If you’re totally new to the world of PR, you might not know where to start. PR, also known as public relations, can sometimes feel like a confusing world.
However, PR can be a great and affordable option to add to your marketing mix. One of the best parts about public relations is that it has several benefits in one function. It helps to improve brand awareness, SEO, AI search visibility, credibility and trust, and in turn, zests up your sales.
You can also get started with PR on your own if you don’t have the budget to hire a PR agency yet. In this article, we’ll share the first steps you should be taking when venturing into PR, so you can get started on your PR journey.
Read the news
Before you even think about emailing a journalist, you need to consume the media where you want to appear. The aim of PR is to feature in the news, so you need to know what types of stories are featured where. You should consume newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and podcasts, focusing on the places where you want to appear.
When consuming the media, consider the types of stories being covered and how your brand could fit within them. We’d recommend searching for startups similar to yours to see where they have been featured in the press and how. This will tell you where you can realistically expect to appear, especially when you’re just starting out.
The news cycle can change quickly, so it’s important that you keep up to date with the news. Set up a system to make sure you know what’s happening in your industry and which news stories are relevant. This could look like reading a niche industry email newsletter every morning, which includes up-to-date stories on the latest news. Combine this with checking the BBC or another balanced publication. Ideally, you should also check your target titles monthly to see the stories they’re covering and discover relevant journalists.
Sign up to reactive platforms
PR can be a free marketing tool to grow awareness of your startup, as you can earn your place in the press by crafting topical and engaging stories. However, the downside is that you need to invest time. To create a big splash in the press with an exciting campaign, you need to spend time creating it, letting journalists know about it, sending follow-up emails, refining the story and having lots of conversations with journalists and other parties.
However, if you’re a time-poor founder looking for a quick way to get into the press, reactive PR is your best friend. Reactive PR comes in two forms: newsjacking and responding to journalist call-outs. Newsjacking is when you jump on a news story and react with something relevant, like an expert who can speak about it or interesting data. However, this tactic still takes time and a level of PR skill.
The easiest way to get press is by responding to journalists’ call-outs. Journalists are expected to write several stories a day, sometimes up to 12. Therefore, they need our help. Often, they’ll call out for interesting stories, expertise, case studies, products and other relevant support.
Journalists put call-outs on Twitter/X and LinkedIn, so we’d recommend following relevant journalists and the #journorequests hashtag. An even easier way of monitoring journalist call-outs is by signing up to Editorielle, an email sent daily with lots of journalist opportunities. You can get 25% off your first three months of Editorielle with the code LEMUHN.
Discover your founder story
One of your biggest PR assets is your founder story. Journalists love writing about real people with interesting stories. You should discover the interesting and emotive story behind your business.
Start by looking at articles about other founders to see how to position your story. Then pull out the most interesting and topical parts of your own. What are the points where people say, “No way?!” or “That’s so cool” when you share how you started your business? Then, put this into the format of the founder press articles you discovered online.
If you’re stuck on where to start, why not try feeding several founder stories which are similar to your own into an AI tool, like Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, and asking it to put your story into a similar format? You can then use the voice message function to share your story verbally and pretend you’re telling it to a friend.
Product reviews and round-ups
While browsing online or researching the best product to buy, you’ll have seen an article focused on the best products for x, y and z. You may have even unknowingly been served one of these through AI search results.
For product-focused brands, getting into these round-ups is the pinnacle of PR. They drive sales now and keep driving them as people search for the best products to purchase.
If you don’t have the budget for professional help yet and want to get into these product-focused articles, you can research articles in your niche online and create a media list of the journalists who cover brands like yours.
Then you can draft an email pitch including key information about your product, like a brief description with your USPs, the price, retailers and a link to high-resolution imagery and additional information.
Consider when it’s time for professional help
Once you’ve mastered these basic steps, it may be time to consider when you should seek professional PR support.
You’re usually ready to hire a PR agency when you have a clear product or service, a website you’re happy to send people to and the capacity to handle new interest and enquiries.
You should also have a good understanding of your target audience, business goals and what you want PR to achieve.
If you’re still making major changes to your offer or your website and wider marketing isn’t ready, it may be worth putting those foundations in place before investing in PR.
In the meantime, you can download our PR Guide for more tips and templates to get started on your own.
