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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about our PR services
You’re interested in our PR’s services (or at least you’re quasi-curious). Your company is gaining traction in the market? But competition is nipping at your heels? Now’s the time to build your brand with earned media coverage.
With that trust and credibility, you’ll gain more customers and sell more products and services and be more profitable.
Before you commit to anything, you’ve got questions about our PR services. Great! We’ve got answers.
“We think we’re ready to launch a PR campaign. How do we know if we’re actually ready for PR?”
The first big sign that your company is ready to add public relations to your marketing mix? Your tech company has customers and revenue. (Or maybe you’re pre-revenue, but investors have thrown a few million bucks at you so that you can build that revenue stream).
You also know you need to build a brand to out-compete the other guys. (When you were first starting out, you had that hockey stick growth graph working for you. Now, you’re still growing, but the rate is falling. You need to super-charge your marketing.)
Maybe you’ve got some big announcements you want to share, to get into the public eye.
So, you (or your VP of Marketing) thinks earned media coverage is going to give you the credibility you need to be successful (ie. sell more stuff).
And you’re probably right. Now could be exactly the time to engage our PR agency to make you famous, attract new customers and turn existing customers into premium clients. Let’s talk about your PR launch plans.
“What results can we expect from our PR agency?”
You’ll get earned media coverage where you are quoted or featured in a newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, etc). We consistently secure coverage in top-tier media outlets like Forbes, Business Insider, and USA Today.
“What kind of results can we expect beyond media coverage?”
Media coverage can enhance credibility and improve marketing outcomes. The specific impact on sales and conversions will depend on your unique circumstances.
So, how do we help ensure that your earned media coverage translates into meaningful business outcomes for you?
As part of our regular weekly check-ins, we’re coordinating with your marketing team to hear about what you’re seeing from your side.
Your marketing people should already be tracking metrics that matter to you, such as sales, new leads, people filling out contact forms, app downloads, web traffic, etc. When you get media coverage (or even better, a sudden burst of media hits from our PR campaigns) your marketing team should be scanning these metrics for correlation.
It’s very common to hear this kind of feedback from our clients in these weekly check-ins: “Hey, just so you know, when we got that hit in Forbes and then the feature in Business Insider, we got some new customers. Some even emailed us to let us know we were on their radar before, but seeing us again and again in the news gave them the assurance they needed to create an account with us.” That’s exactly the kind of meaningful impact we’re looking for.
Sometimes, the results are game-changing for our clients, involving major new partnerships or new investor introductions worth millions in funding.
“How can we maximize our news coverage from our PR outreach?”
Want to launch your PR effort with major announcements (eg. a launch for a product that is demonstrably 100 percent better than the competition, or a multi-million dollar funding announcement, etc.)? You could see great results with that… but we consistently get results even in months without any earth-shattering announcements.
We never can know exactly how a PR campaign will land. We don’t bribe or impersonate journalists.
Instead, we reach out to actual reporters and give them amazing story ideas. Sometimes it catches fire instantly.
Sometimes, you need to work at it (and that’s where the knowledge and experience of a PR agency comes in handy. If you put out a major press announcement and the response is crickets, you need back-up plans and simultaneous PR campaigns running to make sure you get results in any given month.)
You can see many examples of awesome PR agency results in our clients’ testimonials and case studies. We have experience in FinTech, CleanTech, HealthTech, EdTech, and more.
“Can your PR agency guarantee results? (We want to be sure we’re going to get media coverage in exactly the outlets we want, when we want it.)”
No PR agency can guarantee results because we don't actually control reporters (To do that, we’d have to own all the media outlets and pay all of the reporters’ salaries).
We offer earned media coverage, which is different from paid advertising. Our guarantee is high-level effort and the use of the best media database to reach relevant reporters.
Work with us and see how our PR process gets results for clients every month.
“What is the benefit of hiring a PR agency versus doing it internally?”
It might seem like using your internal marketing team to do PR is a good option. After all, you’re already paying your marketing people a salary. So, what’s the drawback?
First, if they were good at PR, you’d probably know about it and they’d already be bringing in the PR results.
Second, PR often gets sidelined internally due to its longer-term nature. Short-term marketing priorities inevitably get in the way. (An internal marketer could write that press release, but the VP of Marketing wants that social media report, or needs a blog post draft, or they have to be at a meeting…) Particularly for startups, where everyone’s managing multiple roles, PR just never quite seems to get the attention it deserves. Before you know it, months have passed, with no earned media coverage to show for it…
In contrast, hiring a PR agency lets you hit the ground running with dedicated professionals who already know what they’re doing.
There’s no need to slog through a months-long learning curve. ensures consistent, strategic outreach that can act as a force multiplier for your marketing efforts. There are all kinds of PR tactics that get media coverage – and we use them all.
“We don't really have any marketing in place yet. We need to just make a big splash with PR. Can we do that?”
Probably not.
PR is a force multiplier for your overall marketing efforts. If we're bringing reporters to a bare-bones website with confusing messaging and a design that looks straight out of 1999-era web branding, it won't end well.
