Shiny foreign things – why Australia’s startups are terrible at PR
Australia’s tech startups are as a group terrible at telling their story. Cutting through an indifferent media and governments focused on shiny things from overseas means they are going to have to lift their game if they want to have media coverage, argues Mumbrella’s Paul Wallbank
Last week’s media blitz around Elon Musk’s visit to South Australia threw into stark relief how poor Australian startups are at PR.
South Australia is already leading the nation. Today, we lead the world. pic.twitter.com/1mEJoNC0ma
— Jay Weatherill (@JayWeatherill) July 7, 2017
So, who are the ‘go to’ PR agencies for cash-starved start-up ventures? Who’s doing the innovative stuff? Which PR agencies really know how to make ‘tech-talk’ understandable to the public? Are PR agencies pitching their services to start-up businesses?
Hi Chris, that’s a good question which I’m going to wimp out answering as the PR firm or individual staffer that’s great for one client might not be quite the right fit for another. It’s worth asking around the various online and physical startup groups for who’s worked for your friends and peers. It might take some time to find the right one.
Great article Paul, our agency specialises in launching startups and I think this overview is a really accurate reflection of where we’re at. I think another point is that a lot of agencies are not keen on taking on startups due to smaller budgets and lack of experience in doing PR which is another challenge for startups trying to get exposure, credibility and web traffic.
When it comes to local PR firms, it’s often a pretty uninspiring bunch all ’round but I’d direct people towards homegrown firms that don’t have o/s offices and, ideally, aren’t even in multiple states. Choose one in the city you’re doing business in, and stick with them. And please, whatever you do, steer clear of the multinationals – even the ones which pretend to be all hip and funky and local. Why? Because at the end of the day they’re all under the pump from their respective head offices to get new business in the door and increase profits, quarter on quarter no matter how unrealistic that might be (and most commonly achieved by a combo of some new business wins and not hiring any new staff to cover them). With staff spread so thinly (you wouldn’t believe how thinly in some cases), clients – new and old – only get a thin veneer of real service, with principals stepping in every week or two to pretend everything’s just peachy and ensure they don’t lose the business. The better they are at schmoozing, the longer some of their outfits maintain their clients. But they aren’t getting anything remotely resembling good service in reality.
As a PR practitioner with experience with start ups, there are a few issues here:
* Journalists are extremely jaundiced regarding start ups (probably because of examples like Sociabl you outlined) – it is exceptionally difficult to get a story up and in my experience pitches often go unread because journos are so stretched and time poor – hence, a brand like Tesla/Elon Musk will always get the coverage over an unknown.
* Cultural cringe – this appears to be alive and well in the Australian media. Everyone loves a little Aussie start up that could – but only when they’ve been anointed by Silicon Valley VC.
* Start ups often misunderstand how PR can add value and they also have unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved within a short time frame – I worked with one which was obsessed with “backlinks” – I explained that this was neither the value of PR nor the role of the PR person to broker (and explained that editorial policies mostly prevented journalists from adding them to stories) from the outset, but they were insistent and were of course disappointed when they received none.
But you are right, it should be a consideration for start ups in any business plan they put together – PR can be very cost effective and can be a powerful brand builder, as my clever clients have discovered when a story we worked on over the course of several months yielded unprecedented site traffic and tangible sales conversions.
If the prompt for this story was the amount of PR received by Elon Musk vs local start-ups, surely the problem here is your comparison, not the approach tech start-ups take to PR.
Elon Musk is one of the hottest business leaders anywhere in the world. He is not a start-up, any more than Richard Branson is.
The AFR is a great supporter of Australian start-ups, as is much of the Australian mass media once a concept moves from being just that to being funded.
This article needs a good subedit/proof. Errors make for a distracting read. Lift your game Mumbrella please!
As head of a digital agency that has built many start up platforms for clients, I’ve got to say I don’t agree. A number of these startups (some of whom have gone on to win awards in their own industries and develop viable longer term business plans) have engaged PR agencies and got zero traction (various PR agencies). Journos don’t know these companies, and very rarely, if ever, take the risk of covering them. Covering anything Elon Musk does, however, is somewhat less of a risk…
Totally agree. Pitching a tech start up to journos is massively frustrating, they never seem to find your email. As soon as the company gets traction overseas or is sold off in a big purchase then all the media know how to find you.
@Chris I launched a start up earlier this year and highly recommend using the PR kit at http://www.idomyownpr.com
The real problem is the gaping funding gap that lives between seed stage and the Series A round. There is a terrible lack of risk equity in the market so the media coverage doesn’t flow because there is not enough action. IMHO.
I personally love handling start-ups as they usually have a great story to tell and a founder who is passionate and enthusiastic.But they can be all over the shop and in love with their idea to the extent that they can’t tolerate a cynical journalist who has seen it all before. As well as a founder, a good start-up has to have a good management team and they have to abide by the first principle of PR consulting and that is the consultant must be paid., . .
“Her complaints to the management of the major masthead over what were a bunch of largely imaginary complaints cost the writer her freelance arrangement with the outlet, forever souring that writer on the startup community and warning other journalists that covering that space is too hard.”
Wow, how much does this ring a big bell. Someone (from a government agency) did exactly this in our newsroom the other day. Even rang the wrong extension, so ended up bending the ear of completely the wrong person. Did they get a result? Sure: every single journo within earshot knows not to go anywhere near that mob with a bargepole ever again.
Spot on about governments and shiny foreign things. It’s great the SA govt decided to augment the grid with energy storage, but why pick Tesla when there’s an Aussie company called Redflow doing the same thing? They have created an arguably superior battery chemistry solution for immobile storage needs. Who’s the CEO? Simon Hackett, one of SA’s well known entrepreneurial business leaders. But the PR was good when Elon Musk came to town. Can’t deny that.
Its quite funny that this piece undermines a difficult market to break into by thumbing its nose up at these australian startups – I mean, its not like any of them have the brand name/clout of elon musk that ensures his news gets wide coverage. Bit tone deaf this one.
Lets all stop throwing the word ‘startup’ around. I know it’s cool and it’s the buzzword but c’mon guys; it’s dead! Saying that Tesla is a startup is ridiculous. Musk was a billionaire businessman who set up a new venture, it was never a startup.
Back in the 90’s when tech was getting really exciting, yes people setup idea’s and look what happened: they were startups. Now please stop it.
(If I go into hairdressing or meats and set up a hairdressers or a butchers, are they startups? NO!!! Neither is any business now.)