Fintech start-up Switchcraft has a short history of punching above its weight. In just two years, founder Andrew Long has positioned the company as one of the sleekest operators in the highly competitive price comparison market.
Switchcraft backs up its tech with an equally impressive cache of media coverage. The start-up has generated over 100 pieces of organic content in two years, reaching a collective audience of fifty million. Spotlighting in The Financial Times, BBC, and The Times amongst others, helps Switchcraft even a playing field dominated by heavyweights Goco group, Compare the Market and Uswitch. Comment for comment, a casual reader may mistake the start-up for a company of comparable size. The reality is Switchcraft runs on a staff of eight — that’s about one employee for every 4,000 UK homes it automates energy switches for.
So how exactly does a start-up with a lean media budget compete with companies 20 times the size? In this post, I reveal my five top tips for getting in the news — without forking out thousands on professional public relations.
Become a media monitor. Using a service like Google Alerts or Talkwalker will improve your awareness of relevant publications, journalists and other agenda setters within your industry. My email is set to receive ‘as it happens’ alerts for competitor mentions, for key phrases like ‘energy supplier,’ ‘smart meters,’ and ‘automatic switching,’ and for broader topics I’m covering in the personal finance space like ‘fuel poverty.’ When choosing terms, remember to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer. What type of news do they consume? What are their interests? Are there potential tie-ins to your product or service?
Get on the press lists and RSS feeds of official sources. Ready or not, running a start-up makes you an expert. Leveraging this expertise for publicity requires mastery of the news. I recommend getting on the press list of every official news/data source you can think of — starting with government and regulatory bodies connected to your industry. Doing so will unlock your potential to provide thought leadership. But it’s not enough or acceptable to fire off opinions to news organisations willy nilly. Reactive comments need to be sound-bite sized, well-positioned, and timely — remember, you’re competing for inbox attention.
If I’m wise to an upcoming announcement, I’ll prepare a response and press list in advance. Knowing the organisation in question sends official releases at 7AM is advantageous. Poised for the email, I’m ready to read and recalibrate my response where necessary. By 7.05AM my comment is sitting in the inbox of a target journalist – just ahead of the official release and everyone else that’s slept in!
Making your own news is challenging. Unique data, case studies, and new angles can be hard to come by, and not everyone has time to dig around public databases. However, there are things you can do to improve your chances. News is cyclical; seasons, holidays and scheduled events like elections have a massive impact on what’s newsworthy. For example, Brexit uncertainty was always going to be followed by a recovery of consumer confidence. Now the property market is heating up, Brits are planning holidays and consumers are being championed in personal finance sections. The weather, to use a classic example, is a trigger for a variety of stories about consumer habits. Editors are highly attuned to these cycles and you should be too. I suggest putting a calendar together and forecasting potential tie-ins.
Leverage your data and industry knowledge. Ask yourself, what do I have that others don’t? Are you in possession of new market research or a customer base that could be surveyed? Do you have in-depth knowledge of an industry problem? Do you receive tip-offs or information before the public does? One piece of information alone may not constitute an article, but it can feed a wider narrative – this is what journalists look for.
Those who follow business news in the UK will be familiar with stories about energy suppliers going bust — part of the so-called ‘crisis’ in UK energy. Now that this is an established narrative, smaller episodes in the sector have a better shot at making headlines. If I detect a company is in trouble, I’ll prepare a press release in advance – as per the above.
Build relationships with journalists. Before you reach out to a journalist, try and familiarise yourself with their work, audience, and routines. It’s perfectly acceptable to propose a face-to-face meeting, but you need to be able to offer something tangible in the long run. For every journalist, there are approximately ten public relations professionals demanding their attention. Your competitive advantage may well lie in the fact you’re a reliable source of ‘un-spun’ information.
When you do get a scoop, it can be tempting to send a press release en masse. And when it comes to comments for breaking news this is not necessarily a bad tactic. But if you have a genuine story, you’re much better off targeting a journalist on an exclusive basis. Even if they don’t bite, you can use the opportunity as a springboard for future collaboration.
But wait, what about professional PR? The trouble with using an agency is you’re going to end up being one fish in a sea of bigger fish. And let’s face it, nobody cares about getting your start-up in the news as much as you. If you’re already monitoring the media and in sync with news cycles, you’re already in the best position to assess the who, what and when of news opportunities. PR agencies, with their heavy rolodexes, can help with the ‘how’ — but at the monthly cost of one or two additional employees.
In my experience agencies can actually be a barrier to building rapport with journalists - who themselves value unfettered relationships with people who are prepared to tell it how it is.
Alex Dickson is Head of Research at Switchcraft and has previously worked for several highly successful London start-ups. He received his MA in Strategic Studies with Distinction from Victoria University and holds a BA in Political Science, History and Media from the University of Canterbury.
