’re an extension of their team. A lot is at stake for founders, and they need to make an investment in the time to work with us.”

Best time to engage a PR agency: “It’s important to get market share before mindshare so once you have repeatable stories to highlight or reference clients or case studies. Discussing what you want to achieve up front may help you realize that your performance expectation is way higher than it should be at this early stage when, for instance, nothing has been validated other than investors believing that this will happen. Otherwise, the expectation is to work as an extension of your sales team.”

Rebecca Silliman

Principal, Whipsmart Communications

Note: M13 currently has a retainer in place with Whipsmart.

Best advice: “There was a time when every fundraise would get tons of attention, but right now x might not be the lever for them depending on their goals. If your goals are to get in front of consumers, consider whether those resources that you’d hire PR for might be better allocated to marketing/advertising.”

Common mistake by early-stage founders: “PR is not marketing. It's squishy. We don’t have full control of what happens, but we have expertise about what makes a good story, how to shape a narrative, and the tenacity to bring it to life. It still may not happen the way we want it to, and it can be tough for executives to let go of that level of control. If your PR person is good, they're not going to just say yes. They will push back and manage your expectations, but listening to that advice can pay in the long run.”

Best way to set expectations: “Agree on specific deliverables, such as creating these messaging materials and an announcement. Or these are our press goals, and here are messages we want to see in coverage. Be specific about the announcement—we want to see it in x tier of publication that fits this audience.”

We always say measurement in PR is the holy grail. It’s not like performance marketing, where you can plug stuff in the spreadsheet and expect what you can get.
Rebecca Silliman