Startups have the potential to become billion dollar businesses. Take Uber and Airbnb as prime examples. But making billions doesn’t happen overnight; it often takes sweat, maybe a few (or many) tears and lots of capital.
You can’t grow your business and gain customers without capital, and you can’t raise capital without users who create buzz surrounding your company. To succeed, you first need to secure the funding to grow at the rate you want. The question is—how can you make your company stand out when investors and consumers are constantly bombarded with information about new products and services?
This is where a public relations (PR) plan comes in: it is the optimal way to attract attention to a new business. PR offers a platform for sharing messages that resonate with target audiences, and can significantly increase your chances of getting funded. However, not all press is equal when it comes to attracting investors. This audience views your company through a different lens than customers, which means you need a strategy that matches their style.
Here’s how to win over the investors of your dreams by using PR to initially attract them.
Don’t Be Shy; Show What You Know
Founding a startup won’t make you unique in your industry. You’re one in hundreds, or even thousands, of similar businesses seeking funding. Marc Andreessen (founding partner of Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz) recently shared exactly how steep the competition is among startup leaders seeking funding from a top venture capital firm. Of around 4,000 startups seeking funding each year, the company screens 3,000 and looks seriously at a mere 200.
Serious funding contenders need to bring something new to the table. More importantly, they need to project expertise to potential investors.
One of PR’s core functions is to build a brand’s reputation. To showcase your potential as a disruptor in your industry, you need to show what you know. Podcasts, opinion columns and guest blogs give you a place to make a name for yourself within your industry. These platforms allow founders to share their opinions about your industry’s future, discuss pain points that customers experience, and divulge little-known facts and relevant studies. By giving away something of value, you can build the credibility you need to gain the attention of venture capitalists and other potential investors.
Tune Into Market Demand: Create Buzz Around Your Products or Services
Your business savvy and industry knowledge will only get you so far. The number one reason why startups fail is misreading market demand.
Knowing the ins and outs of what you’re selling and who wants to buy it are pivotal. Sellers should understand how their products or services will eliminate customer pain points and their power to change the industry they operate in. After getting the lay of the land, the next step is communicating your innovative genius to investors in order to get funding. Press releases, guest blog posts, and even social media give you an opportunity to share your vision with industry professionals and potential investors.
Share what you know about your customer’s pain points and how you plan to address them. By building excitement around what your company has to offer, you can increase your reach and gain more attention from investors. This step has funding written all over it.
Share Your Growth Story
Consumers are interested in products or services that address their challenges or improve their lifestyles while investors are interested in companies that are likely to generate an attractive ROI. Investors, who put money into something in order to make a profit or get an advantage, don’t put money into businesses they expect to remain stagnant. Company growth builds investor profits.
Your growth story is the information that proves to investors your startup idea will in fact lead to success, making them a profit in the process. How you articulate your story and where you share it have a significant impact on the readership among investors. Proactive storylines share how your company is, or has the potential to be, disrupting the market. A compelling growth story uses authentic language to share data-backed financial projections and how the key players on your team are aligned to generate growth in response to market demands.
To begin, offer evidence about key growth moments like new leadership hires, customer wins, and popular publications or interviews featuring your company. Add interest by building profiles around multiple executives and the company’s mission and planned strategy for success.
While you can (and should) keep your growth story updated on your company website, it’s not always the best place to get noticed by investors. Media relations, the dissemination of your company’s news through pitching journalists and earning coverage in relevant publications, has a wider reach to get your story in front of potential investors and build more interest around your relevance to the industry.
You can share your growth story through local media outlets, industry blogs, startup profiles, and podcasts. Since earned media is publicly gained instead of paid advertising, it builds a layer of trust that speaks to your company’s authenticity and value. Once you’ve earned this attention, you can link these valuable publications to your social media platforms and your company website to generate even more buzz around your growing company.
If you shout the best idea in the world to an empty room, you can’t expect investors to come knocking on your door. Public relations provides a variety of platforms to cut through the noise in the marketplace and describe why your startup is the best investment choice in your industry.
How, and where, you tell your story matters. PR adds value to your company and generates demand for what you have to offer, enticing investors to throw their hat in the ring to get a piece of the action.
