Is marketing enough as a growth strategy for startups?
You come up with an original and innovative business idea and start your journey to create a growth strategy for startups. You research the market and analyze it using high-end, sophisticated tools to gauge the idea’s scope to understand how to startup. You gather a team of motivated and goal-driven professionals and burn the midnight oil to come up with a viable strategy that can make it profitable and scalable. You spend your life savings and go through nerve-wracking meetings with potential investors to raise capital. Once you’ve started, you unfailingly offer state-of-the art services and products to your consumers. Now, you are waiting to accelerate your growth. But wait! You might soon find yourself in dire straits.
That’s probably because you miss this crucial element from your how to startup guide. Neither are we talking about your website nor your customer care service. It’s not even your marketing strategy. It’s a powerful tool that has let Coca-Cola stay at the top for decades.
Read further to find out what can make you go straight down the hill after the uphill climb.
This is a tool in which Bill Gates said he would invest if he was down to his last penny. Even Steve Jobs trusts this as one of the most crucial survival strategies for startup business.
We are talking about public relations (PR). PR is the strategic dissemination of brand information among major stakeholders, potential investors, and prospects, as well as the general public. It focuses on positive imaging.
You might wonder how PR is different from marketing. So, before we go on to list why PR is vital, let’s jump to how it can be distinguished from marketing.
Public relations vs Marketing
“Do you know what the difference is between PR and advertising?” Advertising is when you say how great you are. PR is when other people say how great you are…”
-Gay Kawasaki, chief evangelist, Canva and former chief evangelist, Apple.
The above quote by Kawasaki, an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales, beautifully explains the difference between marketing and PR. PR successfully maintains communication between the brand and the public, as opposed to chasing leads to promote your brand. In other words, PR is driven by the goal of enhancing brand value and visibility by getting people to talk about you. Its the ultimate growth strategy for startups.
PR is not just about publicity. It goes beyond the general perception to use gimmicks which are innovative and unconventional. While advertising and marketing can only go so far to compel people to buy your product once. A great PR agency will make people come to you, again and again.
Why PR?
Maybe Bill Gates’ faith in PR didn’t convince you. And that’s good. You must know more about PR before you entrust it with one of your life’s greatest treasures. PR creates the most effective communication strategy for startups. Here are the top five reasons to invest in quality public relations, with real-world case studies.
Create the buzz
Have you ever wondered how, irrespective of their performance, Apple unfailingly creates excitement, suspense, and a flurry about its product launches? The key is effective, goal-driven PR strategy.
PR, when done right, is the ultimate startup expansion strategy. Through a combination of tools like press conferences, product forecasts, and product briefings, coupled with the right timing, PR can have your brand become the topic of discussion way before its release. Which startup wouldn’t want to become the talk of the town following a grand launch?
Build trust
PR goes beyond brand image when building trust. Moving past flimsy claims, it establishes legitimate credibility that brings loyal clients customers. Take the brand Coca Cola for example. In retrospect, the brand has been through multiple crises in history. However, its public relations game is powerful enough to turn the ball in its court. For example, its classic drink water campaign.
As a startup, upon entering the market, consumers will point guns at you with speculation-filled eyes. Moreover, there might be a competitor’s brand that they have been using for years. Then, how do you build a loyal customer base in the marketplace? Thus never miss out this fact when devising a growth strategy for startups.
PR understands that trust is earned, and one that is easy to squander is not real. It makes sure you have a foundation built on trust and authenticity by using avenues such as media relations.
Manage reputation crisis.
Remember Old Spice? Originally a youthful brand for suave men, it became associated with old men with time. However, the company’s PR skillfully handled the situation by focusing on a new audience of teenagers and associating the products with health and sports.
A startup can also face a reputation crisis. It could be due to human error due to a lack of experience or the way the product was received by the target audience. Effective communication holds the key to opening doors to success. Strategic PR can give direction to your brand by laying a sturdy foundation and taking care of reputation crises.
Recover sales drop with crisis management
1993, when Pepsi’s sales declined due to rumors of can tampering which originated in Washington. The company neither issued a panic statement nor stayed silent. It countered the allegations by disseminating authentic information on its soda canning process in a series of videos. While the fake complainants were arrested, it only took a month for Pepsi to recover the 2% drop in sales.
It was an active PR strategy, driven by authenticity that saved Pepsi from a major fiasco. Inarguably, PR can be your startup’s biggest defense against hearsays, in addition to being an efficient startup expansion strategy.
Never lose hold of the market
When Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought that it would become one of the greatest PR quotes in HR.
Nonetheless, the statement stands. The worst of all nightmares for a startup could be not being talked about. PR comes to rescue with genuine, unpaid media coverages covering brand-led stories. You might be able to have a great launch but what about brand equity and expanding your foothold? You can read our blog on “How Big Data Can Help in Strategizing?”
Conclusion
In a nutshell, communication is the most crucial of all survival strategies for startup business. Today’s high paced digital world calls for swiftness. People are ready to wait, but it shouldn’t be long. Additionally, there is so much information to consume that one’s mind is overflooded. Consequently, many have lost touch with their society. The audience often seeks a connection, which extends to products and services that ‘brands offer’. Brand is no longer limited to quality and ethics, it extends to the business’ relationship with consumers.
Building trust among your audience with relatable ideas and stories that appeal to their emotions is unavoidable. Failing to do so would prevent your ship from sailing, eventually causing it to sink or corrode. An effective communication strategy for startups is what can turn the wind in your favor. PR thus acts as your ship’s mast.
