Selling Your Story: PR for Startups with Peter Shankman
This post is part of our ReadWriteStart channel, which is a resource and guide for first-time entrepreneurs and startups. The channel is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark. To sign up for BizSpark, click here.
Peter Shankman knows a bit about startups and PR. Ever since launching his own venture, Help A Reporter Out (HARO), last year, he's been living at the crossroads of journalists who need stories and companies that need exposure.
And in connecting expert sources with harried journos, Shankman has gleaned a wealth of tips, tricks, and common-sense dicta, many of which he shared with us in a phone interview this morning. Read on, and find out what this entrepreneur/skydiver/damn smart PR guy thinks about your pitch - and why we, the press, agree with him.
Get to the Point
To start things off, Shankman gives a word of advice that makes remarkable sense: "Journalists respond to sources who know how to write.
"They're doing six times as much work with six times fewer resources, and brevity has never been more important. Give them one paragraph - short, to the point, tell them exactly what you have to say - and help them write their story in a clear and concise way."
He also noted that it's important be sensitive to the fact that most journos operate on a deadline (or, in bloggers' case, race to break news at strange hours of the day and night).
Be in the World and of the World
If Shankman is to be believed, the sun has set on the day of the three-page PDF press release complete with company boilerplate, CEO biography, and a rash of pre-fab quotations. What makes press folks notice and cover startups these days, he said, is a mindfulness of the world around us.
"You get so wrapped up in what you're doing when you're starting a company. You sit there and think, 'We just created a widget we worked on for 7 months.' Well, it's not as important as Kanye West interrrupting a country singer. But because you launched a widget, the world revolves around you?
"What works better is working your widget into the news, make it part of what's going on in the world." Relating your startup to a hot news item is also a good way to catch a reporter's eye in a sea of sameness.
Offer Real Value
Is your startup's goal to get media attention, or to be seen as an expert, a go-to source of information? Are you trying to be a perennial fount of knowledge about your vertical or a one-off novelty for blog fodder?
"One of the best things a startup can do," Shankman said, "is to be aware of what's going on in your industry, and offer that information to the reporter from the perspective of an industry expert."
By tracking and giving insight on trends that others might now know about, your startup story might allow a journalist to "break" something new while giving you exposure, a win-win situation for both parties.
For the Love of Mike, Ditch the Jargon
Is your startup a real-time, semantic, social media solution in the cloud? You might want to reconsider the necessity of including those terms before sending your pitch email.
"Oh, I hate buzzwords," Shankman said, echoing the sentiment of every journalist we've ever met.
"People use them as a crutch. If you give me an interesting message -"Peter, you'll like this" or "I saw this and thought of you" - you might actually know what I'm looking for. Don't give me a buzzword."
Then again, he warns pitching companies to use familiarity with care. "If you don't know me, and it's a blanket pitch, you're not on the level. Then it's one keystroke, you're marked as spam, and I'll never see your emails again."
The Bottom Line: It's About Longevity and Love
Ultimately, said Shankman, the startups that are successful in the press are those who position themselves as sources, bringing journalists carefully crafted stories that are well-written and relate to the bigger picture, be that industry or world news. More than a simple review of a new site or app, a smart opinion can ensure more coverage in better publications and prompt more widespread user adoption.
And to any new tech company, he advises, "Don't go into a startup with the sole goal of making money. Those companies generally do not succeed. Go into it because you believe you have something that will solve a problem, and the money will follow."
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Sound advice that no one can argue with... PS. Would be great to see Peter live tweet his next skydive :)
Here's a question:
I want to break some news about my startup, and I want to get it on, for example, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and Mashable. However, I presume each of these websites would like to get exclusives.
Should I court each equally with my story, or should I just approach them one after the other?
I /want/ to be on all three, but it feels almost deceitful to be speaking to one journalist about your story, then immediately talking to another journalist on a different website about the same story.
Steven: Awesome question. This is a topic I covered in depth on my personal blog, but here's the redux: The very best things to do are 1) promise and deliver an exclusive, or 2) play fair with everybody, sending the same release at the same time.
Also, remember embargoes. You can use those to ensure that each journo has a fair amount of time and access to develop a unique angle and a well-written story. Just remember - ReadWriteWeb honors embargoes, and some other blogs do not. Just be aware of each publication's editorial policy, and you're good to go.
Advice for helping start ups build visibility are a nickel a dozen.
That's why this piece caught my attention.
Well done.
A start up can't go wrong following this advice (although if I had to quibble I'd say exclusives are dangerous ground for any new venture).
Venture Capitalists would be well served to attach this article to their term sheets.
Lou Hoffman
www.Hoffman.com
Steven, it's ok to approach each one individually but have a different angle for each. Reporters hate it when you offer them the same thing that's already been written. As for the post, thanks for more great info from Peter. I'll defend the press release a little, though. Maybe we're not leading with it as much anymore, but as long as it's the first thing reporters ask for when seeking "additional info," then it's not dead in my eyes.
John Sternal
Thanks for the replies to my comment. Interesting to see Michael Arrington's post on the subject: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/death-to-the-embargo/
At the end of the day journalists are people too... it's easy to forget that when you try to get in contact with so many. I know it's obvious but honestly pick up the phone or take them to lunch versus the numbers game.
Great words of advice. I've had quite a bit of luck writing a release like a story would appear. There have been several occasions that the release was picked up and printed as the story. If you package your pitch so it's easy to see the story, you'll have better success. Stories good. Corporate speak bad.
The best advice of the post is: "Offer real value".
"One of the best things a startup can do," Shankman said, "is to be aware of what's going on in your industry, and offer that information to the reporter from the perspective of an industry expert."
So we need to give market insight to the journalists in order to enable them to write an interesting story.
We publish a PR (mainly about our service) every 6 weeks (except during summer) distributed using free PR services.
Result:
- Generates many links on search engines
- Google News alerts
- Several Tweets
- Increase of website visits during 10 days (slowly fading out)
Wondering if we will need to use a paid Press Release service. We will try one next time.
I read this post with interest. Good advice. I run a media and publicity agency that helps people sell their story and don't forget if the entrepreneur behidn the business has an interesting story to tell, one of triumph against all odds etc, that can be make good free PR as well.
A number of the stories we do are from people who have turned their life around from low to high, and the icing on the cake of their story is them feeling inspired to start their own business. Their own personal story and history is a part of their business brand.
Our clients – women’s national magazines and national newspapers, are interested in individual stories if they are unusual, or really inspirational. For instance, we placed a story in the Daily Mail and Woman’s Own on two women who had started an events business together – and incredibly they met when one of their husbands had an affair with the other one. So it was wife number 1 and wife number 2 who were now in business together. That's obviously an unusual one though. We’ve also done stories of people who’ve started businesses after beating illness.
It’s a great way to get free PR for your business.
http://www.talktothepress.co.uk
magic of space, people have always taken. Leave yourself down from the sky ... See people consisted of an ant.
I am sort of a newbie at PR game. I have a rather unique situation in a sense that I did a soft launch of my site www.cribsocial.com a month ago in addition to having a full time job. What I really want to know is what type of advice would you give to people who are just getting their feet wet in this game and dont want to be robbed by a PR firm. Where can you get the honest advice about what should I pay and how much should I expect as PR services. And how do you find a journalist or blogger in the first place who might be interested in hearing a stranger's story?