Guerilla marketing and PR for startups (LABACA Academy October 2011)

GUERILLA MARKETING
AND PUBLIC
RELATIONS FOR
STARTUPS
“How Reach.ly got into TechCrunch”

Andris Berzins and Ernests Stals

Andris Berzins - @akberzins - LABACA Academy - @LABACA - www.labaca.org - October 2011

WHAT TO REMEMBER

PR is the most cost- Companies and products
effective marketing are boring. People are
interesting
News needs to be
newsworthy Figure out how to
leverage big partner PR
Keep it simple, stupid muscle & spend
Find the customer and Build relationships with
where they hang out journalists
Set a news deadline Hard work pays off

PR IS THE MOST COST-
EFFECTIVE MARKETING

PR COSTS LESS
For startups, PR is absolutely the best investment

Many classic marketing tools are more suitable for mature
companies or later-stage startups
Trade shows, print advertising, TV etc.
These tools are great for scaling when you have a clearly deﬁned
and established set of potential customers and a mature product
Email, web presence, social and all those things are the basics to do

But for most startups the key is to get noticed

Great PR can cost only your own time. Valuable, but better than
cash.

A WORD ON TRADE SHOWS

For startups, the best
investment is simply to attend

Exhibiting costs much more
than you expect

Not just the booth, also
ﬂights, hotels, expenses,
give-aways, internet access
etc.
Remember need enough
staff to always man booth

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS

Some goods are experiential....

NEWS NEEDS TO BE
NEWSWORTHY

WHAT IS
NEWSWORTHINESS?
DIFFERENT
UNCOMMON
BIGGEST
BEST
TRENDS & DATA
CELEBRITY

SALESFORCE.COM EXAMPLES

Provocative “No
software” logo

Fake demonstration at
Siebel user conference

ONE-LINE PITCH EXAMPLES:
FROM RECENT ANGELPAD
PipeDrive wants to simplify business software, by
creating a simple way for a company to manage its
sales pipeline
IDoneThis is a motivational email service that asks
you, via email, “What’d you get done today?” and
expects an email response in list form, every day

A “Dropbox for videos”, LikeAndy is a mobile app
video that lets people distribute their videos across
multiple devices

FIND THE CUSTOMER AND
WHERE THEY HANG OUT

GO FIND THE CUSTOMER

Steve Blank: “Get out of the building”
Find the right mediums: those who want to communicate to
your target customers (TechCrunch might not be right!)
Startups need to focus on niches and ﬁnd cost-effective ways of
targeting them

If B2B, ask yourself who is the decision-maker
Remember to ask customers how they get their information
about new products/services - you might be surprised at the
answers

REACH.LY EXAMPLE

Key media partners

Bigger is not better

Contact - double-check

Invest in content

Keep in touch

Use graphics

JOURNALISTS WORK FOR
DEADLINES
Find out when deadlines are
Often much further out than you think

Reach.ly worked on launch
announcement for over a month
Last-minute work causes problems for
journalists

Use the deadline to force a decision
Use embargoes and exclusives

COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS
ARE BORING

SPICE IT UP

Who wants to read about the nth techie
product launch? Weave your pitch into a
broader story
e.g. Livebookings Pocket Diner

Add the personal element - founders
are especially evocative
Bundle stories together
e.g. Reach.ly funding and launch
Add data & use infographics

BIG COMPANIES CAN HELP

They have much bigger PR budgets

Analysts and industry pundits follow them

If you can hang onto their coat-tails, it can be a good ride

But beware of the time it takes and the lack of control

Consider press to be one of the tools in a sales
negotiation - and make it explicit, usually written

AEROSCOUT EXAMPLE

Re-publishing of
press release
(leverages
distribution)


AEROSCOUT EXAMPLE

Joint partner
press opportunity

Also great
example of
leveraging
customers


BUILD LONG TERM RELATIONSHIPS
WITH KEY JOURNALISTS

JOURNALISTS ARE PEOPLE
TOO
Spend time building relationships with journalists
Follow them on Twitter, include their @twitter handle when retweeting
a story
Try to help them out with a story, even when it does not necessarily
beneﬁt you directly. Cultivate favors.
Don’t treat them like a transaction
If you have quality opinions on key topics, they will start to come to you
for industry comment
Remember: NOTHING you say is conﬁdential. If you don’t want it in the
news, don’t say it!

HARD WORK AND
PERSISTENCE PAY OFF

KEEP AT IT, DON’T GIVE UP

NO SPELLING OR GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES IN
A PRESS RELEASE!
Create a long list of targets and work through it
Don’t give up until you get a ﬂat out “NO”
Use the phone, email alone won’t do it
Reference their other work in your communication
to show you know what the journalist writes
For Reach.ly, it took four days of repeated
communication to get the TechCrunch article sold,
and they ﬁnally agreed only at the last minute

QUESTIONS?

Andris Bērziņš Ernests Štāls
akberzins@gmail.com ernests@reach.ly
+371 2956 8157 +371 2634 0383
@akberzins @so_on


Guerilla marketing and PR for startups (LABACA Academy October 2011)

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