Getting press for your startup: the true role of communications

Welcome to this edition of The Operators, a recurring Extra Crunch column produced by insiders with executive experience at companies like AirBnB, Brex, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Lyft, Slack, Square, Twitter, and Uber, sharing their stories and insights. It’s made for founders who are navigating domains outside their expertise, covering topics they may be learning for the first time like enterprise sales, product management, and finance/accounting.

In this episode:

1. When and how should a company seek press coverage?
2. The difference between marketing and communications
3. Building relationships with reporters
4. Being or identifying a great communications leader

Early on, most founders and investors focus on getting positive press, but if they’re unfortunate or make mistakes, mitigating bad coverage becomes a common goal. Broadly, communications consists of how and what information to share, both inside and outside of the company, touching domains like management, recruiting, marketing, and business development. It’s also highly optimizable and often, mission critical — the difference between dramatic success and catastrophic failure.

We spoke with three communications experts to learn more:

• Sean Garrett was Twitter’s first VP of Communications. He previously worked for Governor Pete Wilson of California and has founded two separate communications firms, with clients including Slack, Cisco, and Disney. He’s currently a Managing Partner at Pramana Collective.
• Faryl Ury is a former reporter with experience at NPR and the Associated Press. Her communications experience also began in government, working for US Senator Jeanne Shaheen before managing comms at Square and Uber. She was then a marketing executive at Dropbox before becoming the Director of Communications at Aurora, a leading autonomous vehicle company, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Amazon, and Hyundai.
• Adi Raval started as a journalist at ABC News and the BBC, covering 9/11, the Iraq War, and the White House. He moved into government as a diplomat for the State Department serving in Afghanistan, and later, as a spokesperson and Director of Communications at USAID. After leaving government, Adi was the top communications executive for the Bechtel Corporation, the Head of Comms and PR for TaskRabbit, and now the Head of Communications at Kodiak Robotics. He’s also a term member for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Below is a synthesized summary of our conversation; check out The Operators for the full episode.

When and how should a company seek press coverage?

Investors love to see public recognition of their portfolio companies, and founders sometimes believe press coverage will solve all their problems, yielding a panacea of inbound customers, employees, and new backers. Whether it’s a fundraising announcement or a product launch, more exposure can only help, right? Of course, that’s not always true. Being unprepared for an influx of inbound interest can lead to bad experiences and a negative reputation.

What’s more likely than a bad response? No response at all: reporters are constantly pitched by entrepreneurs seeking coverage who don’t have a compelling story to share, which means most of them are primed to say “no.”

Faryl told us that when she asks founders why they want to do press, they often answer, “our investors told us to,” or “I talked to other entrepreneurs and they do press.” Being prepared for the response means knowing what you want the response to be, which in turn means knowing what you have to say, and why anyone will listen and respond the right way. Thinking through this exercise involves asking questions, said Sean, specifically, “what is your positioning? What is your messaging? And for some organizations, that’s the right first step to figure out, at a high level, what are we even trying to accomplish here…?”

Having a clear purpose in mind before approaching reporters will also help you execute. For some startups, landing a story with trade press may be better than being written up by a generalized tech publication. On the other hand, if you’re spending a ton of money on Facebook and Google to advertise directly to consumers, getting coverage in the right publications may be much more efficient and impactful. 

The difference between marketing and communications

The relationship between communications and marketing can often be contentious, but it can also be synergistic. If we consider marketing as being either brand/awareness driven or performance/conversion driven, we have two very different sets of goals and measurable effects to consider. Communications, in the form of content published by a company, a talk given by a founder, or an interview as part of an article, can have the same goals and measurable effects as either type of marketing. Faryl says to consider marketing as communications with your customers:

“[Marketing] is empowering because you don’t have to go to a journalist, pitch a story and keep your fingers crossed that it turns out well. You are controlling what’s in your own emails, what’s on your website from a marketing perspective… …you’re often talking to customers more and working more closely with product and engineering teams. With communications, you spend more time with executives because often they’re the ones delivering your message, and you spend more time working with reporters… …Marketing is often pretty internal facing. You’re looking at dashboards, you’re talking to customers, you’re driving alignment for your performance marketing.”

Faryl says this gap is closing, something we’ve also seen over the past few years. While communications and brand marketing have been less measured historically, estimates and perceptions of exposure are being replaced by more exact measurements of impressions and sentiment, as well as time-correlated responses in traffic and transactions. However, when delivering a message via a channel that isn’t meant for marketing, like speaking to a reporter about your business, being too heavy-handed or inartful can backfire, weakening your credibility and authenticity. 

Building relationships with reporters

Like most relationships, coming around only when you need something is a great way to create a negative impression with a journalist. In reflecting on the field, Adi shares from his experience on both sides of the table:

“I think journalists are the essence of a democracy. They shine a light on the dark corner of society and they have a job to do, which is to report the facts… the key is really to put yourself into the mindset of a journalist and think about what you would focus on, what you would report on if you were in their shoes… you want to have a long-term relationship with this reporter. And if you’re just focused on one offs, you know, anyone can do that. We all have that diplomatic side to us. We want to pursue relationships for the long-term, so that’s really key in terms of that kind of investment.”

Faryl agrees, suggesting that founders think about these relationships like dating, providing value and respect and not expecting too much too soon. Continuing the metaphor, Sean adds:

“…don’t lie. Be honest, be direct, don’t bullshit. It will come back to bite you. If your story is okay and an embellishment would make it great, don’t go there. In the long-term it’s not going to pay off for you. And you know, the media have very long memories and they share information and if you’re seen as someone who’s untruthful, it’ll be known and it’ll hurt you for a long, long time to come.”

Being or identifying a great communications leader

All three experts agreed that a degree or experience in communications, journalism, or public relations is hardly necessary or sufficient to be a great communications leader. Note that before getting into company communications, all three had political experience and two had journalism experience. Still everyone agreed that jumping straight into a startup communications role without experience wasn’t unreasonable. Instead, the key characteristics required for success are the ability to build relationships, strong writing and oral communications skills, and being a high-integrity unifier.

A good relationship with journalists, company executives, and those building and selling the company’s products drive the ability to receive and share the right information with the right people at the right time. Building a reputation for providing value and understanding others’ positions similarly increase one’s influence, something that’s important in moving a team of mixed minds forward. And being able to craft a targeted message with integrity and substance increases the chance of achieving the desired results.

While we’ve focused mostly on the importance of effective communications with the press and customers, internal communications may be even more important as they are key to ensuring a strong company culture. Effective internal communications requires strong relationships, which helps ensure team members are crafting the best messages in good times and bad. Almost every startup will face hard times, and advanced preparation helps. According to Adi: 

“As soon as you start at a new company, get to know the general counsel very, very well. Because if you meet the general counsel for the first time while you’re undergoing a crisis, you failed. Odds are you will not have his or her respect and you won’t be able to push out a public announcement that you would have liked.”

Similarly, on the upside, proactively thinking about how to share information internally and then doing so effectively increases the likelihood of unity and decreases the chance of conflict or waste from miscommunication. You want your left hand to know what your right hand is doing, and vice-versa. 

If you’ve enjoyed this summary, check out the full episode at The Operators.