Why PR for a startup is a team sport

PR should rarely exist in a silo; startups are no exception. We often talk about PR being part of an orchestra or a team of marketers and knowing how to perform your role as part of that team. It’s not a new analogy. A point that does need airtime, however, is the importance of knowing the players on your team. By no means does this mean that only marketing generalists should help startups with PR. Your job isn’t to play in every position on the field. Nor is the point that a PR professional needs to know how to play in every position at any time ­– to be an expert in all things marketing. Arguably, with the ever-expansive remit of digital marketing and communications, any claim to be such is questionable. 

You are not a ‘marketing guru’: neither omniscient nor holy.

Good PR relies on relationships and the craft of storytelling, and it’s the relationships you have with the other players – as well an understanding of their goals – that will make you perform well as a team. Any PR professional working with a startup needs to have a good gauge on when to kick start different marketing activities, and who to turn to for support. For example, creating multimedia content isn’t enough; you need to understand its function in driving leads through the funnel. Earned media coverage’s value is enhanced if it drives traffic to a website optimised for SEO. Your job isn’t done just because you got some nice coverage for your client; you need to drive the impact of that coverage. 

Your job isn’t done just because you got some nice coverage for your client, you need to drive the impact of that coverage. 

Startups, even at the growth stage, rarely have unlimited internal resources. While a PR professional might expect to act as an extension of an in-house team, quite often you will be liaising directly with a founder whose goals are closer to home: they have skin in the game. They also have fewer players on their (marketing) team and often less knowledge about marketing and PR in general. Their knowledge and expertise are what’s driven the startup itself, the value they provide. Your job is to help them communicate that value and their story to investors and customers. 

[Founders] have skin in the game

Founders are not necessarily marketing and communications professionals. Yet, they must hire PR and marketing support – whether freelancer or agency – without much foresight of understanding or experience in the discipline. They might not know where to begin – who to hire, or what to do first: whether SEO or lead gen, web design or PR. Marketing and PR are vital elements to startup growth, but they refer to an expansive, all-encompassing discipline that can as easily lead to loss as it can to growth, without the right strategy and partner. Your role is always to drive growth; not just coverage, and knowing where to start, and with whom, is key. 

Your role is always to drive growth, not just coverage

Many founders make the mistake of trying to do everything, from website build and performance and SEO to lead gen, content and PR, on a bootstrapped budget. The reality, however, is that a budget - and resources - stretched so thinly will rarely lead to a strong foundation for any brand. This applies for any PR professional or agency trying to do it all themselves. With eyes set on the next investment round, brand image matters, and it’s often a more impactful strategy to do less with more. In this case, knowing where to funnel budget matters. Many PR or marketing agencies may be tempted to offer a ‘bit of everything’ at a low rate, but a more strategic and impactful scope of work is more effective. 

Ultimately no startup aims to remain one; they plan for growth. 

You need to be prepared for frequent change - an agile game strategy - and to level up as the startup grows. Equally, be aware of scope of work creep and get ahead of the next level of activity needed to unlock further growth. Continuing with the team sport analogy, know when to ‘sub in’ a different expert.  

If your relationships with other marketers, in different disciplines, are as strong as your relationships with press, you will be an invaluable asset to helping a founder accelerate the growth of their startup. And this is why it really is a team sport. Having a sense that the website needs some work for example, is a start. Knowing who to turn to either work with, or recommend to your client, is hugely valuable. While this is easily true in any PR-client relationship, its impact is more acutely felt with a startup client. It takes time to put together a brief, source potential partners, review pitches or interview. Recommendations based on trust and experience go a long way. Founders have more to lose if things don’t work out – whether it’s a brief that isn’t clear, or just the wrong match.

Roxanne Kingsman is director of Spreckley Startup Growth Hub.