
How to Get Press for Your Startup - austenallred
https://medium.com/user-acquisition-for-hackers/how-to-get-press-for-your-startup-the-complete-guide-b79c57318113#.8gvv4jvzn
======
aaronbrethorst

        The high-profile bloggers and reporters
        (think Alexia Tsosis, Sarah Lacy, Robert
        Scoble) can spend most of their time on
        investigative journalism and analysis
    

haha, seriously? Investigative journalism?

Edit: OK, seriously, this is where you lost me.

    
    
        Robert Scoble, for example, is a sucker 
        for anything involving Google Glass or
        fine alcohol
    

ahem: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/robert-scoble-in-recovery-
going-...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/robert-scoble-in-recovery-going-dark-
on-social-for-two-1682097830)

Alexia Tsotsis (you misspelled her name in the article) has gone off to
business school, and Scoble is in AA. I find it hard to give any credence to
anything you say after this.

Also to be clear: I don't find Scoble's work particularly interesting. I think
he's uncritical and offers little more than naked PR opportunities to
companies hoping to tap into his ravenous mob of tech enthusiasts. But, it's
not like I dislike him as a human being. I just wish he was more critical
about the companies he shows off on Facebook, or wherever he's posting now.

~~~
austenallred
Yeah, that paragraph was really just a couple of examples to point out the
fact that reporters are just people at the end of the day. This was written a
few years ago and was recently ported over to Medium, where it started taking
off, hence mentioning Scoble and Tsotsis. I should update, but I wouldn't read
too much into it.

The process definitely works, I've used it for a dozen companies when I used
to work in marketing, and it has worked for my company as well.

~~~
larrys
"and was recently ported over to Medium"

Wouldn't it have made sense to update it prior to porting to Medium then?

~~~
codingdave
...or at least updating it before knowingly posting dated info to HN.

------
supersan
It's funny how many growth hacks finally boil down to "Collect 500 emails and
then email them about your startup".

Is it okay to find users from Craigslist to tell them about your startup too?

Another thing that I never understand is If I draft the email personally by
hand then it is okay but if I use a template to mass fill the emails with
[first name] then it is spamming? How does one decide the ethical side of such
growth hacks?

~~~
austenallred
This is specifically a way to email writers of (tech) blogs, craft a pitch for
them, then email them in a personalized way at scale.

I'd argue that the people we're pitching want to be pitched - it's actually a
part of their job. We're just doing it at scale as a way to save a lot of
time.

> Is it okay to find users from Craigslist to tell them about your startup
> too?

I know you're joking about this, but I'm pretty sure Airbnb would have failed
without doing exactly that.

At the end of the day the ethical line is one you need to draw yourself. But
IMO if the people you're emailing expect to and are OK with receiving email
pitches from you you're well on the "ethical" side of the scenario.

Ask (almost) any reporter: They want to be pitched.

~~~
supersan
> I'd argue they want to be pitched, and doing it at scale is just a way to
> save you a lot of time.

There are sites like www.helpareporter.com which do the exact same thing but
the difference here is that the reporters opt-in to get the emails. I think
that is a more ethical way of doing it.

>I know you're joking about this, but I'm pretty sure Airbnb would have failed
without doing exactly that.

Wow, though as per AirBnB it was a rogue marketing agency which did it without
telling them.

Link for the lazy (first article on Google): [1]
[http://www.tnooz.com/article/airbnb-admits-rogue-sales-
team-...](http://www.tnooz.com/article/airbnb-admits-rogue-sales-team-used-
craigslist-for-stealthy-property-drive/)

~~~
austenallred
> There are sites like www.helpareporter.com which do the exact same thing but
> the difference here is that the reporters opt-in to get the emails. I think
> that is a more ethical way of doing it.

HARO has like 5 requests/day, and it's for very niche topics. If you're
writing for TechCrunch you expect to be pitched. That's just the way it works.

> as per AirBnB it was a rogue marketing agency which did it without telling
> them.

I call bullshit on that. They funded the company selling cereal for $50/box on
Craigslist. They knew how to play the Craigslist game. Craigslist is
incredibly difficult to mass post on, you don't do that by accident.

I don't blame them from shying away from it when they were big enough for
people to care, but I bet you if you had them in private they'd admit to it.

