5 Easy ways to get free startup publicity

by Startacus Admin

For many startups free positive publicity will become the holy grail of their entrepreneurial journey… and why not?

Free, organic publicity is often one of the best ways to achieve a number of your goals quickly, with the least amount of effort or monetary input on your part. Startups who find themselves unwittingly at the centre of a viral media storm can receive a huge array of benefits such as introducing their product to a much wider audience or having their startup placed in the sights of investors on the prowl for new ventures to support.

Whilst every startup might not have the potential to achieve viral promotion, that doesn’t mean they can’t reproduce these benefits on a smaller scale.

Here are 5 really simple, cost effective ways that you can attract some free publicity for your startup. (Of course none of these are guaranteed to succeed, but they’re a better option than sitting on your hands and hoping that the publicity fairy will do the work for you)!

Improve and Announce

If it has been a while since the introduction of your original product or service, you might want to consider creating an interesting feature, or improving it in some way that is likely to get chins wagging, and fingers typing. This can be a great way to spark a little media interest, especially if you feel that excitement about your startup has begun to wane of late.

Position your startup at the centre of relevant conversations

This is a time tested tactic, and for very good reason. By placing your startup at the centre of discussions regarding important current issues in your industry, you reassert its relevance and ensure that it is perceived as fresh and engaged. There are many ways to do this, blogging and vlogging are certainly the most obvious, but don't forget to share your opinions effectively through other channels such as social media and within environments specific to your area of expertise.

Give away free stuff

People love getting free stuff, and with the development of social media, it is now easier than ever to give it to them! This can be a really great way to spread the word about your startup quickly and economically, but unless conducted thoughtfully, it could prove to be a massive waste if your time and energy.

At Startacus we are always running a business giveaway of some sort, so here are a few of our top tips that should help you to get the most from your competition;

• Make sure the prizes are specifically appealing to your target market

• Make sure the value of the prizes / the chances of winning are sufficiently high enough to warrant the effort taken to enter

• Don’t make it too easy, or too difficult to enter. This is about creating useful promotion for your business, so the more highly specific your target market, the more clever you need to be in ensuring that entrants are as specific as possible. We suggest 1 - 2 steps is appropriate for most giveaways. For example, asking someone to comment under and then share an image on Facebook. This little effort ensures that most of the people who enter the competition will truly want to win and are more likely to shout about it (and your business) if they do.

• Make sure that there are no strings attached to your giveaway. People hate to feel as though they are being duped so keep everything as transparent as possible.

If a giveaway is something that you are considering then you should take a look at our recent advice on running social media competitions.

Share your expertise and experience

If you hold a certain level of expertise in subjects related to your startup, then writing engaging, informative and non promotional articles for various online and offline publications can be a great way to gently market your business. Further to this it can help to establish you as a founder who is submerged within their industry and by reflection introduce your startup as competent and specialised to a wider audience.

Do some social good

The media loves stories about businesses that are trying to give back. It might seem rather cynical, to trade charitable work for notoriety, but we are very much of the opinion that if you are genuinely helping people, then any small recognition that might come your way is well earned. It's important that you consider which cause to support very carefully; it should be something which has a discernible relevance to your business.

As well as all of the above, if you are looking fo a little more tailored publicity - let us do the work with our very affordable startup publicity programme.

And - If, and its only if, you need high level media exposure for your startup, this is for you - £125 credit to use at Startup PR specialists TECTONIC PR

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Published on: 18th March 2015