10 Entrepreneurs Tell You The Best Ways To Do SaaS PR
March 14, 2018
Building relationships with journalists is a must in promoting your product; it is essential to have a strategy in place. Learn how to be effective in your PR plan with this guide to SaaS PR. This roundup includes links to all of the articles and lessons from some of the best in the industry.
1. Create Your Personality That Is Future Focused and Pioneering
Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, talks take-no-prisoner tactics on PR.
“If the company’s facts (speed, price, quality) are superior to the competition, any good competitor will duplicate them, or worse, improve upon them. What a company can own, however, is a personality. We own NO SOFTWARE — not because we are the only one doing it but because we were the first to think it was important to customers. By consistently delivering an attitude that is future focused and pioneering, we have created a personality.”
Read more: Salesforce.com Founder Benioff Shares 14 Take No Prisoner Tactics.
2. Don’t Forget Your Big Ideas and Tell Your Stories to the World
Slack posted a story on everything you need to know about Stewart Butterfield, the founder of Slack. This includes how Stewart dealt with his failures, his determination, and how it is important to treat your staff with humanity.
“Butterfield and a skeleton crew of Tiny Speck let about 30 employees go, but spent a chunk of the VC money and a solid month finding every exiting employee a job–a move this reporter has never seen in any startup.”
Read more: This Story About Slack’s Founder Says Everything You Need To Know About Him
3. Know Who You Are Pitching To or Lose Them
Contrary to Slack's PR strategy of ‘tell your story’ to the world, HubSpot founder, Dharmesh Shah believes that it’s not about you — it’s all about knowing who you are pitching to. Know the journalist and know the readers.
“Flip it around and focus solely on how you can benefit readers. When you do, your company will benefit by extension.”
Read more: Startup PR Tip: To Get Press, Don’t Pitch Your Product
4. Use Webinars to Allow Journalists and Customers to Know Your Product
Companies such as Raven and Slack promote webinars to engage with their clients and leads. The use of creativity for webinars out there at the moment is endless — use visuals, guest speakers, and engaging text to grab your audience.
Read more: http://www.contentraven.com/webinar-signup/
5. Pick the Best Time and Day to Get Their Attention
Elena, the founder of a technology PR agency, notes the importance of understanding different time zones when sending out emails to journalists.
“Media with different geographic coverages will have different timing needs. Local media will be more approachable at the last minute, compared to global media.”
Read more: Whoops, the original link is broken and I can't find a replacement. We'll keep the quote above though.
6. Make Sure Your Key Message Is Clear
Brooke Hammering, the founder of Brew Media Relations, hones in on how important it is to develop a message that resonates; for tech companies, this can be a challenge. Your product may have many capabilities, but you need to make the key message clear.
“PR isn’t about hits and it isn’t about placement. It’s about focusing your voice. It’s about finding your place in the market.”
Read more: Why Most Startups Don't Get "Press"