One thing I’ve noticed throughout my years as a PR consultant for dozens of crypto projects is that all founders want good PR, but few understand what it looks like. Founders and CEOs go to PR firms hoping to shape their image in the press, and about half of the engagement together tend to say, “Wow, I really see the value in this now. I understand how this works.”
And that’s great. The value of effective public relations is priceless, regardless of whether it is immediately understood by the client. When a founder can cultivate a strong media presence and name recognition, when his publicist helps him say the right thing, at the right time, in the right medium, that can translate into a strong reputation and, eventually, success. potential customers.
But the truth is that the sooner the founder understands it, the more effective the PR will be and the faster the results will be. My goal in writing this article is to help crypto and blockchain founders approach public relations from a place of knowledge and be prepared to work hand-in-hand with their publicist to produce the best results from the start. I often tell founders that PR is a marathon, not a race. Let’s go over some key tips for founders who want to earn it.
Public Relations vs. Marketing
There are founders across the tech spectrum who will hire a PR agency to achieve marketing goals. That’s a misstep that ends up frustrating all parties and wasting the potential of an effective PR strategy. But what does “effective” mean in public relations? What can public relations achieve that marketing cannot?
Let’s imagine for a moment a situation where your startup has been running only marketing campaigns. Even if your key performance indicators (KPIs) are perfect, any potential VC or investor searching for you on Google will only find overtly pay-to-play ads and maybe SEO blogs on your website, but zero coverage by actual journalists. .
The VC won’t care how brilliant your thoughts are as a founder if they were only posted on your company blog. They’re likely thinking, “If not a single news editor cared about these guys, why should I?” That’s where public relations comes in.
Potential partners and investors will not only see that your company and product have been covered on major news sites, but they will also see your signatures in the opinion sections of those websites. They’ll see you on event panels, hear your voice on podcasts, and take to you as a serious thought leader capable of making a real impact on the industry.
The strength of a public relations campaign
Public relations professionals leverage their media connections, storytelling skills, and strategy expertise to tell your story and grab headlines. For maximum impact, it’s important that you trust PR firms with any information or announcements you have so they can choose the strongest strategy.
For PR professionals, it’s truly tragic when founders spend hours explaining to us why they think they’re the next hottest project on the market, only to later tweet that they’ve raised money without letting us know first. It doesn’t matter how good the language we use to describe your project sounds if we don’t have stories to present.
And that’s the idea here: your PR is only as good as the quality of your stories. Of course, an effective advertiser will maximize your coverage no matter what the circumstances. But a big funding announcement, strategic partnership, or product launch is the surest route to publications like CoinTelegraph, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, etc.
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Let your PR firm handle the ads
This is PR 101 for communication professionals, but many founders don’t understand why it’s important to hand over the advertising functions to their PR firm.
Journalists are there to cover the news. So, by the time you’ve made your announcement about the $20 million you raised publicly on your Twitter account or blog, you can say goodbye to that lengthy exclusive strategy your publicist has been working on for weeks. At that point, it’s no longer news, and no reporter will touch it with a nine-foot rod.
Talk to journalists in plain English
It’s tempting to package PR headlines and reporter interviews with the marketing language you’ve worked so hard to produce, but don’t. Journalists don’t speak jargon. They want to know in plain language what your product is and why they should care about it.
His new DeFi protocol could be the most revolutionary, disruptive and innovative development in crypto since Vitalik came up with Ethereum. But all of those adjectives are red flags for journalists because they’re thrown around so much that, right now, they’ve become buzzwords that can mean anything and everything.
The way to write catchy and effective PR language is to rely on the most impressive hard facts about your product or ad, and explain, using objective language, why they make it unique in the marketplace. Leonardo DiCaprio could get away with saying he’s special to the press, but until you’re the biggest founder of crypto, you have the burden of proving why you’re special.
Events are back on the menu
In the age of Zoom and Twitter direct messages from journalists, it’s easy to forget how important face time is to founders. In the same way that authors can’t sell books without touring and musicians can’t make money without playing, the most charismatic founder of his team needs to show his face at as many panels and conferences as possible.
People remember faces more than names. They want to hear you talk about solutions to industry-wide challenges beyond the breadth of your product. Visionaries tend to do better than single-product sellers.
I urge you to keep the above tips in mind the next time you work with public relations. If you’re still not satisfied with the results, then the problem could be with your publicist.
Motti Peer is the founder and CEO of ReBlonde, an award-winning PR agency specializing in technology and crypto.
This article was published via the Cointelegraph Innovation Circle, a vetted organization of top executives and industry experts in blockchain technology who are building the future through the power of connections, collaboration, and thought leadership. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Cointelegraph.
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This post PR Tips Crypto Founders Wish They Had Heard Sooner
was published first on https://cointelegraph.com/innovation-circle/pr-advice-that-crypto-founders-wish-theyd-heard-sooner
