DIY PR for B2B Technology Companies

I wrote the first version of this B2B technology PR blog post seven years ago. Since then I’ve shared it with early-stage startups countless times, and I’ve presented versions of it many more times at startup accelerators and the like. But the PR landscape has changed a lot in seven years, so some of the recommendations I made way back when aren’t quite as smart today.

PR is something very early stage B2B startup founders do at night and on weekends. It’s only once they tackle higher-priority things like selling, hiring, fundraising, developing, product development, and so on, that they give their attention to PR.

And I get it. All of those things are big priorities.

But PR needs to get done somehow. What I share below is a bite-sized approach to handling it on your own, before you have the resources to invest in a PR partner and while your time is still tight.

Thankfully, these steps require no more than one or two hours per week, and they will help you start building the awareness and – most important – trust that your B2B technology company requires.

Is PR Important for an Early Stage B2B Tech Company?

Short answer: yes. It can build awareness, which is important for early stage companies, but more important, PR can build trust.

Every startup should do PR, even if your “company” right now is just you and your laptop. The key is to understand that, in the early days, the goal of public relations is not to convince a New York Times reporter to write a cover story about you, it’s to build relationships with people who can increase your profile and grow trust for your business and its offerings in the long term.

Most early-stage B2B tech startups launch PR efforts with the hope that they’ll achieve some combination of these three things:

• Boost sales
• Recruit talent
• Raise money

There’s evidence that PR can help with all three. In fact, research has shown that PR efforts generate conversion rates 10 to 50 times what advertising yields.

This guide will help you establish and grow those key relationships. It won’t explain how to pitch, because pitching is a waste of time until you’ve done the background relationship-building work. 

Okay. Enough background. Let’s get to it.

Step 1: Set Your PR Objectives

As I said, most B2B tech startups are usually interested in PR for its ability to help them sell, recruit, raise money or do some combination of those things.

You may know automatically that you want to do one of these, but take a moment to consider whether the others – or some other goal – might also be worth including in your strategy.

One way to decide is to think about where you are in the product development process.

• Do you have a product ready to sell today? If so, driving sales is probably your top priority.
• Are you building some hard-tech innovation where the product is still a long ways away? If so, attracting investors might be the right objective.
• And if you’re showing product-market fit and you have a chunk of VC cash in your coffers, then recruiting might be what’s most important to you.

Step 2: Find 1 Media Target to Help Meet Your PR Objectives (and then find 9 more)

The idea here is to find the journalists and freelance writers who are most likely to write a story relating to your business, offering, and expertise. Depending on the goals you identified in Step 1, you may consider reporters...

• At local publications – your town’s newspaper or business journal.
• At trade publications – the publications read by those in your target market.
• At startup / entrepreneur publications – TechCrunch, Business Insider, Inc., VentureBeat, etc.
• Who cover a relevant beat (at any publication) – Every big outlet has reporters focused on particular beats, like healthcare, banking, AI, etc.

If the above doesn’t work for you, you can also scour your competitors’ media pages. But don’t just assume a reporter who quoted or featured your competitor will write about you; make sure you understand why they got the coverage. To do that, read a few articles by the reporter to understand their beat and interests.

Then, once you’ve identified one target, do it again. Aim for five to 10.

Quick note: The above steps will find good targets, but don’t stop your search there. Podcast hosts, newsletter writers, LinkedIn influencers can be important parts of your list. And there’s something to be said for starting with niches (there’s riches in niches). That podcast or newsletter may have a small audience, but every listener or reader is hypertargeted and the host and writers are often well-connected and influential.

Once you have your initial list, find email addresses for everyone. There are a few ways to do this:

• Sleuth manually: Some publications have contact pages that list email addresses for various contributors. Others list enough addresses that you can guess your target’s based on the standard format (E.g., firstletter.lastname@publication.com)
• Check social media: Some reporters list contact info in their LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, or Threads profiles.
• Try Hunter: This resource does the sleuth work for you for up to 25 searches and 50 verifications per month (more than that, and you have to pay).
• Pay a little money: Buzzstream and JustReachOut both offer more in-depth tools for running in-house PR efforts. They’re paid services, but you can start with a free trial. If you’re in the very early stages of your business, these services probably aren’t worth the money – you’ll have to invest a fair amount of time to make them worthwhile.

Okay. You’ve got email addresses for 10 people most likely to spread the word about your startup. Where to keep them? You can try a spreadsheet – it’s free and simple. But my recommendation is the Gmail plugin Streak.

Streak is an easy to use and customizable CRM built to work inside Gmail. We rely on it pretty heavily at Propllr, and it’s flexible enough that you can adapt it to any sales cycle – even a bare-bones PR contact cycle.

Step 3: Ignore X / Twitter

This used to be one of my favorite tactics: creating private lists of reporters on Twitter, making it easy to learn what they’re into and to engage.

