Your start-up’s secret weapon

Sophie Millward

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Your start-up’s success isn’t just about what you’ve built – it’s about who knows about it and why they should care. Getting the word out effectively can make a real difference to your growth.

Good PR helps to build awareness of your brand, establish credibility, and connect with potential customers and investors.

While it might not be at the top of your to-do list when you’re busy building a business, some simple PR strategies can help to get your message out there.

Establish your business identity🔗

Before jumping straight into a PR campaign, take the time to get clear on the basics. What does your business stand for? What problem are you solving? Having a clear mission and values isn’t just nice to have – it helps you to explain your business consistently to others.

And keep your branding simple but professional. A clear website, consistent logo use, and an active social media presence show you mean business. You don’t need anything fancy – just clean and professional.

Craft a communications strategy

Once you know what you want to say about your business, plan how you will get the message out. Set some realistic goals – this could be getting featured in industry publications, building local awareness with regional media, or targeting potential investors.

It’s important to know who you’re trying to reach. What do they read? Do they prefer radio, TV or podcasts? Are they on social media? Which events do they go to? What matters to them? This helps you to focus your efforts on the communications channels that can make the most impact.

Timing matters too. There’s no point pushing summer products in winter or missing key industry events. A simple calendar of when you want to communicate what can keep you on track.

Building media relationships🔗

Next, find out which journalists and publications cover businesses like yours. Do your research and don’t expect immediate results – journalists get lots of pitches every day.

Be patient and professional, and focus on providing content that is useful and of interest to the journalists you’re targeting. This will help you to build genuine connections.

Utilising press releases🔗

Knowing how to write a good press release is an important skill in PR. When writing press releases, get to the point quickly. Say what’s happened and why it matters, without the fluff. Make sure you include the basic facts: who, what, when, where and why.

And be honest with yourself – is this news actually interesting to people outside of your company? If not, save it for your blog or social media instead.

Evaluating your efforts🔗

Keep track of what works and what doesn’t.

Regularly assessing the effectiveness of your PR strategy will make you far better in the long term. Look at what went well, what didn’t go quite as you’d wanted it to, and adapt. It’s something we’ve all had to do and while it’s frustrating to have to change the approach, being open to it is probably the most important skill you could have in your PR toolkit.

Pro Tip

There are also lots of free tools available to help measure audience engagement. For example, through Google Analytics you can track if PR activities are driving traffic to your website. Use this information to focus on what’s generating results, and hone your strategy.

The bottom line🔗

Getting started with PR doesn’t have to be complicated. Focus on the basics: know what you want to say, find the right people to say it to, and be consistent. It takes time, but steady effort pays off.

Remember, every business starts somewhere. Take it step by step, learn as you go, and keep at it.