Six things tech CMOs need to know about PR

PR in the technology industry feels a lot like PR in Hollywood – it’s all about the ‘buzz’. A hot start up may never have shipped a single thing, but if everyone’s talking about it, that’s all that matters! And the press up here are a bit too cozy with the power players, just like the LA press are to Hollywood royalty.

Like Hollywood producers, tech CEOs hunger for media attention even if it doesn’t close sales (which it rarely does). What PR does, though, is baste egos.

So, Chief Marketing Officers, here are six things that will help you manage both your internal and external PR team and your leadership teams’ egos:

1. Remind everyone, all the time, that PR’s role in the marketing mix is to generate awareness. Very few customers buy just because they read an article, especially on the enterprise side. PR is one powerful part of your marketing mix. It’s vital to fill your funnel, but if you (or your leadership) expect PR to drive your prospects all the way to a sale, you’ll struggle.
2. Agencies can be incredibly useful, but you must be very selective as you choose one. Promising the moon, as in “We can get you on the front page of the Wall Street Journal” is a red flag. So is vagueness about your team. Insist on meeting your team before you sign with any agency. Agencies also need a lot of care and feeding in the beginning. Garbage in, garbage out. Take the time to give them the content and the access they need to be successful.
3. PR is ridiculously labor intensive. You can’t automate message creation, you can’t automate pitching media, you can’t automate spokesperson preparation, you can’t automate the interviews, you can’t automate the follow up with reporters to ensure they have everything they need to write stories, you can’t automate getting customer references. PR is tedious. You and your agency will spend a lot of hours delivering a successful media tour. It’s a lot of work because it’s a lot of work, not because your PR team is dumb.
4. Do not get hung up on the press release. No reporter opens their e-mail, sees a press release and says, “Gee whiz, that’s interesting. Let me drop everything and write a story about that.” Never happens. Every single story is individually pitched, every reporter is cultivated. The press release is no more than a calling card that’s part of an ongoing conversation. Get hung up instead on the quality of your media message. That’s everything.
5. Speaking of your message: if it’s not relevant, if it’s not interesting, if it’s not news, start over again. Every successful story has an angle – a provocative and new point of view. It’s called an angle because it goes in a different direction! Tech reporters get thousands (yes, thousands) of pitches a week. “My company is great and we’re growing” is a disastrous PR message. “Water policy is totally broken in the Western US and our company created the first AI-based solution that successfully addresses it.” With something like that you have a chance.
6. Be gentle with the egos. They may never admit it, but most tech executives are fascinated by media attention. This can lead them to over-prioritize PR in the marketing mix (see above). Or it can lead them to get super emotional about stories they are in:  “They didn’t quote the best thing I said!” and even more emotional about stories they are not in: “Why did they write about that douche? Our solution is so much better! Our agency sucks!” Gird yourself to deal with this. Setting expectations and soothing bruised egos is a big part of PR.  

PR is and always has been the ‘one thing that’s not like the others’ in the marketing mix. It’s time consuming, it’s not predictable, it makes people emotional. But there’s nothing better than a really great story. It’s worth it!

Your business must scale, and you must scale with it. You need to hire a great team, forge strong customer relationships and lead your market with a powerful point of view. You can do none of these things without exceptional communication skills. Click here to receive pragmatic communications advice in your inbox every month.