But because Elon Musk is a foul human being who has screwed up Twitter, fewer and fewer reporters are giving it their time and attention. So from a practical perspective, there’s little value for you there in terms of building media relationships, so feel free to happily and enthusiastically stay off X.

Step 4: Introduce Yourself

Once you’ve engaged a few times with each of your target reporters, reach out via email. The first email should be a simple introduction:

Hi, Wendy –

I launched a company called BlatherTwist, which turns the things people say to you into greeting cards. 

I started the company after I made a colleague a one-off greeting card that featured a particularly ridiculous comment from a customer. He loved it, so I thought maybe there’s something here…

Anyway, we just hit 50,000 users this week, so I thought now was a good time to introduce myself. I know you cover the greeting card startup beat in Milwaukee, so I wanted to get on your radar.

Hope you’re enjoying the latest season of [TV show reporter has tweeted about repeatedly]!

Best,

Josh

Here’s a MadLibs version of that you can use:

Hi, [Reporter’s name] –

I launched a company called [your company’s name], which [describe what your company does]. 

I started the company after [formative event founder story].

Anyway, we just [note a milestone or two here], so I thought now was a good time to introduce myself and get on your radar.

[Something personal here to show you’ve done your homework, but be genuine].

Best,

[Your name]

The phrase “get on your radar” is key here. Ideally, you’ve been getting on their radar in stealth mode for a while now via your authentic X engagement. With this email, you’re being more explicit.

Don’t expect the reporter to follow up asking to do a profile. That’s not the point. You’re aiming to build an actual relationship that results in mutually positive outcomes. After all, if the reporter covers you before anyone else does, that’s good news for you (obviously) and good news for them when you go on to do great things. Pay attention to who they are and what they write about, and you’ll make a stellar first impression.

Step 5: Stay in Touch

Once you’ve sent your email introduction, find an excuse to follow up at least once per month. What to include in these follow-up emails? Here are some topics that have worked in the past:

• Updates about your company. It doesn’t have to be huge, but it shouldn’t be fake, either. Evidence you’re evolving is great: hiring a new employee, launching in beta mode, revamping your website, etc.
• Trends you notice in their field. Again (I can’t emphasize this enough), be genuine. If you’ve had conversations about a topic or noticed a trend that might interest the reporter, it’s worth reaching out to mention it, even if your business isn’t involved. For example, are all your entrepreneur friends suddenly talking about sleep hacking? Or aqua-puncture, the new underwater acupuncture that guarantees a boost in creativity and problem solving? Or a strategy for running meetings more efficiently? If it’s within a reporter’s area of interest, let them know!
• Thoughts on a recent piece by the reporter. Whether you like something, strongly disagree or have a wildly different perspective, genuine engagement helps build a rapport.

Remember: these are just suggestions. If you have something of substance to say that’s likely to interest the reporter and it’s been about a month since your last email, reach out.

One note: don’t set a calendar reminder for the third Thursday of the month or the sixteenth of the month as your outreach day. Even if you’re strategizing these interactions, it’s best if they feel organic rather than formulaic.

Step 6: Meet in Person

You've made contact. You’ve emailed a few times. The reporter has even replied once or twice. Now it’s time to look for an excuse to meet in person. The goal of your first meetup is to get to know each other and have an open-ended conversation. You are not there to pitch, so don’t worry about having the perfect pitch ready.

In fact, you’re not meeting up to pitch, but to get to know someone in your world a bit better. You should certainly be prepared to talk about your work, but just as you would with a friend, be curious of their work and think about how you might be able to help them, even if it doesn’t pay off for you immediately. 

So how do you initiate an in-person intro?

Again, authenticity is key. If it’s a reporter in another city, reach out next time you’re headed that way. If it’s someone nearby with offices in a different part of town, let them know next time you’re up that way.

This isn’t supposed to be a momentous conversation, so you don’t need an elaborate excuse to set it up. Suggest a coffee.

Once you’ve met a reporter in person, the name of the game is maintenance. Continue regular email contact and relevant X engagement. Introduce people in your network who might be able to help the reporter. Keep the pot a-simmering.

Step 7: Keep Building Your List

Ten reporters is a great place to start but eventually, you’ll want a network larger than that. Rather than trying to compile an uber-list upfront, though, let it happen gradually as you’re working on building relationships with the first batch.

To do that, set up Google alerts for…

• Keywords and phrases relevant to your company or industry: For example, Chicago startup, “AI AND insurtech,” climatetech, Chicago internships, office dogs, etc. This will let you know who’s writing about not just the core work you do but also other topics relevant to your business that reporters consider newsworthy.
• Names of your competitors: It’s always good to see what they’re up to, who’s covering them, and what angles this coverage focuses on.
• Names of businesses complementary to yours: This might include companies in your space (e.g., HR tech) offering a different product or service. Take note of which reporters are interested in the industry more broadly.
• Reporter names: As you see who’s writing these pieces, set up alerts for the reporters themselves so you never miss a story (even if they don’t tweet about it).

