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With the holiday season upon us, it’s time to think about PR planning for 2025. Many organizations have already started it as part of the budget and planning process for the upcoming year. However, if you’re like many startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs, PR planning is a regular process that takes place on an ongoing basis throughout the year, and year end is a perfect time to do your planning to start the new year off right.
Even if you’re a smaller organization planning to use automated PR tools to handle your PR internally, it is still a good idea to obtain outside counsel to assist you with your PR planning - no AI generated program is going to reliably be able to help with that. Generally, you will want more than a marketing expert for this task - you want someone who specializes in PR. PR is a highly specialized segment of marketing, and you will want someone experienced in this field to help you in your planning. Regardless of whether you’re handling PR in-house or want outside counsel, here are some things you can ask yourself as you develop a PR plan:
Boutique agencies and solo PR practitioners are a great place for startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs to start to find resources to help develop a PR plan that they can implement on their own. Larger agencies typically will want to handle both planning and execution, but boutique agencies and solo PR practitioners are more open to hybrid working relationships. In general, avoid freelance websites - the emphasis is on low prices, without quality of work. Is it just us, or does the term “PR Storyteller” evoke negative connotations about the industry?
Don’t get us wrong - PR is about telling your story. But for an industry that can be associated with “spin control” or sometimes (wrongfully so for the most part) for not telling the truth, being called a “Storyteller” doesn’t seem like the best term to use. “Fibber” and “teller of tall tales” are just a couple of the images that come to mind with the term “PR Storyteller.” How you name your company, product or service is an important part of PR. It seems like the PR industry could use a better term than “PR Storyteller” - one that doesn’t evoke negative images. PR is about telling your story, to the media and your audiences, in a newsworthy way. If your story resonates with the media, it will resonate with the public as well. Use PR to help tell your story. Not to be a storyteller. There has been a lot of buzz in recent years about Storytelling and PR. There is a lot of value in the techniques PR Storytelling offers; however, for many startups and entrepreneurs (as well as small to medium businesses), PR Storytelling is far more involved and complicated than they need to achieve their goals and objectives.
PR is really about telling your story, in a newsworthy way that appeals to the media. If you have a good story that resonates with the media, it will resonate with the public as well. When the founder of BYPR first started in PR, one of her early jobs was with a non-profit for the blind and visually impaired. The department was headed by a former journalist, who stressed the importance of a good story and who didn’t believe in follow up calls to the media (yes, many media will be glad to know of at least one PR department that didn't inundate them with “follow up” calls, the bane of many media). Her success with media coverage rested with the story she could tell them through a press release. So she learned to paint a visual picture of the non-profit’s news with her words. Blind teens learning to waterski. Blind and visually impaired youth rock climbing. Firefighters volunteering to teach the blind and visually impaired to ski (it is a fascinating and intense process too, involving a sighted person skiing ahead and calling out to the blind skier which way to turn). The blind and visually impaired competing in the Olympics for the blind. Don’t get us wrong - PR Storytelling has some wonderful techniques to help clients achieve their goals. Follow up calls and emails - in a more limited fashion than many agencies are used to - are important as well. And you need to do the basics - who are your target audiences that you are trying to reach and what are the things that resonate with them. But in the end, PR is really about telling your story. After all, a good story can and does resonate with the media. Stick with telling your story, in a newsworthy way to appeal to the media. If you do it right, you will get results. And, although they may not thank you for it, the media generally will be grateful not bombarding them with follow up calls and emails. Which will help build your credibility with them in the long run. Although the end of summer is still officially a few weeks away, September tends to mark the official end of summer for many. Summer vacations are over, kids are back in school and both the media and businesses are moving full speed ahead once again, including with their PR.
Here are just some of the ideas to think about for your fall PR planning:
Summer means vacation time for many. Warmer weather, outdoor fun and a slower lifestyle as people enjoy and relax. In PR, it can also mean slower time to get results, as media take time for vacations too.
Building in extra time for your PR planning and deliverables is important during the summer months. Is there a key media outlet you want to reach under embargo for your latest announcement? Be sure to allocate extra time, to accommodate travel and vacation schedules. On the other hand, summer can be a great time to do things like developing plans for fall PR and drafting story proposals for contributed articles. Contributed articles aren’t as time sensitive as a product launch, for example, and getting them into the queue for editorial consideration during the summer can set you up for potentially seeing published articles in the fall and winter. Like everything else, PR has cycles too and summer is no exception. Timing your PR outreach to take advantage of those cycles can help maximize your results. Whether you’re a publicly or privately held company, large business or a startup, using a fee-based wire service can greatly enhance your public relations outreach. However, not all wire services are the same and choosing the right one is more than just a question of price - it is choosing one that best meets your goals and objectives.
