Startup Framework for PR Success

This is a star­tup frame­work for PR activities.

Startup enthu­si­asm and naiv­eté are mes­mer­ising and con­ta­gious. But work­ing with star­tups is also a risky busi­ness. Most star­tups per­ish, and many founders are inexperienced.

Many star­tups need help sort­ing out their mar­ket­ing- and PR efforts — des­pite being boot­strapped and fight­ing for survival.

Here we go:

Stage I: PR Groundwork

Begin by mak­ing sure that your star­tup has the PR basics covered:

The above ele­ments might cost some money. Depending on who you ask for help — some­times lots of money. It can also be com­pletely free if you’re will­ing to keep it bootstrapped.

But no mat­ter your ini­tial invest­ment, what you don’t want is to spend time on these ground­work PR activ­it­ies later.

Stage II: PR Sprints

Most star­tups are impa­tient — and rightly so. They want quick wins, low-hanging fruit, and sig­ni­fic­ant res­ults. Because who knows if the star­tup will even be around for a few months?

What to do? Set up a sched­ule for PR sprints.

For example:

And so on.

Every PR sprint sched­ule will be dif­fer­ent. There will be dif­fer­ent sprints of dif­fer­ent lengths and in dif­fer­ent orders. It all depends on the type of star­tup. But you want to avoid try­ing to get all of these scopes done sim­ul­tan­eously — because it will either be chaos or won’t get done. 

Using “fea­ture” as the unit of sprint in AGILE meth­od­o­logy can improve the bene­fits for developers, test­ers, and end users, while redu­cing the time spent on sprints.
Source: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ¹Sharma, S., & Kumar, D. (2019). On the Development of Feature-Based Sprint in Agile. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​7​/​978 – 981-13 – 5934-7_20

Stage III: PR Baseline

Many entre­pren­eurs fail to under­stand that PR suc­cess depends greatly on your daily work. If the star­tup has one per­son ded­ic­ated to PR- and mar­ket­ing work, then the star­tup typ­ic­ally has access to 160 monthly hours of such work.

Compile a com­pre­hens­ive list of any mar­ket­ing- and PR scopes that could occur daily. Then, divide avail­able work hours as wisely as you can.

For example:

How many hours you have at your dis­pos­al will vary. As well as the avail­able levels of competence.

The import­ant thing here is to avoid “wish­ful think­ing.” Because if there’s no time to get some­thing done, there’s no one to keep account­able in any mean­ing­ful way.

Stage IV: PR Strategy

At this point, your strategy has laid the ground­work, is push­ing for­ward with sprints, and has a setup for the daily grind. Now’s the time to get some strategies in place. ²Why not imple­ment a star­tup PR strategy soon­er? In my exper­i­ence, without the basics covered, such strategies will risk land­ing on the unreal­ist­ic side of things.

Here’s some inspiration:

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• The Bad PR Strategy
• The Magical PR Strategy Question
• The 1‑Page PR Strategy
• How to Create a PR Strategy That Actually Works

Public Relations Strategies

• The Thought Leadership PR Strategy: Rule Your Domain
• The Extra Mile PR Strategy: Wow Your Customers
• The Hidden Arena PR Strategy: Mobilising Change Agents
• The Superhero Solution PR Strategy: Be the Obvious Answer
• The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win
• The Surround Message PR Strategy: Make the Box Smaller
• The Stupid Majority PR Strategy: How Underdogs Dominate
• The Rebel Yell PR Strategy: Picking a Fight To Get Recognised
• The Wisdom Whisperer PR Strategy: Educate Your Industry
• The Deep Content PR Strategy: Win By Going Deeper
• The Evergreen Content PR Strategy: Forever Is a Long Time
• The Content Themes PR Strategy: Focused Birds Gets Worms
• The Honeymoon Outreach PR Strategy: Influencer Relations 2.0
• The Inbound Shift PR Strategy: The Beauty From Within

“The under­ly­ing prin­ciples of strategy are endur­ing, regard­less of tech­no­logy or the pace of change.”
— Michael Porter

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Stage V: PR Campaigns

Most star­tups go for launch­ing “cre­at­ive” PR cam­paigns straight away.

But without a prop­er frame­work in place first, almost all such cam­paigns will be wasted effort since the star­tup lacks a PR struc­ture to man­age and har­vest any pos­it­ive effects.

What kind of PR cam­paigns is pos­sible for a star­tup? Only your cre­ativ­ity (and pos­sibly your budget) will lim­it your opportunities.

A few examples:

The Startup PR Framework

It’s said that one hour of pre­par­a­tion saves three hours of exe­cu­tion. This is excep­tion­ally true when it comes to PR work. So, pre­pare your star­tup for what’s to come before you get going.

The key to this four-step frame­work is to focus on one main PR object­ive at a time. Each stage con­sists of tac­tic­al imple­ment­a­tions suit­able for all star­tups need­ing PR success.

The dynam­ic and often chaot­ic world of star­tups can eas­ily lure founders and their teams into the trap of mul­ti­task­ing. However, spread­ing efforts too thinly across mul­tiple ini­ti­at­ives not only dilutes the effect­ive­ness of each task but also leads to burnout and reduced productivity. 

Adopting a sequen­tial approach — tack­ling one chal­lenge or oppor­tun­ity at a time — is vital for star­tups, espe­cially those nav­ig­at­ing the com­plex­it­ies of mar­ket­ing and PR. This meth­od ensures that each aspect of the star­tup frame­work receives the full atten­tion and resources it deserves. 

By pri­or­it­iz­ing and sys­tem­at­ic­ally address­ing each ele­ment, star­tups can build a stronger, more sus­tain­able found­a­tion for their mar­ket­ing and PR strategies, ulti­mately enhan­cing their chances of suc­cess in a highly com­pet­it­ive environment.