Everything Andrew Graham said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Unlike fundraising, startup PR requires both warm intros and mass outreach
“Compared to fundraising, I think there is more of a case for sort of like a mass reach out when it comes to PR. So with a PR strategy, I think, you know, you may want to pick five or 10 journalists or bloggers who you think are like the key audience for this a…”
Short-term PR agency contracts are valuable for major product launches
“We don't use
agencies all that often when it comes to PR agencies, but for a launch like this, it can be super valuable to use a PR agency sort of on contract for a short period, because they often have a lot of those relationships and they'll know who's look…”
Inexperienced founders should avoid negotiating story timing or embargoes with reporters
“So if you haven't done PR before, I would not recommend trying to negotiate with reporters about who's going to write about what, when.”
Early media leaks risk killing launch coverage from competing journalists
“The risk is if someone writes about you ahead of time, meaning ahead of your launch, then it's possible that no one else will cover it because you can say, well, my launch was on the 12th and they'll say, well, the golden mail wrote about it on the ninth. I do…”
Borrowell was the first to offer free credit scores in Canada
“So in Canada, we were the first. No one had done it before in Canada. In other countries, especially in the US it had been you know, other companies did offer free score or had started doing that a few years before but it had never come to Canada. And so we we…”
Pitching hyper-localized data can sustain earned media coverage post-launch
“One of the great things about, you know, the product for free credit scores is there's a lot of data involved. So within a month or two, we could go to other markets. I remember I went to Saskatoon soon after the launch and we could say, Here's the average cre…”
Include quotes in pitch emails so writers can publish without interviewing
“It's super helpful to include a quote or two from you or whoever the spokesperson is from the company so that they can sort of plug that directly into to a piece you know, to their own piece without having to interview you.”
Borrowell leveraged an existing 20k email list for its product launch
“I would say somewhere between a thousand and a 100,000, the sort of 10, 10, 20,000 person range.”