dare to be different : chicken speaking isoalted on white
When you launch anything new, at first people don’t know about it. They don’t care about it either. Three things can change all that and get you noticed, writes JFDI.Asia CEO Hugh Mason.
1. Know Your Audience
You’re taking people on a mental journey from where they are now to where you want them to be. Always understand where they are now before you open your mouth or hit the keyboard.
- You need to tell four stories about your company for four different audiences: customers, investors/shareholders, staff and the public. The stories need to tie together but you’ll need to put a different ‘spin’ on the story for each audience. Investors want to hear about the company. Customers want to hear about the benefits of your product. Staff want to hear about career opportunities and the public just want to know very briefly who you are and what you do.
- Your media assets (words, pictures, PowerPoint slides, video, logos, screenshots, pictures of key people) can often be used across all the audiences and many stories. Put them online in an easy-to-find media kit (sometimes called a Press Kit or Electronic Press Kit – EPK) that anyone can download from and use when they are covering you. Make sure it’s clear that you are offering them free of copyright restrictions.
- Don’t be afraid to ask your audience about who they are and what they want from you. If you are giving a talk, ask for a show of hands to reveal who is actually out there. Often the organizers have not bothered to ask!
2. Tell A Story
Stories are substitutes for human experience: they are about emotion as much as they are about facts. Lots of people want to know what it’s like to be a famous detective or a serial killer, even if they don’t want to be either themselves. People want stories that make them feel as well as understand.
- What is newsworthy depends on the audience. However, Simon Sinek’s great TED talk offers a universal formula. Focus on Why before How andWhat and you can’t go far wrong. His ideas extend a much older speaker on communication – US supersalesman Elmer Wheeler – who was famous in the 1930s for his catchphrase “Don’t Sell the Steak … Sell the Sizzle!”.
- There is also a formula for basic news writing and a standard way to set out a media release. Make journalists’ lives easier by sticking to it and pasting it direct in plain text into the body of an email you send to them – don’t make them do extra work and faff about with a fancy designed pdf. Use one media release for one story and don’t worry if your story is only 200 words. That’s OK so long as it’s newsworthy.
- Pictures really are worth a thousand words. They are incredibly viral and valuable to startups where there is not much to show other than nerdy people with keyboards and screens. Find ways to make what you do visual.
3. Plan Your Communications
Stories are made – they don’t happen. Plan to have a continuous stream of news about your business to keep it in peoples’ minds.
- Journalists have space to fill and so long as there is a ‘topical peg’ (ie something that they can ‘hang’ a story on), it will often get covered. A topical peg could be a real-world event, or it could be manufactured. You might ‘release a research report’ (i.e. blog about what your intern found when they phoned 50 customers). The peg could be a current issue in your industry or one close to it or the news generally. The peg could even be a historic event (50 years ago today X happened and now we’re applying the learning from it to your mobile phone)
- As well as major events like senior hires, fundraises, product launches and client wins, you can create stories around insights from your customers; your own experience running a business; or something that you associate yourself with (JFDI.Asia publishes a surprising amount of news about our mascot Smoochy Frog). You can also comment on current events where your position as a person or a company gives you credibility to do so. One way for small companies to get noticed is to be cheeky and informed and tell ‘the other side of the story’ and ‘what the big boys don’t want you know’
- Journalists are people and they are under-resourced. Make friends with them. Ask them how you can help them do their job. Give them your mobile number and let them know that you are available to comment on relevant news if that’s helpful. Answer their calls immediately and when they ask you for something, always ask when is their deadline and make sure you get stuff to them quickly. They cannot cover news if it has gone stale. An hour makes a difference.
OK I said 3 things but I lied. Here’s a bonus point because it’s a no-brainer.
Make sure that public information about you and your company is correct.
- Is every founder in your team on Linked In and is their profile up to date with your correct company name?
- Have you set up a company page on Linked In?
- Is your team listed on Crunchbase, AngeList and f6s? Is the information there totally up to date with all founders and investors and linked correctly to stories about you online?
- Do you have a Facebook page and Twitter account for your business? Is the information on them consistent across all these places online?
Looking forward to reading more about you 🙂