Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi, my name is Mark Coker, and I`ve been doing PR for startups for almost 20 years.  I thought it might be fun to establish a forum here where ya`ll can ask me PR questions and I`ll try to answer them.

First, an introduction.  I run a small boutique PR agency in Silicon Valley with 8 employees that I founded 13 years ago.  Our clients have ranged from cool garage startups to multibillion dollar publicly traded companies like Sun Microsystems and IBM.  We regularly get our clients press coverage in national magazines and industry trade journals.

First, what is PR?  You can probably find a dozen definitions of PR. Wikipedia has a comprehensive page describing the practice of PR at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations , though if you`re not careful it might confuse more than help.

Let`s get real about what PR should mean to you.  Imagine if your business could receive free press coverage in the magazines, newpapers or trade publications read by your target customers?  The proper press coverage can generate awareness for your company and its products or services.  The proper press coverage can help create and shape public perceptions about your business that can make customers more inclined to choose your product or service over a competitor`s.

I`m a huge believer in PR as one of the most important strategic weapons for any startup.  PR can be used to achieve virtually any business objective.

Back in `98, I founded and launched a startup out of my PR agency office called BestCalls.com.  We used PR as a strategic weapon to help motivate publicly traded companies to allow small individual investors to listen in on their earnings conference calls.  I was personally interviewed for hundreds of stories by media outlets such as the New York Times, Wired Magazine, BusinessWeek, CNBC, CNN, and many others.  It was a lot of fun.  When I first launched the business and told people my goal was to change the way public companies communicate with small investors, people laughed in my face.  But as I proved with BestCalls, when you have the power of the press on your side, anything is possible.

One of the most frequent questions I get from entrepreneurs is, "What does PR cost?"  It`s a tough question to answer because it varies company to company.  Most of our clients spend $8,000 to $10,000 a month for our PR services.  Most startups can`t afford that, unless they`re venture or angel backed like most of our clients. 

Although the day may come for your company where that level of PR investment is a no-brainer, for most startups you`ve got to do your first PR on your own.  I`m hopeful that in the days and weeks ahead, I can provide you some no-cost or low-cost ideas that you can implement on your own without a PR agency.

Fire away.


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Mark Coker
Founder and CEO
Dovetail Public Relations
http://www.dovetailpr.com
Smashwords, Inc.
http://www.smashwords.com

Mark-

Welcome to the StartUp Nation Boards! I think this will be an awesome forum. There are many people in here that will more than likely benefit from it, including myself! Best Wishes! I am getting close to a point where I want to start generating some PR for a revolutionary evolution of the Online Recruiting Industry! When I get there I will be asking some questions. Thank you again for starting this thread!

Ken~

Letutor, here`s your top 5.  It`s general to cover startups of all types.

The Top 5 Ways to Do Your Own PR Cheaply and Effectively

#1.  Know your target market

Who is your target customer? What are their hopes and dreams?  What problems are they facing?  What makes them tick?  Get inside their heads.  Know how your product or service is a solution to your target customer`s pain.  Identify the media that reaches your target market.  What magazines, newspapers or trade journals does your target market read?  What radio stations or television shows does your target market watch?  These will be your PR targets.  Study the stories covered in your target media.  If it`s a print publication, read it cover to cover.  Who`s writing about what? 

#2 Know your story

What`s your story?  What do you have to tell the world that the world doesn`t already know?  Good PR starts with visualization.  You need to imagine your story appearing in your target publications. What would be the headline of your story?  What would the first sentence of the story say?  Ask yourself, "why should anyone care about my story?"  Play devil`s advocate.

#3   Develop a compelling pitch with supporting materials

If you`re announcing a new product or service, can you communicate in one or two sentences what it is, what it does, why it`s special and why someone should care?  Reporters often write stories by a formula.  They like a press release (I`m sure some time down the line, I`ll answer questions about press releases).  They need to interview someone to get quotes.  They need artwork, such as pictures of a product, or a picture of whoever they interviewed.  They like to speak to users of a product or service.  Do you have satisfied customers or clients who are willing to speak to a reporter and tell them how your product or service changed their life, or allowed them to gain some benefit that previously wasn`t possible by any other product or service?

