How Startups Can Leverage Media Coverage to Fuel Investment

Securing funding remains a pivotal goal in the dynamic landscape of startup growth and development. Achieving this goal often requires more than just a compelling business model or a revolutionary product; it necessitates capturing and maintaining the interest of potential investors and partners. In the pursuit of funding, startups often look to publicity as a means to garner interest. Media coverage, after all, is a great way to gain exposure and to deliver a storyline about your company to important audiences without directly meeting them (also priming an eventual introduction).

The problem startups face in making this successful, though, lies in their ability to make news. However, securing effective media coverage is fraught with challenges, particularly for startups that may not have groundbreaking news to share, such as a significant funding round. Typically, funding round announcements are an important launchpad for a startup’s engagement with media. Without an announcement of that caliber, these brands often face a high barrier to entry and often their efforts are unsuccessful.

Crafting Compelling Storylines without Breaking News

Despite the challenges, startups can employ several strategies to develop engaging storylines to capture media interest, even in the absence of traditional news items. These strategies include:

Company Metrics

Highlighting company milestones offers a unique opportunity to engage with the press. While not every milestone warrants a press release, selectively approaching one or multiple media outlets with compelling company achievements – such as significant growth, increase in employee headcount, or notable product developments – can spark interest. 

A prime example of this strategy is Inc.’s coverage of Instacart following its Series C funding round. The story focuses on the company's growth without direct relation to the investment itself. The headline provides a key framework for how to approach such stories - “$2 Billon Powerhouse” and “dominating the on-demand grocery industry.” This highly effective approach underscores the potential of company milestones to generate feature stories that resonate with audiences beyond the investment community.

Customer Experience

Leveraging customer stories is another effective avenue for creating compelling narratives. This strategy hinges on showcasing how a startup's product or service has made a tangible impact, whether boosting sales, enhancing efficiency, or transforming a key aspect of the customer's operations. Success stories involving partnerships, especially those with well-known brands, can significantly bolster a startup's visibility and credibility. 

This approach requires participation from a customer, and is most effective when you can borrow brand authority from the customer. The bigger and more well known, the better. A big name alone, though, does not make a story - there needs to be a problem and solution. Did the company impact sales? Are you tracking efficiency within the organization? The metrics must be there to support the storyline.

Instacart's series of high-profile partnerships serve as a testament to the power of customer stories in generating media interest. In this WTOP (Washington, DC outlet) piece, the local audience learns how the largest area grocery chain, Giant, will benefit shoppers by joining forces with Instacart. Similarly, this CIO article on the chatbot startup Conversable refers to “Fortune 500 companies” using the platform. This is precisely the type of targeted customer experience story that draws coveted media attention for a growing company.     

Thought Leadership

In times when news is scarce, startups can rely on the expertise of their teams to foster engaging media stories. This might involve offering insightful commentary on business challenges and opportunities, or highlighting unique aspects of the startup's culture or business model. The objective here is not solely to promote the startup's offerings but to elevate its brand as a whole. 

Freshbook’s emphasis on its distinctive company culture exemplifies how thought leadership can translate into wide media coverage, enhancing brand awareness. This Globe and Mail article directly ties Freshbook’s “unique culture” to its growth and references the company being named as one of Canada’s best workplaces. And this CNBC feature focuses on the company’s reliance on millennials, taking an alternative spin on the culture storyline which attracted additional impactful media coverage.   

Industry Expertise

Finally, leveraging insights and data that shed light on industry trends or consumer behavior can serve as a powerful tool for media engagement. Providing valuable information that contributes to broader industry discussions can position a startup as a thought leader and go-to source for expertise. Examples include Better.com and Compass, whose release of industry data garnered significant media attention.  

This Forbes article offers an excellent example of this type of story approach, as it demonstrates Better.com and Compass’s expertise on a hot-button topic – minority homebuyers – simply relying on the companies’ proprietary data. By leveraging these internal insights with media, the brands were able to generate impactful coverage without reliance on corporate news. 

In conclusion, while the path to securing media coverage may seem daunting for startups lacking major news announcements, a strategic approach focused on highlighting company milestones, customer success stories, thought leadership, and industry expertise can pave the way for meaningful press engagement. By crafting compelling narratives around these elements, startups can effectively attract media attention, foster interest among potential investors and partners, and ultimately support growth and funding objectives.