A great product means nothing without visibility. Craft a one-line pitch, target the right journalists, and tell a compelling story to earn the media attention your startup needs.
Startups, especially those with technical founders, often forget one of the most important factors in startup success: actually getting noticed. Without media attention, no matter how great your product is, it won't be successful.
Without a 'marketing guy', it's very easy to become caught up in the whirlwind of excitement preceding a product launch, and forget about marketing your product: that's a very big mistake to make. Now, it can quite easily be done without employing a specific person to do the job, but however you approach it the process needs to be completed thoroughly and efficiently, and there are a number of basic steps you can follow.
What's Your Pitch?
For startups who have, or are trying to acquire VC funding this won't be an issue – you've probably presented the same message a thousand times. For bootstrapped startups, having a central pitch is still very important in getting media coverage. If you can't email a journalist and describe exactly what your startup does in just one line – you need to rethink your strategy.
Who Do You Want To Know About You?
Make sure you're very aware of the most prominent tech websites on the net, and make a list of the top 30 you would like to get published by. If you know specific journalists, use them, otherwise just contact those writers you would like to write about you on each site. Record their contact details for future reference.
What's Your Story?
Journalists want to write about products and companies with an exciting story, so if you can – tell it. Do you have an exciting personal story about developing the product? What inspired you to create said product or company? Are you the first in that specific industry to launch?
Don't Stop Now!
Just getting media attention once following the launch of your product isn't enough, try to ensure follow-up stories keep coming. Just remember, the more media attention your product receives, the more signups/downloads/purchases you will receive.
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