As you find reporters interested in the types of things you’re doing, add them to your X list and start the process again.

Step 8: Sign Up on SOS

Warning: this will require slightly more engagement (and time) than the other strategies outlined here.

Source of Sources (or SOS) lets journalists share topics they’re writing about in hopes of finding good sources. If you sign up for SOS, you’ll receive regular emails with story queries from all kinds of reporters. When a reporter is looking for someone like you, you can reach out as a source and possibly appear in a story. Hurrah!

But a few words of caution before you dive in:

• The vast majority of what you see will be irrelevant, and you may find yourself no longer paying attention.
• Even if a topic is a good fit for you, not all of the outlets are worth your time. Some writers from heavy-hitter pubs use these services, but so do writers from little-read personal blogs or business blogs that might not be worth your time and energy.

It’s possible to limit what you get from these organizations, so do what you must to ensure your inbox isn’t clogged and your time isn’t wasted.

Before You Go All In

The steps above are pretty simple ways to build real and authentic relationships with reporters who might one day cover you – but it does require that you actually do it.

Now, a few things to watch out for as you navigate the world of online reporting.

1. Focus on precedent. Before you reach out to reporters, make sure you’re crystal clear on why the reporter covered what they covered in the past. That will give you a good idea of how receptive they’ll be to what you have to say. For example, did the coverage involve funding news? Were the reporter and business owner at the same conference (and did the coverage revolve around that)? Was it a local reporter writing about a local company in a different city?
2. Focus on freelancers and staff reporters. When you see an article related to what you do, read the writer’s bio. If it’s a contributed piece by a thought leader at another company, don’t bother reaching out to that person. They’re probably writing the piece as part of a thought leadership / content marketing / PR effort at their company and aren’t likely to write about you. You (almost always) should reach out only to staff writers and editors, not outside contributors.
3. Watch out for scams. Once your company has earned a little coverage, you may start getting incoming media requests that look promising but are actually pay-to-play. One common format: someone emails you, offering a video-based interview with a $1,500 “fee” for shooting costs. Don’t bite – these setups are designed to get money from unsuspecting business owners eager for press coverage. A few tells that an opportunity is a scam:
   • They charge you to participate.
   • The company is based in Florida (for whatever reason, these companies often are).
   • There’s a celebrity host (don’t be fooled; the celebs are usually filmed in a completely separate location from you).
   • The company’s website is below par.
   • More generally, if you feel like something’s off about the request, trust your instinct. If a reporter from a really amazing publication is truly interested, trust me: you’ll be able to tell it’s legit.

Tracking Your Results

If you’re doing this right, you’ll build relationships with your targets so gradually that you’ll be able to keep them straight in your head like your friends. But it’s wise to track your results anyway, for two reasons:

1. We all forget things.
2. When you’re ready to hand off PR efforts, having a written record of who you’ve been in touch with makes it easier.

The good news is that Streak, the "CRM for Gmail" plug-in mentioned earlier, takes care of all the tracking for you. In addition to keeping track of when you last emailed someone, you can include notes about what they cover, stories you liked, and more. That means you have all the information you need in one place – which happens to be the same place you’ll actually compose your emails.

When It’s Time to Hire a PR Firm

It’s time to consider hiring a PR firm to take over when two things are in place:

1. Your management and board approves PR as a budget item; AND
2. You have an internal marketing person to manage the agency relationship.

That second piece is crucial for a few reasons. First, the marketing lead is usually the point person for a PR agency, and we have found this person to be the single biggest factor for predicting the success of a PR program. Without the point person, PR inevitably gets pushed to the bottom of the founder's to-do list.

Another reason to hire a firm is that PR is much more than talking to reporters or being on podcasts, especially when you are trying to build trust among your target audiences. 

Key deliverables in our B2B technology PR programs are contributed articles, award nominations, and speaking opportunities.

What all of these deliverables require is good writing – to share complex ideas in an article, to have an award submission essay that sings, and to present a compelling insights conferences want to have on stage. Sure, some founders are great writers, but often they’re either not good writers or they just don’t have the time to commit. That’s where firms like Propllr shine.

But What About AI?

What about it? We’re building real human relationships here with a relative handful of folks.  This isn’t something you need to automate and you should not use AI to write pitches.

Final Thoughts on PR for Early Stage B2B Technology Companies

With so many demands on your time already, adding PR efforts may seem impractical. But remember: it takes just a few minutes each day to build the relationships that can earn your company coverage and recognition. And the next time you’re trying to close a deal, in a funding conversation, or angling to hire an amazing CTO who’s being courted by bigger, better-established businesses, that coverage could make a difference.

Want to chat more about your PR goals? Grab some time with me!