Getting publicity for your small or early-stage business can feel overwhelming. You may not have the resources for a dedicated PR team to land you coverage in top media outlets. However, by implementing some automation in your public relations workflow, you can free up more time to focus on high-impact PR opportunities.
In this 2500+ word guide aimed at solopreneurs, bootstrappers, and lean startups, I‘ll share actionable tips for creating an automated PR process that captures media leads and streamlines outreach.
Why Automate Any Aspect of PR?
Securing press coverage builds credibility for your brand, raises awareness of your products or services, and positions you as an industry expert. However, media outreach is time-consuming. You need to research relevant journalists and outlets, customize pitches, and follow up relentlessly.
It‘s easy for PR to fall through the cracks when you run every aspect of your business single-handedly. Customer inquiries, product development, content creation––these day-to-day tasks seem more urgent.
By implementing some automation, you can spend less time on PR busywork and more time on high-value media outreach tasks:
- Researching targeted media contacts – Focus on finding great fits for your brand instead of manually importing piecemeal contact data.
- Crafting customized pitches – Spend time personalizing your core messaging for each opportunity instead of copy-pasting generic emails.
- Following up thoughtfully – Build relationships through meaningful conversations instead of sending batch reminder emails.
The right type of automation acts as a productivity multiplier, letting you scale your efforts exponentially.
You don‘t need advanced technical skills. Many easy-to-use software tools can eliminate repetitive tasks from your PR process. Read on for tips to get started.
The Solo PR Hustle is Real
Let‘s set expectations around what‘s reasonable for early-stage businesses to achieve.Survey data indicates:
- 72% of solo founders spend 1-5 hours per week on PR outreach
- Average media contact response rate is 20-25%
- Most successful independents secure 2-4 new media placements per month
With limited bandwidth, you must maximize efficiency. The way forward is embracing technology to enhance human creativity for more effective storytelling.
Leveraging automation, artificial intelligence and data science expands resource-constrained teams into a lean, mean, PR machine.
"Think of tools as team members you haven‘t hired yet. Experiment with automating redundant tasks so you can focus energy on personalization that builds genuine media relationships." – Dana Todd, Founder, Press Page Pro
Create a Go-To Press Page
Before worrying about getting press, focus on showcasing that you‘re ready for media opportunities. A dedicated press page acts as an always-on digital press kit to pique journalists‘ interest.
What to Include
Your press page content will evolve over time, but aim to have these basic elements in place:
- Background on your brand – Include your origin story, mission statement, and team bios. Help readers understand your credentials and what makes you unique.
- Product/service descriptions – Explain your key offerings with customer-centric language and compelling supporting visuals.
- Thought leadership content – Embed or link to your best blogs posts, videos, podcats appearences, slide decks, etc. These demonstrate your industry expertise.
- Testimonials – Pull quotes from customer reviews, event feedback forms, client case studies, etc. Social proof builds credibility.
- Downloadable media assets – Have company logos, founder headshots, product images, and graphics available for download in multiple formats. This makes journalists‘ jobs easier.
Visit press pages on brands you admire for design inspiration. While you want comprehensive content, aim for scannable sections versus long blocks of text.
Where Should It Live?
Your press page can live in multiple places to maximize discoverability:
- Primary placement on your company website – Create a dedicated Press or Media Center page. Promote its URL across online profiles.
- Social media profiles – Pin your press page URL prominently on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
- Link-in-bio tools – Add to your Linktree or Milkshake bio links. These aggregate all your online destinations in one place.
Cross-promote your press page widely to increase organic media referrals. Uptime and accessibility are crucial––you never know when a journalist may come calling.
Collect Inbound PR Leads with Contact Forms
Picture this: It‘s Saturday morning. You‘re out conquering nature on an epic hike. At that very moment, a journalist from a top trade publication stumbles onto your impressively prepared press page. Now‘s your big media break! But how will you capitalize if you‘re off the grid till Monday?
Missing these surprise PR gifts feels terrible. Install web forms to effortlessly collect lead info whenever opportunities arise.
Use Online Scheduling Calendars
Appointment scheduling software like Calendly, Acuity, or Doodle lets contacts book your time or request a callback. It feels warm and personalized versus an impersonal info-harvesting form.
Customize appointment types and intake questions for media inquiries. Ask about deadlines, content needs, etc so you can prep. Use availability settings to indicate when you‘re open for press meetings.
Streamline Follow-Ups with Automated Confirmations
Your scheduling app should trigger automatic confirmation emails when appointments are booked. Customize these with links back to your press page assets and a human touch thanking them for their interest.
Bonus pro tip: Set up a Zapier integration to auto-populate calendar appointments into a PR CRM or spreadsheet. This keeps all media contacts and outreach details neatly organized for future follow-up.
Curate a Master Media Database
Speaking of CRMs and spreadsheets, you need a system to store every media lead and interaction moving forward. This transforms one-off opportunities into lasting press relationships.
Identify Your Target Media Landscape
Search industry trade journals, local business publications, startup tech blogs, radio shows, podcasts, etc to identify press outlets aligned with your product-market fit. Look for reporters covering your niche.
Follow relevant media contacts on social channels. Twitter lists keep these feeds neatly organized for monitoring. Hashtag tracking also surfaces stories tailor-made for your pitching.
Export Contact Details to Your Database
As you manually identify relevant journalists or outlets, easily export their details from your social media or email platforms into Excel or Google Sheets using built-in integrations or apps like ContactOut.
Your database should include vital intel like appropriate contact names, media outlet, prior relevant articles, and preferences for pitches. Maintain detailed records of all prior outreach and adds context around relationships.
