Guest Blog: How PR can benefit your start-up

Simon Whale - 30 January 2012

Simon Whale, Managing Director, Luther Pendragon  http://www.luther.co.uk/

From hiring the right team, to raising investment, entrepreneurs nurturing fledgling businesses have many things keeping them awake at night. With this in mind, it's too easy to forget that other vital ingredient of growing a new business- communication with the world beyond. The public facing side of young businesses can often fall by the wayside, or receive only sporadic attention when time allows. But early investment in public relations is crucial.

In a challenging financial climate with aggressive competition, even long-established businesses cannot take anything for granted - they have to grow faster. There is a natural tendency not to assign as much value to activities which don't seem to bring immediate results, but relationships made with the media early on will stand your company in good stead for years to come. Creating awareness and building your reputation through communicating with the media and with other stakeholders that matter to your business has a positive impact on the bottom line.

Most companies will have made a start on publicising their start-up, and the first steps are often the most important - for example, design of an attractive and accessible website. But relying on word-of-mouth to then spread your reputation is a risky strategy. Fast-growing businesses are fast-growing precisely because they use communications to their best advantage to amplify their positioning and their appeal. Beyond buying advertising time and space how do you reach your targets? Even in relation to advertising its worth noting that many brands are now cutting ad budgets and increasing PR spend to make their communications budgets go further.

Identify communications priorities as a core part of your business plan. Placing your product in the "What to Buy?" section of consumer-facing magazines is one avenue to take, but won't necessarily benefit every company. However, ensuring your reputation is promoted and word-of-mouth strengthened by other positive endorsements (not just from customers but also from industry figures, politicians and journalists) will go a long way no matter your business model.

KiWi Power is one such business which found that positive recommendations could benefit their business not just by raising awareness of their brand but also by acting as a trusted endorsement of their innovative business. Kiwi Power has an innovate business model; essentially, they reduce demand on the national grid by paying their clients to reduce electricity use imperceptibly and for a limited amount of time. After we worked with them to highlight the advantages of this service, they gained media coverage including case studies in the Financial Times and key publications in the trade media for the markets they were targeting. This raised awareness among audiences that matter to them and drove client traffic for them.

Proving to prospective investors and future clients that you have a fail-safe strategy to generate impressive media coverage is invaluable, and helps to cement your start-up in the mind of customers. And any PR professional will tell you that journalists have long memories. They will come back to you time and time again if you can engage with them in a constructive way from the beginning of your journey. 

External advice on your regulatory and political environment with public relations in mind can be just as important. Short-term loan company Wonga.com found this out to their detriment; although their business was launched with a fanfare of expensive advertisements, not much attention was paid to corporate PR and the political environment.

Politicians were quick to slam Wonga's extortionate interest rates, seen to be preying on the poor and vulnerable, and this led to a media storm when the company added a section on their website specifically targeting students. Wonga removed the offending text quickly, but the damage to their reputation could take years to repair.

The good news is that early consideration of PR, investment in sound advice and a corporate communications strategy included in your business plan from the start can help young businesses to avoid needless pitfalls and make the most of every opportunity to maximise your coverage and your revenues, ensuring your business grows as fast as your ambitions.