Do you repetitively hear how PR professional are telling you, “You need is Digital PR”. However, a full scale campaign might not be the way for you, or possible. But the true question you want to ask is: how to nail Digital PR as a startup on a budget.
As an agency that has seen it all over 3 decades, we’ve collated our top 8 tips on how to best incorporate Digital PR as a startup for the best results.
Taurus Top 8 Tip on How to Nail Digital PR as a Startup on a Budget
1. Set Your Strategy Straight
As the home of the Taurus Bullseye™ methodology, our key recommendation, whether you’re a start-up or a global corporation, is to start with strategy. When everything that goes out ties to the same objectives and goals with a clear strategy on how to achieve them, your messaging makes sense, and all channels will feed each other.
If you don’t know where to start, here’s what we recommend:
- Be brutally honest on your business goals
- Define your commercial audience (not solely demographics)
- Lock your positioning. Ask yourself: If a journalist, prospect, or AI engine described you in one sentence, what would it say?
- Nail your key messages
- Decide what tactics and channels you want to leverage. PR, Marketing, Social Media, Direct Marketing, Thought Leadership?
- Set success metrics that matter. Avoid vanity metrics and focus on what gets your business results.
2. Pick ONE Narrative
As a start-up, the budget is usually a primary concern, so ensure you choose one narrative to begin your Digital PR journey. Digital PR works best when your strategy focuses on being known for something specific.
For example:
- What problem in our industry is misunderstood or poorly explained?
- Where do you have a strong, credible POV (data, experience, pattern recognition)?
- What could journalists, buyers and AI engines quote you for?
Fear not, you can expand on other angles later down your journey; however, this will become your anchor narrative.
3. Turn Your Narrative Into 3-4 PR Angles
Rather than chasing news or spend time constantly trying to reinvent your brand angel and news to suit your brand, create a few repeatable angles.
Here are some examples:
- Industry myth-busting
- Data-backed insights or trend spotting
- Founder commentary on current issues
- ‘What we’re seeing behind the scenes’ insights
Key Advice: You want to make sure each angle is suited for all of the following to save your time:
- Media commentary
- Bi-lined articles
- Expert quotes
- Search and AI visibility
4. Build Your Digital PR Toolkit – The Minimum
Keeping in mind your start-up budget, here are the bare minimum you’ll need to start your Digital PR journey:
- A sharp and human “About” paragraph
- A clear founder bio with authority cues
- One strong proof of point (case, result, insight or traction)
- A simple media page or doc
All these help reduce friction for journalists and editors, helping you receive your coverage.
5. Target Niche Credibility, Don’t Focus on Mass Reach
Working with a limited budget, focus on niche outreach and begin to build your brand name and public authority.
Focus on:
- Trade media
- Industry newsletters
- Specialist podcasts
- Analyst or expert blogs
Prioritising these outlets to:
- Convert better
- Rank well in search (both Google and AI)
- Get picked up by AI systems
- Build trust faster than tier-one “name” chasing
6. Be Reactive Before Proactive
Gold for Digital PR is commentary. It allows you to get your brand out in the media fast, with less work ahead of the reward. Make it part of your daily routine to watch the morning news and any industry headlines from trade media to see where your expert commentary or brand could be of assistance to the journalist.
There are multiple free newsletters that journalists and editors use to find experts in their field – if you want to be first on the ball, make sure you’re subscribed. Keep in mind that the best way to get your brand in the media is to be of help. Don’t push your story on them but offer your expertise to complement their stories.
7. Make Every Piece of Coverage Work Harder (for You)
Don’t leave coverage to land and never touch it again. The key to a successful Digital PR campaign and why everyone is telling you to do one, is that the benefits last much longer than the coverage lifetime.
Make sure you optimise each piece for discoverability. That includes:
- Keyword optimising your answers or bylines for your brand
- Incorporate your key messages across each media feature
- Highlight what you want your prospects and AI bots to remember about you
- Keep your messaging and keywords consistent
- See where you could get a backlink to your website. (Even a no-follow link will benefit your SEO).
8. Measure Outcomes and Forget About Quality
Lastly, it is easy to get stuck on media features, mentions, reach, etc. However, the objective with a Digital PR strategy is to make your PR outcomes work for you across multiple departments.
Rather than restricting your measuring, look at how each media feature fuels your SEO through organic keyword movements, AIO and GEO through AI-referred traffic and post campaign AIO-audits, sales opportunities through enquiries and of course your brand awareness and SOV for each coverage.
Where Do I Start?
It might be tedious to know were to begin in all this, but it all boils down in your business objectives and what media activity will help your start-up get on it’s feet.
If you want some help to get started or simply want someone to achieve the results for you, Taurus will always be happy to help.