Layer in Inbound Press Requests
Remember those web form leads and calendar inquiries from earlier? Make adding them to your master press database automatic.
Tools like Zapier integrate your form and appointment apps to instantly transfer lead data into Google Sheets or Excel. Customize with tags to track hot inbound inquiries versus cold outbound targets.
Over time, monitoring your database uncovers golden PR opportunities. Sort and segment to prioritize following up with reporters who previously covered your niche. See who has the highest response rates or has shown definite interest.
Pitch Smarter Thanks to Automations
The hard work pays off. With research and contacts organized in your media database, targeted pitching gets easier and smarter. Now you can focus creative energy on crafting resonant story angles versus building press lists from scratch every month.
Research Recent Journalist Activity
Before each new outreach campaign, scan your media database for recent articles on related topics. This context personalizes your pitch so it doesn‘t feel randomly blasted. Use tools like BuzzSumo or Muck Rack to surface more of their latest content.
Track Campaign Success in Your CRM
Update your PR database to indicate dates, outreach specifics, and status of all ongoing campaigns. This organized history informs smarter follow-ups. Most CRMs easily generate contact activity reports so you can see response metrics over time. Learn which journalists or outlets could use extra nudging.
Schedule Reminder Tasks
Don‘t let outstanding media inquiries fall through the cracks as you juggle other projects. CRM integrations with calendar apps like Calendly allow creating reminder tasks to prompt follow-up based on custom rules. Schedule automatic check-ins at one week post-pitch, for example. Or trigger reminders for any inquiry without activity the last 30 days.
Pitch at Scale with AI Assistance
Reaching tier-one media contacts is ultra competitive. Breakthrough by pitching at scale leveraging AI writing assistants.
Tools like Persado or Phrasee optimize outreach emails for open rates and click-throughs. Personalize cold pitches to hundreds of journalists in your niche by letting machine learning craft every message uniquely.
Sentiment analysis apps provide real-time feedback on pitch success. Reply.io scans inbox responses to categorize interested leads from rejections. Quantify the ROI of each campaign with actionable data.
"We increased qualified media meetings booked by 45% after our first month pioneering AI writing for PR pitches. The productivity lift lets our human team focus energy on nurturing authentic reporter relationships versus sending mass emails." – Michael Ziegler, Founder, Buttercup PR
Get Creative with PR Formats
You have their attention. Now spotlight your brand‘s passion and purpose through interactive media formats.
Podcast interviews build rapport by showcasing the stories behind your business. Find shows popular with your customer avatar by monitoring industry hashtags and Groups on social media.
Distributed via syndication platforms like Spotify or Apple, podcasts create multimedia touchpoints for audiences to discover you. Repurpose clips as social media ads to maximize exposure.
Interactive online events also attract media attention while positioning founders as visionary voices. Host Twitter chats, Reddit AMAs or LinkedIn Live panels around current issues facing your niche.
Collaborate with companies offering adjacent or complementary products to demonstrate thought leadership. Co-create and co-promote social media contests that incentivize user-generated content.
Quantify PR Results
As a data-driven expert, I know the importance of quantifying activities to optimize success. Apply analytics across the entire PR process – from contact response rates to campaign ROIs – to double down on what‘s working.
Begin by auditing past media placements and influencer partnerships. Trace the referral traffic, social media growth, and sales that resulted. Discover who‘s sharing your story and why it resonates.
Media monitoring tools like Cision, Meltwater or Signal AI analyze brand mentions across millions of online news and social media properties. Receive real-time alerts when your company or key executives are featured.
Quantify how readership metrics – like domain authority, unique site visitors and social followings – contribute to lead generation. Factor this impact into prioritizing tier-one outlet outreach.
Review analytics before approaching any media contact to confirm recent coverage remains relevant. Redirect pitching if data reveals shifts in key messaging or positioning.
Overcoming Small Business Objections
Despite the measurable benefits, many small companies view PR as an unnecessary distraction. "We should focus all energy on product-market fit first before self-promotion," founders say.
Respectfully, I disagree. Early stage brands can pursue multiple growth levers in parallel across marketing, sales and PR. With the right automation in place, none of these derail your core mission.
Others argue small businesses lack the exotic origin story or celebrity endorsement that grab Page 1 headlines. However, there are infinite interesting angles for the resourceful entrepreneur to pitch.
For example, an Israeli startup disrupting construction safety recently secured coverage in Engineering News Record – a top global industry publication. They simply pitched an evaluator account they created documenting how current solutions fail jobsites.
Business news thrives on covering emerging competitors challenging inefficient status quos. You don‘t need a billion-dollar valuation to earn media interest. Find what makes your everyday business extraordinary.
Automated PR Processes: Getting Started
With many DIY-friendly apps available today, small teams can feasibly automate significant portions of PR outreach. The right workflows act as a force multiplier so your energy goes towards high-value media relationship building versus administrative headaches.
If you‘re new to business process automation, start small by picking one manual task to eliminate. Building press lists? Importing contacts? Follow-up reminders? Choose which area currently creates biggest bottlenecks or frustration.
Search tools like Zapier or IFTTT for apps suited to the task. Pre-made integrations called "Zaps" often handle common use cases so you don‘t have to build from scratch.
When ready to expand, document your tech stack options for tackling different stages outlined here – contact capture forms, media contact databases, scheduling and reminders, etc. Evaluate free trial versions before committing to paid plans.
It‘s said the best things happen unexpectedly. Ensure your fledgling PR process makes the most of random media serendipity in addition to methodical pitching. Simplify follow-ups, organize contacts, and streamline outreach with automation assisting behind the scenes.
What aspect of PR management currently overwhelms you? Share tips and advice for fellow solopreneurs and early-stage startups facing similar roadblocks!