This actually comes up a fair bit. Sometimes when I’m talking to a founder who’s interested in PR, they will tell me something like this: “We’re a new company and we want to launch with a bang. But we don’t have time to write up a bunch of website content, author a blog, build out a big email marketing list, hone in our advertising, etc. Let's just go big or go home!!”
Not a great plan.
PR is most effective when integrated with a comprehensive marketing strategy. It amplifies your existing marketing efforts by enhancing credibility and visibility.
If you’ve got no marketing to amplify (and probably, no sales process to exploit this improved marketing position), you’re not ready, yet.
Get those other marketing pieces (eg. content, SEO, inbound and outbound marketing channels, etc.) built first. Then we can talk.
“We know we need PR services, but we’ve never done this before. Can we do a quick one-month test?”
We typically don't do short-term, rapid-fire PR campaigns. Our minimum commitment is three months, with many clients opting for three to six months or even a year.
Hey, we get it. You want to test something out, see what the results look like… and if it looks good, double down!
Good stuff. That said, if you cut the test too early, it’s not a valid test.
Why is that? Very simple: while we do often get earned media coverage for clients within days, sometimes it takes a bit longer. As well, you will not see all of your results from the first month in the first month. Some will come after.
For instance, in the first 30 days you’re going to see a lot of activity (eg. PR strategy, proactive PR outreach, responding to inbound media opportunities, follow-ups with reporters, etc). And certainly, we’d expect to see some earned media coverage from the first couple of weeks.
Some of the results we’ll get from that effort in the first month will show up in earned media coverage in the second or third month.
Let’s say you survey your results (so far) at the 1-month mark to make a decision about where or not you’re going to continue. You’re not going to count the results from week 5, 6, or 7 (when a reporter comes back from vacation or their editor finally gives the go-ahead to publish a banked story). In that case, you’re making a decision with incomplete data.
That’s why the absolute minimum we recommend for any PR engagement is 3 months. By that point, you can see your results and whether you seem to be gaining traction.
“How early is just too early for PR?”
Some good rules of thumb? If you have no revenue or funding, you're probably not ready for PR. If your website messaging is confusing, you’re not ready.
PR is most effective when you already have a basic marketing foundation (eg. you’ve got a reasonably nice, working website and your inbound and outbound marketing strategies are already in place).
“Do you help with website and content creation?”
Yes, we can assist with creating content for your website, including blog posts, case studies, and white papers, etc.
It’s best to have that marketing foundation built before we start reaching out to reporters. That way, when reporters click over to your website, they see consistent messaging that aligns with the information we sent over.
One thing to keep in mind: if you do want us to write a bunch of content before we start doing PR, that process might take weeks (or depending on what you want, a month or more). Plan your timing and PR budget accordingly.
“What is the PR team that's going to be assigned to us?”
You'll be assigned two seasoned PR professionals who have successfully run many PR campaigns, with amazing results to show (Feel free to check out our many public relations client testimonials and case studies. Our clients love the results they get!).
Our PR Associates are all smart, creative people with a combined background in PR and journalism. They’re experienced with PR strategy, writing, reporting and easy client management.
With other PR agencies, the model is different. They might have one seasoned (but not particularly hands-on) PR professional running multiple accounts with the help of interns. No offense to interns (Everybody needs to learn somewhere), but if you want actual earned media results, that takes professional knowledge and experience you don’t pick up in a few weeks.
“What makes Mind Meld PR different from other PR agencies?”
All of our PR associates are former journalists. They know how to get results because as former journalists, they understand the media landscape and what reporters are looking for.
You want experienced PR professionals working for you. That’s the kind of people who are on our PR agency’s team.
We're also very tech-focused. If you've got a tech startup or scale-up doing something with AI, SaaS, healthtech, edtech, cleantech, real estate tech, etc. and you're looking to build your brand, we've got the PR experience. (Check out our many glowing PR testimonials and case studies showing our results for our tech PR clients!)
“What’s your pricing?”
PR sometimes requires a custom approach. We want to learn more about your needs before providing a quote.
“Where are your PR clients located?”
Most of our clients are in the USA and Canada. Our primary focus is on North American media outlets. We’ve worked with companies in San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Boston and everywhere in between.
“Do you do PR for [INSERT YOUR INDUSTRY HERE]?
We’ve done countless PR campaigns for a wide range of tech companies (eg. Fintech, cleantech, edtech, HRtech, real estate tech, healthtech, IT managed services, cybersecurity, dating apps… you get the picture).
Lately, almost all of our clients have had an AI angle to their business. But that’s not a requirement.
Do we do PR for companies that don’t consider themselves “tech” companies? Absolutely. We’ve worked with fashion designers, real estate agencies, private lending and private equity companies, construction and renovations specialists, etc.
What if you don’t see your kind of company represented above? You still might be a fit.
The truth is that our PR process works for every company.
Still got questions about our PR services?
We’ll be happy to hop on a call and answer any questions you may have, from process and pricing to the results you can expect. Contact Mind Meld PR about our PR services