5 Tips for PR Firms and Startups Looking For Coverage

It can be challenging for a newly formed, unknown startup pr firm to grab the media attention. The budgets might be tight, relationship with journalists may not be that strong and also there are chances of facing difficulty in explaining the new concept. In the infancy stage, the startup firms usually employ few people focused on product and developments. Therefore it is very necessary for the startup firms to take the right approach to Public Relations (PR), marketing and advertising in the early stage to attract interest from venture capitalists.

As PR companies in Delhi are being contacted by hundreds of companies, they have developed a taste about what works and what doesn’t works for the startup firms. Below are the tips for the newly formed firms looking for coverage.

PR is a process

It is important to know that PR is a process not an event. In the early stage startup firms should not do PR around milestone. Public Relation is a continual process. It needs months or even years to build good relationships with the journalists. Firms must help journalists on stories, act as a source, develop real and healthy relationships, read their stories and eventually when you have news they are more willing to have a conversation.

Get to know your target media and journalists

For startup firms it’s very important to identify their target media outlets and journalists. These firms should keep in mind that instead of pitching everyone and anyone, it’s good to go for few media outlets of their top choices. Take some time to identify the journalists who write for these media outlets, read their work and follow them on social media.

Develop your pitch so it’s newsworthy.

Firms should make sure that their pitch angle is newsworthy, not only they are required to highlight a unique selling point, but also need to draft a pitch that can relate to the targeted media. This can find a newsworthy angle for virtually any outlet if they just get a little creative.

 Never send a copy/paste generic pitch.

It’s very important for journalists and editors to spot out the copy/paste generic pitch. If they suspect your pitch is copy/paste, they will immediately delete your mail. So make sure that your pitch is completely personalized and specific around them and the outlet which they work for.

Follow reporters and journalists on Twitter

It’s very important to build good relationship with the groups of reporters and journalists that covers your firm. Best way to do is follow them on twitter. Virtually every journalist is on twitter and many of them prefer using it as their main communication source. Besides that, meeting up for lunch or drinks is always the best option when it comes to keeping the conversation alive.

Role of PR in effective NGO management

It’s a fact that PR plays a vital role in efficient management of NGOs. These days most of the NGO's have their own PR strategies to attract social attention and funds. Hence the importance of Public Relations in NGO management is now accepted worldwide.

Foundations and charities are using advanced PR campaigns to raise funds, and artfully using standard lobbying techniques with governments. NGO's often seek to mobilize public support. A PR strategy can be used to create awareness about the organisation's aims and objectives, which can lead to the flow of funds. However the rules of the game have changed. Earlier many NGO's functioned in a very traditional way and they did not use PR as a tool for attracting social attention and funds. Now they do. 

NGOs need to communicate and tell a story. Visibility is a premium commodity. You can easily grab headlines, if you have an interesting and strong story to tell. NGOs, like other organisations, try to raise visibility for their groups. So, like other organisations, they should work with communications programs to make sure their message reaches the masses. NGOs face many challenges and opportunities as well. However, the organisation is not telling its story consistently and strategically, it is bound to fail. Most PR companies in Delhi help NGO’s let their voices be heard.

There are various tips for building and maintaining a reputation. If followed, these tips can help NGOs improve their ability and communicate messages in a much effective way to the target audience. This will widen their spheres of influence, and enhance their reputations – all in the service of their mission. In order to do well, an organisation must first communicate well.

Every organization must differentiate itself in the crowd of rest with its own compelling yet message driven story. The stories should be built on the foundation of sharply defined messages that clearly defines the organisation’s goals and objectives. A core message platform is the key to any communications strategy.

NGOs need to get working and conduct some series of communications activities to drive immediate goals. However, proactively executing a well-planned communications strategy that maintains the consistency of messages is far more effective in achieving long-term goals and creating a good reputation.

Identifying and training spokesperson is also an important element. Today, we see many celebrities endorsing NGOs, when the glamour quotient shoots up at NGO-sponsored events. Spokespersons may also need some professional media and presentation training, to sharpen their skills of conveying messages; it will also make the messengers more comfortable and make sure the organisation is speaking in one voice.

A proper communication activity must be rolled out. Execution, which might include doing regular media search and issuing proprietary data and surveys, is necessary. Startup PR firm in Delhi must know these strategies to help NGO’s.  Lastly, use social media to engage. Social media should be approached with the same strategic mindset one would bring to traditional communications. Interaction needs to be message oriented, benefitting the audience with something useful and part of an overall mix of communications tools.

How Social Media can help with PR

With the introduction of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus and so many other newer platforms, social media has become as much a professional staple as a personal one. Many businesses are failing to utilize social media for PR, small or online based businesses both. If you need improvement in your business, try to use direct engagement with both customers and the press. Social media is perfect for both.

Social media can be useful for you business along with Pr in more ways than you can think. To get started, here are a few tips –

Most PR Companies  in Delhi publish social media friendly content  such as case studies which are a great option. They are some of the most powerful quantifiers you can use on the web. Not only do they present clear, concise data, but they also offer perspective in the results. More than that, if you present it in the right way you can elicit an emotional response that will prompt engagement and potentially sharing. The case studies of companies are often shared and cited by the major media outlets. Add in visuals, and you have the perfect content for social sharing, all with the aim of improving PR and brand image.

