The Colab Brief - 138: When Founders Get It Right

Welcome to The Colab Brief

Author

Ash + Lizzy
October 05, 2024

In partnership with

Last week, we covered Founder Flubs - the silly little mistakes that a lot of founders make that can be hugely detrimental to their media strategy and outcomes. 

And while we called a lot of things out, it’s not all bad. In fact, there’s a lot of learnings that can come from these mistakes, and that’s what we’re here to educate you on.

But if we’re going to highlight the bad, you know we have to take a week to call out the good. 

There are a lot (and we mean a lot) of really smart founders out there who just get it.

We ❤️ those founders.

And it’s not like each of these founders is doing something totally novel - these are straightforward initiatives that consistently yield stronger, more impactful, ongoing PR results. 

So today, we’re going to walk you through the best practices of the most successful founders (as it pertains to PR, of course). 

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Timing It Right 

It’s hard to know what you don’t know. But when founders come to us and tell us about this ~totally newsworthy announcement~ that they have coming up, we get stoked. Then they tell us they want to announce in five days, and poof - all that stoke just disappears. 

Seasoned founders know that in PR, timing is everything and that each announcement is different. 

If you have an announcement that is capable of securing a decent amount of press, your team needs time. 

Drafting the release and routing it through external approvals usually takes 1 - 2 weeks. 

Funding announcements require a minimum of two weeks of embargoed pitching. Exclusives can sometimes take even longer. New hires and appointments can stick to a week, and product or feature announcements are about 3 - 5 days.  

In all of this, wherever possible, consider what else is going on in the world before planning an announcement. Stay away from national holidays, election milestones, historically difficult days, and, frankly, all of August.

Net/net, savvy founders loop in comms early. 

Understanding that PR is a Pyramid

Every founder wants the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Trust us - we’re founders! We get it! 

But just because you want something doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. Or at least you’re probably not going to get it right away.

Picture this: you’re pitching a target customer, and after a months-long sales cycle, you’ve made it into the final two. If the customer is looking to Google to help decide which partner they want to move forward with, who do you think they’re going to trust the most? The one with dozens of articles that pop up in their search results? Or the one that only has internally generated and branded content?

Yep, you guessed it. 

Media creates this inherent level of trust and third-party validation that really can’t be replicated by anything else. 

So what the heck does this have to do with a pyramid!?

Getting tier-one media coverage is HARD. And it can take quite a bit of time. So, what do you do to fill your coverage pipeline in the meantime?

Say it with me: T-R-A-D-E  C-O-V-E-R-A-G-E. 🥳

Founders who crush it know that trade coverage is hugely undervalued but tremendously impactful when secured and used in the right way. It’s also typically easier (not easy, easier) to secure and has a faster turnaround time than the top-tier business press. 

High-quality trade publications should build the foundation of your media strategy. It can help fill in the gaps while you’re targeting that feature piece in The New Yorker and ensure you’re maintaining awareness with a consistent, ongoing drumbeat of coverage. Win/win.

Consistency is Key

You know those people who don’t work out for months, and then decide to go on a crash diet? Or engage in some grueling workout program for four weeks, hoping to undo months, if not years, of poor habits? And you know how it literally never works?

The same principles apply to PR. 

If you haven’t done PR for months, and then all of a sudden you want to get into Bloomberg, you’re going to have a bad time. 

PR is a long game. The more consistently you do it, the better results you’re going to get. 

Our most successful clients have been with us for years. They trust the process, and they know that coverage begets coverage. The longer you do it, the more high-value coverage you’re going to get. Simple as that.

Maximizing the Mileage of your Coverage

15 years ago, you could hang your hat on a Wall Street Journal article, as is, for months. Now, you’re lucky if your piece remains on the homepage for an hour.

Once your news is out, that’s when the real work begins. 

Our founders know that every article is an invaluable piece of content for almost every department in your organization to use. Sales can (and should) include all top-tier and high-value trade coverage in their sales decks and outbounds. Marketing should include it in the monthly newsletter and even within a gated content piece that lives on the site. The social team should be publicizing each hit multiple times on all social platforms, and HR can use a culture piece to attract new talent. 

See what we just did there? We took one single media hit and made it a hugely impactful asset for nearly every part of your organization. Now THAT’s how you do PR. 

Understanding That Not All Announcements Are Created Equal

This can be a tough one to grasp. 

When it comes to funding announcements, you’re going to see most of your coverage on embargo day and the 2-3 days thereafter. The money goes in the account, you announce it, bada bing bada boom, coverage.

But the best founders know that not all announcements can be so straightforward. 

A lot of announcements need to prove themselves, meaning making the announcement is just the first step in a very long-tail PR strategy. This also means instead of a huge wave of coverage up front, you’re likely looking at more of a trickle effect. 

Things like foundations or product and feature announcements take more time to prove themselves. Just because you announced these things doesn’t mean they’re going to work or make an impact. You need to prove that in the weeks and months that follow.

Can you get a customer to talk? Or can you gather data to show the impact of the tool you released? Can you interview a grant recipient to discuss what they’ve been able to do with the funds?

That’s what the media want to hear. Not that you’ve done something - but that what you’ve done is making an impact, and that you have the numbers or the anecdotes to back it up.

There are a lot of things that our clients - and clients in general - do right. And these are just a few of them. We’re lucky to work with many founders who implement these tactics and ideologies on a daily basis. In short, PR is not a silver bullet, and it takes time and trust to be successful. With those elements, you’re likely to find greater success overall.

Until next time -

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