------
gabemart
I haven't tried this exact approach, but I have tried an approach I would
describe as broadly similar, but a bit less automated.

I run a small ambient background noise app called A Soft Murmur [1]. It has
been featured by some fairly high-profile outlets, including the Arts section
of The Independent [2], Netted [3] and being tweeted by SXSW [4].

I made a large update to the app about a year ago and made a concerted effort
to get some press. I compiled a list of people I thought would be interested,
ranging from tiny bloggers to well-known tech journalists. In each case, I
made sure that there was a personal connection between the person I was
contacting and my application - either the person had written about finding it
difficult to work in noisy environments, or they had written about scientific
research on the effects of background noise on productivity, or they mentioned
using background noise as a tool for meditation or relaxing, or they had
written about a similar service before, etc. Each email was hand-written
without using any templates, and each email referenced why I thought that
specific person would be interested. I also experimented with different
formats - more detail, less detail, more formal, more friendly, etc. I also
tried lots of different angles, sharing different interesting tidbits about
the app and how it came to be.

None of those emails generated a single article or mention. I probably sent a
couple of hundred over the course of a week, and the success rate was
literally 0%. What's more, although I worked hard to make each email sound
positive, I hated the whole process and it made me feel like scumbag.

All of the positive press about my application has been generated by word of
mouth. I've been very fortunate with happy users spreading the word on social
media, and press outlets picking it up from there.

It's possible that I just suck at writing pitches, but I tried a lot of
different approaches and made a real, good-faith effort to only contact people
who I genuinely thought would be interested in my app. I had no success
whatsoever. Even trying as hard as possible to make each message personal and
relevant, it still felt a bit spammy. It also sucked up a lot of time.

It's not something I would do again.

    
    
      [1] http://asoftmurmur.com
    
      [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/a-soft-murmur-this-website-of-ambient-sounds-will-wash-away-distractions-a6684306.html
    
      [3] http://netted.net/a-soft-murmur-white-noise-machine-site/
    
      [4] https://twitter.com/sxsw/status/643805329013276673

~~~
6stringmerc
Thanks for sharing your experience, and especially the details about your
approach. As a writer, I'd like you to maybe consider that the effort you put
forward at least was self-improvement exercise in communication - as in,
through practice and time, you had some realizations about how you want to
present yourself, your product, etc. I genuinely think time spent in your
objective isn't a waste, per se, because you've got material that you created
which can be used as a reference, template, or reminder in the future.

 _> None of those emails generated a single article or mention. I probably
sent a couple of hundred over the course of a week, and the success rate was
literally 0%. What's more, although I worked hard to make each email sound
positive, I hated doing it and it made me feel like scumbag._

I occasionally participate in a Reddit forum for music production, and a
frustrated member just went through the exact same experience trying to submit
to music review / blog / coverage sites: More than 100 emails, targeted, using
methods that the community had identified and cited as constructive. 0%
response rate.

In the course of telling the group about the experience, sure, several members
chimed in saying they'd be willing to take a look...some might even be writers
or editors relating to a music blog, but I think the lesson I learned was that
"joining a community and sharing with it is much easier than attempting to
solicit interest." In a past experience, working at an indie movie theater,
the biggest "success stories" were almost always word-of-mouth buzz related
(e.g. Big Fat Greek Wedding) versus the films which did a lot of advertising
(About Schmidt being the biggest exception).

~~~
gabemart
> As a writer, I'd like you to maybe consider that the effort you put forward
> at least was self-improvement exercise in communication - as in, through
> practice and time, you had some realizations about how you want to present
> yourself, your product, etc. I genuinely think time spent in your objective
> isn't a waste, per se, because you've got material that you created which
> can be used as a reference, template, or reminder in the future.

I agree with this broadly, but I feel like I am too biased by how fortunate I
have been to really appraise how useful the exercise was in the terms you
describe.

By "fortunate", I mean the application has been a success in my own modest
terms, relative to the time I spent working on it. I think that success is
attributable mainly to luck.

