Katie Jewett

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Startup PR at the Plug and Play Silicon Valley Summit

The Plug and Play Silicon Valley Summit always features tons of exciting innovations in a variety of industries.

In the following sections, we approach startup marketing from a PR perspective. We discuss how to accelerate lead generation to help build a bridge between seed funding and profitability. 

This is often catalyzed by well-placed publicity. PR professionals can serve a company’s marketing processes and quickly satisfy needs in specialized areas that would otherwise require significant time and effort to build within the organization. 

In the following sections, we provide some examples of how UPRAISE can help companies navigate PR. These challenges may vary widely depending on the technology, the target market and the industry. 

Feel free to skip down to the section that’s relevant to your company, although in some cases, the core best practices of PR are more or less universal. 

Animal Health Startup PR 

Breakthroughs in technology related to animal health promise to improve the lives of farm animals and pets and, in some cases, create efficiencies for farm owners. 

PR in the animal health niche promises to give farm animals better care, preserve resources and increase agricultural production, providing both economic and ethical frameworks for product value. And the emotional relationships that pet owners have with their pets can be just as compelling. 

Whether marketing to large demographics that require publications in high demand for access or selecting niche publications that appeal to farm owners and companies with large farm-owning operations, an experienced PR team can shorten the process. This leads to coverage in publications that will create waves among target customers. 

Careful market research, media placement and expression of value are key factors that will draw the attention of industry decision-makers. 

Higher barriers to entry may exist in more traditional industries that are less accustomed to implementing AI or tech solutions. Successful test cases often go a long way in this case. 

Enterprise Tech Startup PR

Marketing enterprise tech can be uniquely challenging because it requires overcoming institutional red tape. Although some large companies have special divisions for innovation, other large companies may be particularly resistant to change. 

Targeting larger companies often requires getting the attention of a niche group and carefully placing spokespeople and their companies in highly credible, industry-relevant publications. 

Large institutions have higher stakes because the consequences can be severe if something breaks. This often needs to be balanced by a compelling sense that all potential risks are being mitigated.  

Startups can sometimes be tumultuous environments, and the result could be that a PR team is needed for crisis management. Startups can survive mistakes, but mismanagement in those circumstances can lead to a tailspin, which is why it helps to seek professional advice under these circumstances. 

Taking on larger and more reputable clients also goes a long way toward building credibility. It shows that your company has the trust of other large companies that ostensibly have stringent vendor requirements. Leveraging these client relationships into positive test cases helps show other companies the different circumstances in which you’ve been successful. 

Enterprise tech may also be difficult to market when it comes in the form of customized solutions because, at first approximation, test cases of successful implementation may not always be obvious to clients who are not yet familiar with the product. The challenge in these circumstances is often conveying customer satisfaction and simplifying the core principles of a product such that those who are introduced to it for the first time have little difficulty understanding its potential applicability to their problem set. 

This is similar to the concept of the elevator pitch. Sometimes, simplicity is the best way to ensure that your message is compelling enough to be understood in the midst of all the noise out there. A PR agency can help with this messaging. 

Fintech Startup PR 

An exciting variety of new Fintech products, both B2B and B2C, will also be on display at the summit. 

Similar rules apply here when it comes to implementing PR. It involves defining specific target market segments, branding and messaging and selecting the right publications for your news. 

It also helps to publish content on your own website that targets your audience, educates them about your product, speaks to them about industry issues they care about and grows your organic traffic, ultimately feeding into lead generation. 

While advertising and strategically placing stories in other publications, most companies are (at least to some extent) focused on their own content strategies, which means that continuing to publish is often necessary to keep up to speed in the battle for rankings when it comes to key queries related to your products and services.   

Sometimes, educational content that is not directly related to your product or services may appeal to your target audience nonetheless and bring in qualified leads, so the path to lead generation as a result of content strategy may not always be obvious. However, there are often clear differences in strategic efforts between B2B and B2C targeting approaches. 

What gets Fintech companies closer to closing qualified customers is often that shortcut to get the right message in front of the relevant eyeballs as soon as possible—whether that is an audience of 10 individuals or 10 million. 

Startup PR Services 

Our journey with our clients often entails the following in search of quickly building revenue-generating leads using some of the following approaches.

  • Media outreach and targeting strategy 
  • Rapid response campaigns 
  • Crisis communications
  • Storyjacking
  • Analyst relations strategy 
  • Ongoing analyst outreach 
  • Events and awards 
  • Co-marketing opportunities

Other of our core marketing service areas include the following:

  • Strategy and positioning
  • Awards and listings
  • Content development
  • Digital marketing and marketing automation 
  • Speaking and conferences
  • Paid media 
  • Social media 
  • Website and graphic design 
  • Video development

UPRAISE PR

UPRAISE offers a variety of specialized PR services to startups. 

Contact us for more information about how we can help your company with its unique marketing and PR challenges.

Startup PR tech meeting

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