#ImpactHubScaling
On 17th November, PR & Communication expert Catarina Wigén delivered the on-going Scalers’ business lab where the attendees had the opportunity to learn all about Public Relations and Communications. She talked about relevant topics from an entrepreneur’s perspective, such as how the Swedish media works, strategies for getting one’s message across and how to prepare and successfully perform an interview.
Catarina is a communications professional with more than 15 years of strategic, international marketing and communication experience and a comprehensive knowledge of IT, Telecom and Technology industries. She is also the CEO of Publik Kommunikation and works closely with global and local brands providing strategic guidance and creative input aimed at creating a competitive edge to her clients.
Below are some tips from the Business Lab.
WHY IS PR IMPORTANT FOR YOUR START-UP?
Public Relations is a combination of owned and earned media (owned are people’s own websites, social media etc, earned are references from externals e.g. journalists).
The competitive edge is short lived. Everything is really easy to copy, from phones, cars, refreshments, services and products, etc. However it is harder to copy a brand.
“In a Start-up environment the world you live in changes frequently so your outlook on PR is different- Different than PR done by big corporations – you lack money, time, and resources. So you need to have a direct focus, you can’t be spread across multiple things at the same time.”
PR is very important for your business because customers are tired of the generic approach often thrown at them. PR often strives for a more individual approach to every interaction. It is about understanding their issues, meeting them on their terms, and this interaction can only be done one at a time.
PR’s approach: “Believe me, it’s trustworthy“; against Advertising’s approach: “I am trustworthy“. 3rd party endorsements are more credible.
Content supported by PR is much more effective than content pushed through advertising. According to a study made by Nielsen in 2014, it is approximately 90% more effective.
Public Relations is however very hard to measure and could be more complex for a Start-up. It works differently for a Start-up as it is a long term strategy.
SUCCESS FACTORS FOR EFFECTIVE PR & COMMUNICATION: 
Find one thing only (the main reason for your start-up) and communicate it – don’t do too much at the same time.
Find out what the problem is and how you can uniquely solve it.
Have a mission statement and value proposition (all big companies have these).
Be consistent– even if it is boring to you it needs to be repeated (repetition theory by Ebbinhaus) of course the message can be dressed and packaged in a different way but it should be the same message.
Interviews: They help to give you a chance to describe your story in depth.
“You need to understand the media logic, you and the journalist will have a different agenda: you want to get attention, and they want an emotional, interesting and newsworthy story that can make it to the front page of their publication!”
Send out press releases. Why? Because you are sending a simple message to many, and therefore being mentioned by many different channels.
Use Case studies. People like reading case studies and they help to answer questions such as: what was the problem? How did my product or service solve it? What was the result?
Debate articles: These require a bit more from you as you need to know how to write. It is important to put across a supportive view or a context that is useful for the organization. Never talk about your product or service in such an article, should just have your opinion on something. How do you get a debate article published? You first do an executive summary or it, call the editor and give them the context, then try to convince them that it is interesting for their readers. Try to connect the piece with trending affairs in the news.
Product reviews: Product services tested by a third party. This is more common in the IT world. It helps to get the message across that your product works.
What makes something new or appealing to the media?
Stories that are: Happening now, are personal, of importance to many (your target audience must not be the whole world but a niche), diverging (unique, you don’t see it on every day news), conflict or where the ending is unknown.
The more of them you have on a single story the most probable it is that it will end up being a front page story. Media needs emotional pieces, take on a critical focus and like to use specific examples.
If you would like to know more about Catarina, you can follow her on Twitter, Linkedin, or on her company’s website.
Are you ready to scale-up your social business across Europe?
Then apply to Impact Hub Scaling and get support from mentors like Catarina Wigén to help you grow your business internationally!
Author
Brenda Anne Ochala is a Communications Officer at SEI and is passionate about innovation and applying social entrepreneurship to solve the world’s social and environmental problems.