Although the people who use the application like it based on its inherent
qualities, I don't think those inherent qualities alone were enough to
guarantee that my application would find users back in the critical early
stage. I think it found users because when I submitted it to Reddit a couple
of years ago, shortly after creating the first version, I was lucky that
enough people happened to see it in the list of new submissions and happened
to like it and happened to like it enough to upvote it. There are 5-10 people
out there who I will never meet who are responsible for that submission
getting on to the front page of that subreddit, which resulted in a flood of
traffic, which resulted in a chain of events that eventually led to success
(again, on my own terms).

If you flip a couple of bits of background entropy, I build exactly the same
thing and try to spread the word about it in exactly the same way and it never
gets any traction and no one ever really finds out about it.

So while the current version of me may agree that I value the self-knowledge
"I'm not the kind of person who feels comfortable mass-emailing strangers in
an attempt to promote myself", the version of me in that other, equally
plausible reality where my application never got any users might not feel the
same way, or might still be mass-emailing strangers, or what have you. I don't
know, because I've been so fortunate with how things have turned out.

~~~
6stringmerc
Wow, I've got to give you some genuine compliments that you've got a very,
very useful introspective compass. I'm not sure who said the maxim of "Success
is when luck meets preparation" but I can totally see your point in how things
went. Though I've never been devout in Christianity (other than really digging
Jesus-was-a-hippie thoughts), when I see a person down and out, scraggly,
maybe who made some bad decisions in their life that have held them back, I do
appreciate the thought "There but by the grace of God go I" because flipping a
couple bits of background entropy means a lot. I guess that's why in fiction
there's so much talk about messing with the past having large consequences in
the future.

In some ways though, I think your reluctance to want to reach out,
unsolicited, is something I can relate to my music endeavors. I get stage
fright, whether in front of people I know or just a gathered crowd at an open
mic night. I mean, they're there to hear music, so why should I feel nervous?
Eventually I got to the point where I would go out and play on street corners,
sometimes with a tip jar but mostly just to do it, and get over the fact that
what I'm doing has merit because I want to share it, and if nobody pays
attention, it doesn't mean I was a jerk for playing some nice tunes in a
public space.

~~~
Drdrdrq
> I'm not sure who said the maxim of "Success is when luck meets preparation"

Seneca.

~~~
6stringmerc
Thanks, I looked around briefly but couldn't get the attribution correct. Much
appreciated.

------
philipodonnell
> My name is Austen from Underwater Audio. We developed a technology that
> makes iPods completely waterproof — it’s some pretty cool technology you
> (and your readers might be interested in. We’re at underwateraudio.com, and
> I have a [press kit/sample/demo] I’d like to send your way to [review/check
> out] if you’d be interested. Let me know! > Thanks, > Austen Allred >
> [contact info]

> Once it finds the right contact info it will automatically plug that
> information in, so you could be pretty close to simply hitting “send” for
> every email you write and moving on to the next site.

> If you’re copying and pasting or just hitting “send” you’re doing it wrong.

I thought the example email was good and the article also says its good, but
it has no real personalization, that email could work for any reporter. Then
at the end you call that "pretty close" and say that you'd be doing it wrong
by sending the same email over and over.

What level of personalization is recommended for cold emails like this? And if
that email works when sent en-mass, why not set up a script that sends an
email through gmail once a minute instead of spending a day sending 500?

~~~
sharkweek
Personal tip - the first sentence should almost always address that you've
read a recent article of the journalist that's relevant to your pitch.

 _Hey X!

Loved your recent coverage of [relevant topic to your startup], raised some
interesting points about A, B and C.

[Begin pitch about startup]_

Be intentional about this stuff. I run a news site that gets pitched a lot of
topics, some relevant and some completely off base, and a lot in the middle.
The ones that have proven they have at least spent 5 minutes on the site
understanding what we cover are always way more likely to get a response from
me.

~~~
booruguru
Yet, the author specific said, in his experience, that level of
personalization made little difference.

~~~
austenallred
Theoretically it should make a big difference. The difference in the numbers
were negligible for me, but YMMV.