Originally started as a means for publicly-held companies to comply with SEC requirements for public disclosure, fee-based wire services are a great way for companies of all sizes to amplify their outreach when issuing a press release. When combined with email distribution to target media (and often analysts too) and one-on-one outreach to media, it can be a combination where results are greater than the sum of the whole. One of the reasons we like using wire services for startups in particular is that it is a great way to get the news up on the Internet, including news sections of search engines such as Yahoo and Google. Wire services typically charge based on geographic circuit selected, with complimentary “trade” media included. While the term “trade” media may sound a bit limiting, it can mean anything from technology to lifestyle - basically almost anything. And this is another big part of the value of wire services - getting the news out both directly as well as on news feeds to your appropriate trade media. When looking at a wire service for your company, here are some things to ask:
So when selecting a wire service for your press releases, look at more than just the price - look at the value it provides you in meeting your goals and objectives. Cheaper isn’t always better. We love when our clients share with us how BYPR has helped them along the way. Here are just some of the testimonials our clients have given us over the years:
“BYPR has been a great provider for our young startup portfolio companies by delivering high visibility campaigns at a competitive price.” - Gowri Shankar, Venture Partner, Naya Ventures “BYPR has provided the Seattle Home Show with excellent service for over 20 years. BYPR has created effective press releases for our shows, interacted with all local media producing consistently positive results, and has created content to enhance our website.” - Mike Kalian, Executive Director, The Seattle Home Show “The team at BYPR are hard workers, connecting us with the right media and giving us great value at very cost-effective prices.” - Shirish Nadkarni, Serial Entrepreneur and Tech Advisor With the proliferation of AI, there has also been an increase in the number of AI-generated tools for PR. Tools that offer to replace the need for marketing and/or PR personnel.
While we are a big proponent of tools that can streamline PR and marketing, you should consider very carefully if you are thinking about using them instead of professional counsel. Tools can streamline the process, but without someone with the expertise about what works (as well as what doesn’t) your PR efforts can fall flat. In fact, be counterproductive. The nose for news is what makes news reporters stand out. It is the same for PR. Just because an automated tool can write the words doesn’t mean they are the right ones. Or just because a wire service says they can do it cheaper doesn’t mean they get your news out the same way that the legacy services can. It is all about value added, not who can supposedly get it done in a fast, cheap way. After all, isn’t the purpose to get you news coverage that shapes your image? Not to churn out releases or media pitches that no one cares about, but at a cheaper price. So, you are a startup. You have your business plan in place, have some funding (with more in the pipeline), are actively building company infrastructure and developing your product. But – you’re not ready to announce your product yet. Can PR help you at this junction?
The answer is a resounding “Yes!” PR can help get your company on the radar and lay the groundwork for your product announcement as well as with both potential customers and investors. For example, if you have funding in place, you can announce this even before you are ready to announce your product. A funding announcement can also let you lay the groundwork for your announcement when you are ready. Don’t have funding yet? There are a whole slew of things you can do through PR to help create visibility, and to help create traction among potential investors and customers. These include press releases on your company formation, personnel announcements on strategic hires from senior executives to board of advisors, contributed articles and more. All of these can help create awareness and media buzz, even before your product is ready to be announced. Already announced your product? Add in things like press releases on customer contracts and partnerships, PR at tradeshows/conferences, speaking engagements, editorial calendar opportunities program and company-hosted webinars. The important thing about PR for startups is a regular program of media outreach. Don’t do just one press release, then nothing for six months (or longer). The PR process builds over time, and both the media and investors can have a short memory given the volume of news coming out. PR can be beneficial for startups no matter what stage. Incorporating PR into your business plan even at this early junction can go a long way to helping you achieve your goals and objectives, especially with investors and potential customers. As automated PR tools proliferate, there can be an inclination by businesses (particularly smaller startups and emerging companies) to assign PR to an administrative role. After all, with tools that can automate media list development, distribute press releases and even create press releases for you, do you really need to spend the money on professional counsel?
The answer, of course, is yes you do. Using the various automated PR tools on the market today without professional counsel, whether internal or external, is a bit like do-it-yourself legal contracts. While they sometimes can work, do you really want to rely on that process to develop business contracts, protect your intellectual properties, file patents or trademarks without input from professional counsel? The same is true with PR. Professional PR counsel can help guide you through the process of a product launch, staging an event, issuing a funding announcement, writing contributed articles and more. For example, as we’ve mentioned in previous blogs, press releases and articles that are AI-generated; i.e., where the articles and press releases are generated by AI, are not copyrightable in the US, while those that are AI-assisted where AI provides research but the final articles and press release are written by a human are. So if you use AI to write your press release or article (versus AI-assisted which allows for input from AI but where the actual writing is done by a human), your press release or article is not copyrightable in the US and anyone can copy it and use it for themselves. And many media frown upon, if not reject AI-generated articles. Automation including AI can bring many benefits to PR. But don’t short-change yourself and your business by skipping professional PR counsel. |