The fact is that the majority of startup products aren’t in themselves worthy of media attention.
In the 10 years I’ve been working in tech PR, I can’t count on one hand the number of startups I’ve encountered that excite journalists simply by virtue of being in existence.
This means that the majority of startups have to think creatively around their proposition to build a narrative or narratives that resonate with target media outlets.
There are several ways to approach this challenge. One of the most straightforward is to create news about your startup’s progress – such as funding or partnership announcements.
These kinds of stories might get picked-up by the tech press, but you’ll need to think smarter if you want to generate coverage in the mainstream media or general business publications.
One tried-and-tested way of doing this is to focus your energies on illustrating the problem your product or service solves.
Journalists are by nature drawn to the negative angle, so it’s a decent bet that the problem your product is designed to solve will be significantly more interesting than the product itself.
By bringing the problem to life by researching original data and case studies, you should be able to build a compelling narrative. Once this narrative of the problem is established, you have an opportunity to position your product as the solution.
This is just another example of how startups need to recalibrate their approach when it comes to PR: think like journalist, not like a marketer.
Image Credit: CollegeDegrees360, Flickr