Public Relations

A Practical Public Relations Guide For SaaS Startups

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A PR strategy is indispensable for a SaaS startup because it allows you to present your product in an effective manner, which ultimately empowers you to attract new customers and boost referrals.

The PR strategy should be well-defined and built on solid research, planning, and execution foundation.

This includes identifying target audiences, developing a message that resonates with them, creating press releases and media kits that are easy to share and use, scheduling interviews with journalists and bloggers who can write about your product or service, and more.

In this article, we’ll outline a step-by-step guide for starting up your public relations campaign so you can increase your chances of success by building thought leadership within your industry.

public relations campaign

Step 1. Determine What You Want to Accomplish

You’re probably going to come up with many ideas for the PR strategy you want to pursue, but the first step is to narrow down the focus.

If you’re talking to tech blogs and everyone in your industry, you might as well start writing blog posts now! But if you’re looking for something more specific — like getting a big-name blogger or influencer on board — then it’s time to think about what that would look like.

Step 2. Select Your Target Audience

To begin, you should know who your ideal customers are and what kind of products they want to buy from you. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ask them. This is called “Sales Research.” You can conduct your research or hire someone else to do it for you.

The next step is to define your ideal customer and what they want from your company. In our case, we wanted to target people interested in learning how to market their SaaS business on Facebook or Instagram. This was because we knew that these two social platforms were proliferating at the time, which meant they would likely become popular soon if they weren’t already.

There is a vast SaaS PR knowledge base online to guide you to chalk out a well-drafted PR strategy. So, gather as much information as possible to drive value from your PR investment.

Step 3. Do a Bit of Brainstorming

Now that you have a list of potential customers and prospects, it’s time to start brainstorming.

Brainstorm ideas by asking yourself what words come to mind when you think about this audience. For example, what types of words would you use if you’re targeting startup founders? Or, if you’re targeting freelancers, what kinds of words would they use?

It can be beneficial to write these down on a whiteboard or sticky note so you can see how many different ideas you have for each type of target audience.

Maybe more than one word comes to mind for your startup founder audience, or perhaps there are only two words for your freelance audience. It all depends on the business you’re building and the people who will buy from your product/service.

Practical Public Relations

SaaS startups should be using public relations to their advantage.

Step 4. Gather Market Intelligence

Start by researching your target market and competitor analysis. You will want to understand who your competition is, their strengths and weaknesses, and what they are doing well or not. You need to have an idea of the problems that you are solving and the pain points that your customers experience.

Next, it’s essential to understand who is interested in buying your product or service. This can be done through researching websites like Google Trends, Alexa Rank (how many times a website is being accessed), or any other number of tools available online.

These numbers can give you insights into what people are searching for on the internet to ensure you aren’t missing out on potential customers by not having a site or landing page set up correctly.

Step 5. Select Your Channels

Now that you’ve gone through all four steps, it’s time to select your channels and channel partners. A channel partner lets you promote your content on social media and other online platforms.

These could be influencers, bloggers, or even existing customers who are already familiar with your product but may not be as engaged with it as you want them to be.

Step 6. Sense Check Your Idea

This is the most critical step because it tells whether or not you should continue building the platform or drop it altogether. You need to check to see if people are using it and whether there are any problems with it (e.g., why aren’t users signing up for your service?).

If there are problems, you may have built a lousy product and should change some things before relaunching it. Or maybe there is something about the app that needs to be improved for a better user experience (the problem could be related to its design).

Step 7. PR Campaign Execution

We’re now going to execute your PR campaign. This is where you get honest with your marketing efforts and build relationships with journalists, bloggers, influencers, and other key stakeholders who can help you spread the word about your company and its products.

In this step, you’ll need to research who these people are and what they want to build an effective relationship with them. The more specific you can be about what you want from them, the better off you’ll be in the long run.

PR Campaign Execution

By and Large…

SaaS startups should be using public relations to their advantage. They are in a growing sector, and public relations can help them make the most of it to expand their reach and get more clients.

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