PERSPECTIVES

DIY PR
(or: Why it’s handy to have a friend in PR)
by Robin Bulanti, September 2007

We give out free advice every day. Maybe you know how to fix a sink but your neighbor doesn’t. Maybe you’re known among friends for sniffing out the best bargains. Or maybe you happen to work in PR and your good friend just started a new company, and doesn’t know the first thing about writing a press release. Or what publications would cover his product. Or how to get his story out there...

Over the years I’ve found that there is no shortage of cool companies out there. But when just starting out, entrepreneurs often don’t have the resources to support a dedicated team to get the word out. It’s the chicken and egg dilemma – you need money for PR, you need PR for generating buzz, but you need buzz to attract the money in the first place.

PR is critical to growing mindshare, and in some cases it can deliver a greater return on investment than advertising (although, in startup mode, you probably don’t have budget for either!). Start-ups need visibility and they want bare bones PR, but there aren’t many “how-to” resources out there to help. Where to start?

More than a few times, I’ve been happy to crank out a quick press release, give advice, or help craft a pitch letter for a friend’s new company or product in my off hours for free. And while I love to help out (and I truly love to write), I’m reminded that there are LOTS of entrepreneurs out there, who might not have a handy friend in PR.

What do they do? So far, the options have been: make a friend in PR, hire a contractor by the hour or get someone on staff to count PR among other duties (in addition to marketing, events, writing, tech support and maybe even stocking the frig – I’ve worked at a start-up!).

Lots of little companies come to our agency for help. And we love to help, especially when there’s a good idea there. But what these companies often need is just how to do PR basics. Which led us to wonder how we could help companies without the resources for the types of services a full-service agency provides.

Because, I’ll tell you what, we hate to turn away the “little guys” who have no money but lots of heart and a good idea (or two, or three) – these often turn into our strongest, long-term client relationships. But we never had much to offer them beyond (endless) free advice and a little direction.

Then one day we had our own big idea. We took our collective experience and started writing. We wrote an entire series of products, our own “PR 101,” explaining how to write a press release, craft a killer pitch, launch a product, work with analysts, pitch product reviews, etc. And we packaged it all up for those companies out there who might have the next big thing, without the big budget.

Throughout the process of putting our own little products together, we realized that our friends’ entrepreneurial spirits must have rubbed off on us, just a little bit. And we got in the game ourselves, with our own new little venture (Public Relations Café) and product (Fresh PR). Now if only we had a friend in PR. :-)