------
vonnik
While this automated solution appeals to technical people, who would like to
get past the messy relational approach to PR, it's a false promise. PR doesn't
really scale. Like recruiting, it's just hard work. You're dealing with an
eclectic group of individual reporters...

~~~
austenallred
It has worked really well for me for dozens of different companies. Your
mileage may vary, but it definitely, de definitely works.

------
rayalez
There's a very interesting book on this topic - "Trust me, I'm lying."

It looks at similar methods, at people getting published on small blogs and
then leveraging that to get articles in major publications.

The book has it's flaws, but it was still a great read.

------
kristianc
"I find it really important to personalize whatever I'm selling to whoever I'm
selling it to."

"Here's how to scrape a bunch of emails from AllTop"

~~~
austenallred
> The temptation here is going to be to send a mass email blast. Fight that
> temptation. Even if it takes us a couple days to pore through and send out
> 500 really good, personalized emails, it will be worth it. I promise.

------
vonnik
There are a lot of misconceptions about the press in this article, and some
outdated information.

First, let me just say I spent a decade working as a reporter for the NYT, the
IHT, Bloomberg, Businessweek and others. For the last two years, I've done
media relations for startups in one way or another. I'm not selling my
services here.

Outdated info:

Alexia Tsotsis stepped down as co-editor of TechCrunch in May. She writes for
them on a very occasional basis now.

[https://recode.net/2015/05/20/techcrunchs-top-editor-
tsotsis...](https://recode.net/2015/05/20/techcrunchs-top-editor-tsotsis-
steps-down/)

Robert Scoble, whose taste in fine alcohol Austen has highlighted, actually
went on the wagon in January. Pushing him back toward his addiction is
probably unadvised.

[http://valleywag.gawker.com/robert-scoble-in-recovery-
going-...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/robert-scoble-in-recovery-going-dark-
on-social-for-two-1682097830)

So the big lesson is: know your reporter. And I'm afraid to say that that
doesn't scale. It's a lot of work by one human being, figuring out who covers
what and how you can appeal to them.

That's why PR agencies exist. One small group of people does the grueling work
of tracking down and getting to know reporters.

Unfortunately, PR agencies have a principle-agent problem. Most of their
clients have no way to figuring whether they're doing their work well. They
just know they're paying $15K per month. And in fact, more than half of all PR
agencies suck, including some of the most famous ones. So you need to watch
out.

One of the reasons they suck is they send out form emails, like the kind
Austen is advocating here. Personalized emails don't really scale. Changing
the names of the reporter and publication is not really personalization.

To be fair, Austen is right in saying you need a list of publications and
reporters that may be interested in you, and you need to know where to situate
those publications in a pyramid of importance. He's also right about the
trickle-up effect. You want to start off Broadway, and offer increasing social
proof of your newsworthiness as you move up the ladder (which keep going past
TC to larger general-readership publications if you're lucky).

But if you send out a form email, you will piss off the people you want to
please. They get 1000s of those per day, and they don't even bother to delete.
Deletion itself would be too much effort. You have to understand that with the
evisceration of the press in this country, the ratio of newsmakers to
reporters has increased. The reporters are overwhelmed. You need to offer them
something special.

And you need to do that from the subject line of your email -- that's your
only chance to get any of them to spend an additional 5 seconds on your
message.

And now I need to say something counterintuitive:

Your first message to a reporter shouldn't be about you. It should be about
them. People approach PR way to late in the game, when they have a launch they
need coverage for.

If you're smart, you'll start much earlier, when you don't need press, and you
can simply offer someone help. Read their stories, figure out if you have
information, insights or introductions you can make to help them do their job
and look smart, and give them that.

It's better to start out giving rather than taking.

I wrote this free ebook for a startup where I worked two years ago. Some of
the info may still be relevant and up to date.

[https://legacy.trycelery.com/shop/pr-
ebook](https://legacy.trycelery.com/shop/pr-ebook)

~~~
austenallred
As for the outdated info, this was written almost two years ago, but got
ported over to Medium recently.

~~~
vonnik
And I would argue that the effect of porting out-of-date articles is
approximately the effect startup founders will achieve when they send form
pitches to reporters. The reporters will know that something is off.

------
idlewords
This is a how-to for spamming people.

~~~
pcunite
One man's spam is another man's treasure.

~~~
idlewords
Good point. What's your email address?

------
tpiha
Very cool article, thank you!

------
sparkzilla
So how is your startup doing after all this press? Grasswire's Alexa ranking
of 135,000 is nothing special. No amount of good press will work if the basic
product isn't good.

