Public relations can be advantageous, but young companies/start up doing it themselves is a bad idea
A startup, young business with bright ideas should do PR. It can bring in big changes by attracting new clientele, partnership opportunities, investment and create a long-lasting impact on their businesses. Many of these startups consider themselves being their own publicist. Indeed, entrepreneurs do understand PR and communications and are capable of running campaigns by themselves, but those are really a rare find.
As an young company, founders usually have a desire to save on a limited budget, try to implement a do-it-yourself PR believing it to be easy and doable. It often ends up not working out in their favors as there are many nuances in approaching journalists that founders are not aware of, let alone manage their PR activities and takes them off from their main and most important work – managing their business.
What can go wrong?
Misunderstandings around how PR works may leads to most mistakes and loss of time. Below are most common problems:
- News worthiness – Entrepreneurs don’t understand what should worthy for a news coverage and what should be ignored. This results in spamming journalists with stories that has no value or scope to be featured in the said publication. A professional and skilled PR knows what news will work in the media, through research, experience and effort.
- No prior experience with journalists – Reporters are not just anybody who writes all stories. These are individuals who are interested in writing on particular topics and stories. Even in a specific/narrow field it is necessary to allow some time and study who you’re pitching your story to, to ensure you’re not wasting of both you and the reporter.
- Founders have no idea how to pitch – Due to no experience in PR, founders just sent mass emails to all reporters without knowing their background which often leads to zero response. One needs to be brief, clear and to the point to be noticed by reporters
- Not preparing for Interviews – Even after they manage to land an interview for themselves, due to no media training, founders give wrong ideas or business plan which often leads to disastrous feature material
- Lack of knowledge about the audience of the media outlets – Founders may only talk about their product and don’t connect it with the readers of the publications they’re interviewing for. They have to adapt to the readership of each media for which they desire to be in.
Contribution and Author Credit: Mr. Asif from Hype communications Dubai has contributed in this article, other hints have been taken from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/02/10/what-every-new-entrepreneur-needs-to-know-about-pr/
