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How To Get Featured In Top-Tier Outlets – 5 Steps For Beginners

No, you don’t need to spend $20,000 per month.

Sneha Saigal
Better Marketing

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Being a founder is hard. I get it.

With product development, customer service, marketing, content development, fundraising and so many other ‘exciting’ things to look into, garnering earned media for your business can go on the back burner.

However, social currency is equally important for businesses and founders today. It can open doors to opportunities you didn’t know you had. It helps build trust, increase visibility, position yourself as an expert, and more.

It’s a tiny (if at all) downside with a very massive upside!

At Geeks and Experts, we match PR specialists with startups and scaleups across industries from Fitness to FinTech. Starting at $1500/m you can work with PR talent to generate earned media and visibility for your startup to build trust, increase awareness, feature in niche publications, appear in speaking engagements, or build thought leadership to name a few!

This is extremely valuable especially if you are leading up to a fundraising round or launching a new partnership and need press releases and so on.

I succeeded in generating earned media, across channels including news outlets, podcasts, and publications for my startup Geeks and Experts. I managed to achieve all of this with very cost-effective methods and support from the PR network!

A few features I am over the moon about include “NASDAQ’s Faces of Entrepreneurship Series in 2023” for which I applied and got selected; and the Business Growth Hacks podcast since I’ve been a fan of their content in the past and it was a full circle moment to be a guest on the show!

Here is the 5-step playbook our PR specialists recommend to get started.

1) HARO — Help A Reporter Out

HARO is one of the best free and easy-to-use tools to connect with journalists right when they are looking for a source for their story.

The best part is that there isn’t a stalking game involved in pitching. You simply draft your pitch and email it to the HARO account and if it gets through the initial screening, you’ll hear back from the journalist.

Using this strategy I have been featured in outlets like Starter Story and Authority Magazine to name a few! You get 3 emails per day, so look out!

For instance, I received a HARO request on September 26th looking for women founders who are using approaches to maintain work-life harmony.

My response went something like this:

Hello Editor,

My name is Sneha and I am the founder and CEO of Geeks and Experts — we match PR specialists with startups and scaleups across industries.

Building a startup is a huge undertaking and as an immigrant woman of color from India I am proud to amplify the voices of minority founders through the work we do. Over time, I have learned to better manage my time, stress, and workload by adopting strategic approaches to get work done.

The one insight that helps in maintaining work-life harmony is not making permanent decisions on temporary emotions. And, my strategic approach to getting more done is creating highlights for the day. I create one highlight that will move the needle for my company and do that at a minimum.

I’d love to be considered for your story if you’re up for it.

Thank you!

Soon after, on September 28th, the publication reached out and requested more information from me via a Google form. On October 11th, the story was published on HerForward’s website with my comments included.

With one HARO request, I generated high-quality links to my website as well as to my Medium profile.

2) Journalists and Bloggers

In today’s hyper-digital world, the best way to leverage different channels is to focus on quality engagement. Don’t spray and pray, hoping to connect!

Find journalists and bloggers in your niche and engage with those who are actively present on LinkedIn or Twitter. Connect with them. Read their content. Share meaningful resources. Make interesting introductions. Be a giver. Don’t try to spam them with your pitches just because DMs are open.

I’ve made some meaningful connections with thought leaders on these platforms not only to pitch my startup or news angle but also to develop partnerships, get feedback, make connections, and so on.

For instance, I’ve been following Lindsay Tabas's content around Product Market Fit for a while. I subscribed to her emails, downloaded her worksheets, and when I noticed she had interviewed other Techstars founders I wrote a pitch sharing my keenness to be a guest on the podcast.

The message I wrote to Lindsay covered key points, including:

  • Who am I and what I am building and why am I building it
  • Why do I like the Make Sense podcast — the topic? Other guests?
  • How I found her content — via webinars or a common connection
  • And, my portfolio to give her an idea about my domain expertise, etc.

And, Voila!

I got invited to be on the Make Sense podcast because of the genuine effort I put into developing meaningful relationships with other content creators.

3) Thought Leadership

Creating a personal brand online takes work.

Yet, the ROI of spending time and resources on sharing your founder's story can be a game-changer.

When I first began writing on Medium, I didn’t realize the opportunities that would appear because of the stories I shared.

Writing online is another low-cost way to build your founder and startup’s brand online and increase your visibility to media outlets and journalists.

Think about the audiences that large publications such as Better Marketing, Entrepreneur’s Handbook, The Startup, and Authority Magazine have. Writing for them is writing for a larger audience and getting more eyeballs. It’s a win-win. Bonus if it’s boost-worthy content!

Once you write, use every opportunity to circulate that content and build your writer portfolio that can be included across your social media profiles as well as in your media kit — it shows that you’re invested in the process.

For instance, I wrote to Naimeesha Murthy from Products by Women on Medium since I saw that they have a publication that includes full features on women professionals. I made sure that my pitch was short, clear, and relevant. And I followed up with her after a week and was invited to write.

4) Strategic Collaborations

Develop partnerships to get in front of different audiences.

Whether it is affiliate partners, referral programs, speaking engagements, or co-hosting events, explore ways in which you can find companies or individuals that have adjacent businesses and overlapping audiences.

Collaborating with these partners for sponsored events or community-run workshops can help you get organic coverage for your brand. It is better than throwing money at social media ads without an ROI. Invite experts from different niches to panel events or co-host LinkedIn lives.

Although collaborations can be a time-consuming process, as you have to wait for different stakeholders to get on board, it is worth the time.

For instance, I met Mallory from The Inheritance Project at an event and we both immediately connected on the future of work and how fractional talent is growing given remote work and budget cuts are on the rise.

We decided to conduct a LinkedIn live as we had an overlap in audiences — my audience would learn about the Leadership Program run by Mallory. Her audience would get access to our skilled and diverse PR experts!

5) Industry Events & Networking

It’s simple, not easy — Increase your luck surface area. IRL and URL.

Nothing is worth pursuing from a purely transactional nature — and networking is surely not one of them.

Have a great book recommendation that you think a journalist will enjoy? Share it! Did you meet someone at an event who mentioned hosting a podcast? Give it a listen and tell them what you enjoyed about it!

I’ve written before about some outstanding communities I’ve joined in New York — check out the full list here. A few networking events I recently attended include — The Lioness Dinner, Salley Events, and Zehra’s Z-List.

I was often overwhelmed to attend networking events until I found a few strategic ways to make the most of them. For instance, pick niche events, arrive early, engage with the host, and more. I wrote more about this here!

Take the work out of networking and you never know the kind of events you or your startup get invited for. These include but are not limited to podcasts, guest blogs, webinars, cross-promotions, and so on.

While sales is key to survivorship for any startup, earned media is a great way to amplify your visibility and help facilitate the decision for potential buyers.

These are 5-easy steps you can start with today! Soon, I’ll share Part 2 of this playbook on how to pitch podcasts! Let me know if that interests you. It’s been one of the most cost-effective, time-efficient ways for my startup to gain visibility in the small business and startup community. Plus, it’s one of the best ways to improve your public speaking skills as a founder!

Leave a comment if you found these strategies helpful. And, let’s connect if you’d like to work with PR Geeks and Experts to skyrocket your PR efforts!

As the founder of Geeks and Experts, I write about PR for startups, founder wellness, immigrant founders, and writerpreneurship!

Feel free to follow me on Medium or connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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