AuthenticMatters

Small-Batch Whiskey, Startup PR, Authenticity & More

Avi (one of our advisors) shot me an email today:

I was at the first growth venture network startup advisor day yesterday and the topic was user acquisition where for half an hour we talked about PR and authenticity.  Keep hammering “Authentic PR for Startups.”

So I thought about that a bit. And cutting right to it, here are a few ideas as to what that means. (Naturally, this list will evolve.)

1. Authentic PR Takes Time. Lots of startups think about their roadmap in terms of chunks. Design, development, fund raising, entity formation… all these things are happening first. Once compete (or at least presentable), it’s time to turn on biz dev, marketing, paid/unpaid acquisition and a whole slew of other things, including PR. But this idea of “turning on PR” only when the product’s ready leads some issues, namely the expectation that things are going to go from zero to 60 in just a matter of days - and that’s often because the CEO, CTO, engineers and designers have been eating, sleeping and breathing the product for so long. They can’t believe someone (a reporter) wouldn’t share that same obsession. The problem is, THERE ARE A TON OF PRODUCTS OUT THERE! Journalists, bloggers and other influencers are being bombarded every day by startups and their PR operatives - and it’s usually done in the manner mentioned above: when engineering’s done and the team’s ready to pull the curtain. But that’s not what’s going to catch the attention of those you’re trying to woo. Conversely, and perhaps, more authentically, the PR “push” of any startup or product needs to overlap with the last quarter mile of development. Seeding conversations and relationships takes time. And bringing in a small batch of people you really want to connect with during that last quarter mile is going to bear all sorts of fruit because you’re not emailing them out of the blue asking for coverage. Instead, you’re asking for their opinion. You’re asking them to pop out for a beer to talk about the space. You’re bringing them in as a beta tester. You’re introducing them to other founders/startups that you think they might dig. YOU’RE BUILDING TRUST AND CONFIDENCE. And you’re doing it while keeping your “We’ve Launched!” email out of your intended’s ever-expanding “Unread Launch Emails” file. The point is… PR - real, genuine relationship building - takes time. And if a startup can initiate that during the last quarter mile push of dev, the effort will be in a much better place. (And hell, your “PR guy” will have had the opportunity to live in the product with the rest of the team so instead of having to tell a reporter that they’ll need to “circle back” to that question, they can answer it themselves. NOTE: Any PR type that doesn’t want to get under the hood isn’t worth keeping around.)
2. Authentic PR isn’t Lame. That’s tough to define, but so much of PR is perceived as lame. Maybe “slick” is a better word. Either way, the commonly felt “PR vibe” is the antithesis of authenticity. Reporters feel it. Founders feel it. Investors feel it. And most PR people are in denial of it. They’re self-proclaimed news junkies who have a real nose for a story with a “great rolodex” (see our sister blog, Things PR People Say, for more on this). And what this all really comes down to is communicative skill and having an actual point of existence. First, the communicative skill. Most PR types email, speak and pontificate this way. Example: “Strategic message alignment amongst all stakeholders…” Does that mean anything to anyone? Communicating like an actual human being will improve your PR efforts tenfold. Seriously. This idea that we have to cram as much jargon and fluff in to our communicative outreach is not only silly, but it isn’t fooling anyone. You know what “best-in-class proprietary functionality” tells a journalist or blogger? It tells them you have no idea what you’re talking about. Next. So communicate as you speak. Communicate (as you’ve diligently researched) in the way the people you’re trying to get cozy with do. Just be, in the words of Charles Grodin, “a normal human being.” Seriously. It’s that easy of a start. And that segues nicely (or not at all) in to the other aspect: having a point of existence. To do PR the right way, especially in the tech space, just knowing your roll will take you miles. You’re a facilitator. A helper who gets people what they want. You don’t force stuff. You help a journalist even when it’s not helping your product/company/startup/whatever. You pay it forward. Always. That is your existence. You’re not the focus. To be sort of blunt, you’re not important. 
3. Authentic PR is Handcrafted. Every PR agency subscribes to a media database service. It’s expensive, massive and not terribly accurate all the time. When an account manager is assigned a client, he or she enters some keywords relevant to the product or company, gets a ton of results back and whips it in to a spreadsheet. This is how media lists are made in agency land. Unscrubbed, unchecked data that hasn’t been researched. Think of a media list like this as BudLight. It’s massive, but it’s not really all that quality. But authentic PR… Authentic PR is handcrafted. Screw media databases. If your product is financial planning and analysis software (or “awesome dashboards”), USE THIS INTERNET THING AND FIND OUT WHO CARE ABOUT, IS CONVERSATIONAL IN, AND COVERS FINANCIAL PLANNING AND ANALYSIS SOFTWARE. Make a Twitter list. Set Google alerts. Actually read what they write (and not just the most recent article). And start small. Remember the BudLight analogy? Handcrafted PR is like good whiskey. It’s small-batch. It’s refined. It’s sipped. If you start piecemeal, you’re going to be able to dedicate more time and more effort to the folks who really matter. (Aside: I once had a boss who said, “PR is a numbers game,” implying that if 10 pitches yield 1 article, 100 will yield 10. That’s bull. And frankly, it’s disrespectful to your pitch recipients. I’ll never forget that quote - because it’s the exact opposite of how PR gets done the right way.)
4. Authentic PR is Numbers. All this qualitative stuff is great, but at the end of the day, PR is about flooding the top of the conversion funnel and measuring the size of that flood. It’s about spreading the word (or convincing others to spread the word) to ideal potential users. So part of doing PR authentically is understanding that your job doesn’t just end at coverage. Roll up your sleeves, login to GoogleAnalytics and figure out what’s happening. (And hey, you young agency rookies, even asking for the login creds will earn you points.)

So this is getting pretty long (for now). I’ll wrap it up. Bottom line: Startup PR needs to happen over time, while the product’s nearing the last quarter mile of development. It needs to be handcrafted. And it needs to be all about the numbers.