Data Driven PR for Startups
(Part I) PR Basics

In a former life I worked in public relations. Over the past year I contributed a blog/ column in The New York Times about building my startup, FashioningChange.com. Every time, I’d publish a story I’d receive hundreds of story pitches. The most poorly written and off topic pitches were always from PR firms.

I find that colleagues in the startup world often ask me “How do I get press?” or “How do I hire a PR firm?” My answers are always the same…

“If you have raised money (or are trying to raise money) you can do your own PR.”

“If you hire a PR firm you’re going to get ripped off.”

This month my series Data Driven PR for Startups, PR Basics, Tactics, and Tools will breakdown the process to garner media, detail why PR firms will generally rip you off, and give you tools to quantify the value of your public relations efforts.

Before diving into the PR process below are the PR basics…

Top Five Reasons to do Public Relations

1. Attract Customers
2. Attract Potential Partners (Business or Investment)
3. Establish Trust and Credibility in the Market
4. Recruit Talent
5. Crisis Communications

Types of Media

1. Online
   Placements generate immediate and long-tail results (results are better for web than mobile)
   Good for new customers, credibility, and partnerships
2. Print
   Placements generate long-tail results
   Good for credibility and partnerships
3. Broadcast
   Placements generally generate long-tail results, national placements like the Today Show are exceptions
   Good for credibility and partnerships, national placements are also good for new customers

  Types of Stories 

1. Hard News, a story that uses facts to cover a serious topic or event, not opinion based
2. Feature News, a story on person, place, or event, often opinion based and tells an intriguing story
   Almost every story pitched by a startup will be a ‘Feature News’ story

Lead Times

1. Online
   Any news site, if a story is hot a story can break instantly
   Industry blogs with editorial calendars, 4 – 6 weeks
2. Print
   Newspaper feature story,  4 – 6 weeks
   Magazine feature story, 3 – 6 months (on the extreme end 12 months)
3. Broadcast
   Feature story, 4 – 6 weeks

 Checklist to Help Assess if You’re Ready for PR

1. You know what your PR goals are
2. You’ve targeted the right media to achieve your goals
3. You have the right pitch timeline
4. You’ve established your pitch process
5. You’ve finalized your press materials
6. You’ve optimized landing pages, funnels, and feedback/ follow-up loops for each type of media hit
   (You know every thing is sticky because you’ve done a couple of test runs on smaller “look-a-like” media outlets.)
7. You’ve made ROI assumptions to measure against
8. You have a process and  tools to measure ROI assumptions and quantify the value of PR efforts
   Example: Data Driven Public Relations Template for Startups
   (I’ll breakdown how to develop and use this spreadsheet as part of this month’s series on Data Driven Public Relations.)

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