Blogger’s coverage – Do not ignore the blogosphere. Startup PR firm in Delhi collaborate often with bloggers in association with their clients. It is the perfect link between social media and PR as bloggers are active on social media and many of them are closely monitored by journalists. You need to get mentioned by the bloggers. To get featured you need to be a contributor.  Guest posting at a well-known blog is a good way to get media coverage. Provide your expertise wherever needed. Being featured in a expert interview is a good way to make yourself more discoverable by journalists looking for quotes on a topic. Get your service or product reviewed. Whether you pro-actively seek coverage or not, your product will probably be reviewed by users anyways. Blogger reviews work great for potential media coverage as well.

Connect with the press on social media – The media relies quite a lot on social media to pick up content. They often share a shocking amount of information from the web these days.  Not just details to enhance stories, but entire stories. Use of hashtags on twitter are often covered by major news outlets. Thereby we can see that social media sites have become a solid part of journalism.

Social media can offer you a fast way to go about connecting with the media. By strategic use if hashtags and social media tagging, you can get a solid media coverage, provided you have a good story to cover.

How to boost your Digital Marketing with PR

PR and digital marketing are two peas in a pod. We need them both in today’s world. The work might look similar but they are a world apart. Digital PR helps the brands to increase their online exposure by building relationships with key influencers and editors. Healthy relations with the key influencers and editors will gain mentions and backlinks on prominent blogs and websites.Articles and stories will often give your product a spin you didn’t anticipate and might just set you up for exponential returns. To get the most bang for your buck, use PR as a launchpad for digital marketingin the following ways:

The left hand must synchronize with the right hand – Hire PR consultants in Delhi that are willing to cooperate and communicate openly with each other. Even today most of the CMO’s donot believe social media is linked closely enough with their organization’s marketing strategies. It is important to appoint someone from within your business or at an agency to make sure the digital team leverages the efforts made by the PR professionals.

Leverage PR in your Digital Marketing - When you’re analyzing ROI, you have to think of both in conjunction. This is a must. You can’t be thinking in vacuum. You can get the best performance of an advert only by leveraging PR. Use your USP and try to make PR strategies of the PR Companies in Delhi, the focal point of all marketing efforts. From ads to customer emails, utilize press to build credibility to get maximum benefits. Having your digital team boost a positive piece of press but by actually putting money behind it and using it as an advertising asset. This will create an incredible momentum.

Patience is the key- But PR and marketing aren’t silver bullets. Both efforts require a long-term commitment. They’ll mature over time but should be seen as augmenting current initiatives in the early days. The value of PR is in the name. It is the practice of building a relationship with your public audiences. Brand attachment is sure to win you a more inclined customer, creating predisposed buyers from which your marketing efforts can then benefit. You need to understand the long term commitment required for an effective PR and digital marketing strategy.

You’ve got a million things to think about when you’re running a business. Finding ways to get double the impact of any one marketing effort will help you focus on what matters most: gaining and retaining customers.These few tips will help you a long way if you implement them wisely. 

Do Indian tech startups need to hire a PR Agency?

The boiling up of Indian tech start-up scene in the recent years has provided tech journalists with a feast of stories, scandals, and gossips. A survey conducted by Innoven Capital revealed that about 65 per cent startups in India are concentrated to the technology niche only. The report pointed out that from the unstoppable growth in smartphone users to the rising number of incubators companies with venture capitalist funding are aiming to raise a median of USD 12.5 million in 2017. And, being a tech journalist, it is a fascinating time to watch this amazing period unfold.

But, in reality, are these start-ups able actually to engage with the media effectively? Do they really need a Public Relation (PR) Agency or are they able to their PR on their own? Let’s have a look at what the Indian tech start-up scene is when dealing media with and without an external PR Agency.

Start-ups in India are generally doing well with marketing themselves to the target audience, but when aiming for media coverage, they usually fail or are not able to get the desired coverage. This all happens all because of two reasons- either you were not showing behaving in the right manner with the journalist or the journalist is avoiding your story as it is not that good enough among the crowd of other tech start-up stories. They can’t understand why- especially since they’ve given in their best possible efforts in creating what they are a unique and next big thing in the market. But they need to understand being part of the company they might think every single piece of information about the company is newsworthy, but from journalist’s point of view, it might not have that essence to be called a news story.

It’s not the idea that is creating a problem but instead, it is the way of presenting that idea through the content in front of media that is a matter of concern. To be better able to reach the media professionals it is only the external PR Companies, especially the PR Companies in Delhi that can help the tech start-ups groom up their content making it suitable for publications. So, instead of denying the appointment of a specialized PR Agency of Delhi, make it a point to hire them and share every minute modification or detail about your business with them to better create an impactful story to be broadcast in media.    

While working with the PR Agencies, whether using the digital PR tools or the digital ones it is the patience that needs to be there while working with them, at least for a startup it’s a necessity. You are no one in the market; they are aiming to give you the name and fame to make a competitive stand in the market, so give them appropriate time to do their work. Startups need to understand that hurrying up for results when working with PR Companies will get them nothing but some unsatisfactory coverages. If not more at least give them a time of two –three months to reflect on their results. Anything less than this much time will not be beneficial as it is the period when the agency is getting familiar with your company, and its way of working.  

If you are an entrepreneur, especially the one with a tech start-up make it a point not to ignore the value of PR Agency because closing down of business due to insufficient market visibility will cause you huge loss as you have a much more expensive operating business than others. And, if you are one located in Delhi, don’t forget to hire and get your hands on some of the best services provided by PR consultants in Delhi. Always remember these expert PR professionals have in the magic that can make your story shine in publications.