#4.  Pitch the story to the right reporters at the right time

Most magazines and newspapers have an editorial staff, and those reporters usually have assigned beats.  One may cover real estate, one may cover technology, and another might cover restaurants.  Know who covers your space.  If your market is regional and your targets are few, just read the local media and observe who`s writing what.  If your market is national, consider purchasing the same directories used by PR agencies.  Bacons is probably the top directory of media.  Their printed newspaper directory, for example, has the names, beats and phone numbers of probably 10,000 newspaper reporters.  They have similar directories for magazines, television/radio, and more.  Each directory costs a little over $400.  If you have a few thousand to spend, you can subscribe to their online MediaMap service (the secret weapon and addiction of most PR pros), which lists information on thousands of reporters across thousands of magazines and media outlets that you never would have imagine even existed.  MediaMap will tell you, for example, how and when a reporter prefers to be pitched.  Maybe they prefer email pitches, and they`re on deadline after 3pm every day so don`t dare call them then.  Maybe they prefer to receive a press release in the mail, or by fax (actually, the fax machine has gone the way of the dinasaur for more media).

5.  Followup

If you find a reporter who`s interested in your story, don`t be offended if they`re flaky or busy or can`t cover your story right away.  When you`re doing PR, the reporter is boss.  If you try to work within their schedule, you`ll improve your chances for success.  Books on sales techniques will often tell you not to take no for an answer.  If a reporter tells you "no," listen, don`t argue.  If they`ll give you a second, ask them what they think your story is missing.  Learn from the experience.  Maybe you`ll learn you`re pitching the wrong story, or the wrong reporter.  Or maybe they`ll tell you exactly what they need for a story, and you can come back to them next time when you have what they need.




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Mark Coker
Founder and CEO
Dovetail Public Relations
http://www.dovetailpr.com
Smashwords, Inc.
http://www.smashwords.com

Welcome Mark - great to have you at SuN!

Excellent advice. Communicated well. I look forward to hearing more from you and all the questions and answers on this very important aspect of any business.

R@

PS - Love your name. I use to be a partner of a company in GA and our name was "Dovetail, Inc." - loving woodworking, the play on the name "fits" nicely for a service business like yours.

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Richard Arnold · Key Concept Writers · Business Communication: The "Key" To Success· Law of Attraction Blog · Life Ain`t Brain Surgery Blog

Hi Mark,

Welcome to StartupNation ! You have some great advice for small businesses. I`m looking forward to seeing how this PR area grows and the great information we can share!

Here are some additional tips for getting some free publicity and/or new business:

1. Give presentations at local events that target your specific audience.
Provide valuable information, and you`ll establish your credibility. People will get to know who you are and what you have to offer. And word-of-mouth marketing will help you get some new clients.

2. Write an article for a publication that targets your audience. If you aren`t a writer, get some assistance from a friend who does. This will help build credibiliy. Then you can use the published work in your marketing efforts.

3. Partner with a business or organization that caters to your specific audience. Perhaps you can trade services and share the cost of your PR efforts?

4. Hire a publicity/marketing student at a university to do some writing, research and publicity efforts for you at a reduced fee. They may be able to do the work for class-credit, and they`ll give their all in order to build some samples for their future career.

Getting free publicity as a small business is possible. It just takes some research time and effort!

Have a great day!

Melanie

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Melanie Rembrandt
CEO, Rembrandt Communications®, LLC
Visit www.rembrandtwrites.com for valuable PR tips and SEO copywriting help!
Twitter: @RembrandtWrites

Hi Melanie, those are good ideas too.  I particularly like #2.  If you write an article, and if that article is posted on the publication`s web site with a hyperlink back to www.YourWebAddress.com, you also receive the added bonus of rising in the organic search rankings of Google.  One of the metrics Google uses to rank websites for different search terms is the number of inbound links from reputable web sites, which would obviously include newspapers, magazines and trade journals.

Great work, BTW, on StartupNation`s PR!

Mark



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Mark Coker
Founder and CEO
Dovetail Public Relations
http://www.dovetailpr.com
Smashwords, Inc.
http://www.smashwords.com

Thanks Mark!

Small businesses can get the PR that big businesses do. In fact, they often have more interesting stories to tell. But without a PR budget, it`s just a matter of spending the extra time to get some good media attention!

Melanie

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Melanie Rembrandt
CEO, Rembrandt Communications®, LLC
Visit www.rembrandtwrites.com for valuable PR tips and SEO copywriting help!
Twitter: @RembrandtWrites

I need help in getting pr for my business.  Could you please help me?

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Randy Cumberbatch

Hi Randy,

To start, checkout the PR information on StartupNation under "PR Toolkit" at http://www.startupnation.com/pages/passport/PP_PRNewswire.as p 

That will give you some basic information. Then, feel free to send me a note with your specific goals, and I`ll see if I can help you out!

Thanks Randy,

Melanie

 

 

 

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Melanie Rembrandt
CEO, Rembrandt Communications®, LLC
Visit www.rembrandtwrites.com for valuable PR tips and SEO copywriting help!
Twitter: @RembrandtWrites