Most businesses around the world would love to see a positive headline in the newspapers or online about their business. After all, who wouldn’t want to see their business featured in the Financial Times, BBC News’ The Boss series, or in an article in the Guardian?
Although not all news is good news, most companies – especially tech companies – have internal KPIs to achieve a certain amount of press coverage.
This is highly prized because in most cases, a mention in the media can lead to tangible and indirect positive outcomes for the business. This can range from the vague such as increased brand awareness, to the more trackable increase in social and website metrics, to the clearly beneficial ability to add the logo of the media title to your website, investment deck, and sales deck.
Each of these benefits may not specifically lead to a sale, but cumulatively they can act as the tipping point to tilt a purchasing decision to you.
However, landing coverage for any business in the media is a real challenge. Putting aside the fact that it’s a busy industry that is heavily focused on relationships rather than content, there are always breaking new stories that you will have to fight against to get the attention of the media – along with (probably) better known competitors in your space already hogging the limelight.
Here at OggaDoon HQ, we work hard to get our clients PR coverage for all the right reasons – and I have three tips I can share with you that you absolutely must know if you’re going it alone to get that coverage.
Remember that journalists aren’t interested in sales
Okay, this may not surprise you, but truth be told, journalists do not want to write an advert for your business – if that floated their boat, they would have decided to become copywriters.
They are looking for a story, not a sale, so make sure when you speak to them that there is something genuinely interesting about your business. There needs to be a hook somewhere about your technology that isn’t just sell, sell, sell.
Journalists are busy people
Oh, you are busy? Not journalist busy. No, really: some of the journalists that we speak to on a regular basis are receiving about a thousand pitches a day. Yup, that’s 1000 pitches a day. Not the stories that they are already writing, these are new pitches.
And that’s not including the stories or features that their editors then land on their desk for creation. Never underestimate how busy a journalist is, so make their lives easy. Have everything they may need in a media pack, have answers to their questions ready, and cut them a little slack if they ask you to repeat something.
It’s not landed until it’s printed
We have been in the situation before with a client in the TV studio all miked up and ready to go – and then something happened. Breaking news came in, the focus of the segment immediately changed, and the microphone was (regretfully) removed.
Even if a journalist says that the piece is going to be published or broadcast, that is no guarantee of success. Instead, you need to be patient and continue giving the journalist everything that they asked for. Getting frustrated with the journalist because things aren’t going your way is not only going to decrease, rather than increase, your chances of nailing this, but you could damage the relationship so that you lose their ear again.
Remember: chances are, they are as irritated and overworked as you are.
So there you have it: my three things you just have to know about landing PR coverage for your tech brand.
Disagree with me? Email Claire now!
Shona Wright
Shona covers all things editorial at TechSPARK. She publishes news articles, interviews and features about our fantastic tech and digital ecosystem, working with startups and scaleups to spread the word about the cool things they're up to.
She also oversees TechSPARK's social media, sharing the latest updates on everything from investment news to green tech meetups and inspirational stories.
