Insider Tips for Startups: Building Long-Term PR Success w/ Sonia De Mello | Woodrow

Sonia De Mello: 0:00

Just to put it simply, p helps you with long-term influence, credibility, reputation and marketing is very much more around conversion of products and sales and growth.

‍Anshika Arora: 0:15

Today we're talking all about how you can leverage PR for your business. We discuss the ways to make PR less transactional and more authentic, as well as how to utilize LinkedIn as an incredibly effective tool to build relationships with journalists and outlets. We're honored to have Sonia on the podcast, who has over six years of experience in the PR industry. She currently works at Woodrow Communications, which is a future positive communications consultancy that works to unlock their clients' potential by crafting strategies and stories that influence the future. She's worked with a range of startups and established enterprises, both nationally and internationally. I'm Anshuka, the founder of Eternity, a one-stop shop to effortlessly connect, book and manage wedding services. I'm excited to be hosting the BAE LAB  podcast today, which is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. Thank you so much, onia, for joining us on today's episode of the  BAE LAB  podcast. We're so excited to have you and talk all things PR, so let's just get straight into the deep end. So, starting off very basic, just for founders listening, can you explain the main differences between PR and marketing?

Sonia De Mello: 1:22

Yeah, of course, and thanks so much for having me on today, really excited to be here. I am from a PR background, so that's where I'm going to be able to share most insight from. But in terms of PR and marketing, there's often overlap, but they do serve different purposes. So PR is about managing your brand's reputation, building relationship with key stakeholders that includes media, investors, customers, the public. As the CEO of my PR agency, Charlie Tarr, always says, it's more about influence than just fame. So it's giving brands the ability to shape how people think about certain topics, educate consumers, bring attention to something they may not have thought about in the past and kind of give visibility to something that hasn't been known before.

Sonia De Mello: 2:11

So it's not just about traditional media, though it can also be about social media, getting your brand into policy discussions, in events, podcasts there's so much to it. It just ensures that you can have a longer term impact by becoming a trusted voice in the conversation of your industry and making sure that you're relevant in today's news. Marketing, on the other hand, is more directly tied to promoting a product or service that drive sales, so it does have a bit more of an element of controlling the message and the narrative, whether through advertising, email campaigns, campaigns, social media, again, um. So I would say that for startups it can be a little bit tricky to to manage both with limited resources, but they are critical and they work hand in hand. So, um, just to put it simply, PR helps, helps you with long term influence, credibility, reputation, and marketing is very much more on conversion of products and sales and growth.

Anshika Arora: 3:11

And I know you mentioned there that it can be slightly difficult for startups with limited resources to get those PR ops. But what kind of advice would you give to startups if they're looking to implement PR strategies but ultimately have limited budgets?

Sonia De Mello: 3:26

For sure. I think a few cost effective ways is building a relationship with journalists, and that does not need a big budget.

Sonia De Mello: 3:33

I mean you can be going for a coffee or drink or, you know, inviting them to an event that you're hosting and then making those meaningful media connections is going to be really essential to getting your name out there.

Sonia De Mello: 3:44

So focus on getting to know key journalists in your industry, engage with them on social media, get to know them on a personal level, show genuine interest in what they write about and build those long-term relationships which I can definitely talk about in more detail later. I would also say that social media is such a cost effective tool. So, personally, I think that LinkedIn is, you know, such a powerful, powerful platform to reach senior decision makers, investors, potential talent. So, regularly posting announcements from your company, but also from your founders and your senior level team, and showcasing behind the scenes content, you know, updating on on, like, yeah, the latest announcements it's just a really good and free way to to raise your profile. So, and it's also a way to engage with journalists, you can follow and share their articles and engage them by tagging them and getting in touch with them directly, um off the back of a piece that they did that may have been relevant to you. So there's a lot of more cost effective ways to do this.

Anshika Arora: 4:47

Yeah, absolutely, and I love what you've touched upon there about building the authentic relationship, because you can really see through if you're going into hard sell with a journalist or if you're really trying to build that genuine relationship, because ultimately it pays off in the long run. Would you say that PR is definitely a long run game? Because I think with marketing we live in a day and age where you think, okay, let me do google ads, meta ads, whatever that looks like, and you often get immediate analytics and results on exactly what impact that's having. How would you say that translates into the PR side of things?

Sonia De Mello: 5:20

Yeah, it's a lot trickier to measure PR impact from from the get-go. Rather than exactly understanding how many sales you got from that ad or website traffic. I would say the ways that we usually measure the impact is obviously media mentions, so tracking how much your brand has been featured in press or podcasts or interviews. But I would say that to develop awareness and credibility, you want to make sure you've got a momentum in the media, so you don't want to just be featured one month and then you're silent for the rest of the year. Making sure that you're drip feeding announcements and putting yourself out there in the news regularly and often will just help you gain that visibility in front of media, but also you're the ultimate target audience that you're trying to reach.

Sonia De Mello: 6:12

I would also just say in terms of other ways to measure, you can measure in terms of share of voice, so how often your brand is discussed versus other brands. Your engagement, so you know, monitoring social media engagements, comments, likes, shares, and understanding who is engaging with your brand and whether there are opportunities to be connecting with them later. But I mean, I would say there are ways to to see how a campaign leads to website traffic. For example, google analytics is a great free way to understand which outlets are driving traffic to your website, and there are other trackable links methods that you can get journalists to incorporate within their media piece that will actually tell you how many people are going to your website. So there are ways around it. It's just a little bit harder to measure.

Anshika Arora: 7:00

Absolutely. I think that's really helpful to hear and definitely one of the pieces I'm going to be taking away from that is the competitor side of things. I've never thought about also looking at what my competitors are getting reported in the media and how that relates to myself. So that's super helpful. Thank you. I guess you mentioned a bit on there about keeping that momentum going. So, whether that be through announcements, through data pieces and often that comes around by pitching to certain journalists and trying to understand if the thing that you're trying to pitch is suitable for their outlet Something that we see a lot of is that sometimes storytelling content works better, sometimes data driven content works better and sometimes it's announcement. What would you say is the right balance to strike between the three different options?

Sonia De Mello: 7:43

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question and I think storytelling is so important and it's what differentiates you from other companies.

Sonia De Mello: 7:51

It's that why people should listen to you, and and and that's where um comms is really important.

Sonia De Mello: 7:58

But I would also just stress the importance that PR isn't one size fits all, and one story that works for one news outlet might not be right for who you're targeting.

Sonia De Mello: 8:09

So it's super important to just take a step back before you do this and identify the key audience you're trying to reach.

Sonia De Mello: 8:15

So, for example, if it's an audience you want to reach for the next six months or 12 months, and that might be investors, consumers, retailers, industry partners, you want to just think about who you are trying to influence in that next phase of your business objectives and then think about where they're getting their news from. So, for example, if you're an FMCG brand and you're looking for more retail distribution for your product, focus your attention on media targets like the grocer, for example, because you know that the executives at big distribution and retailers are making their decisions based on that news. I would just say that founders often overlook where your audience consumes the information rather than just what they're consuming. So it's just a balance there, but I know you mentioned data and anecdotes, and compelling data that you can back your personal stories with are also going to help you make your case stronger. So I would say it's a mix of numbers, human led stories and then really understanding where you want to target your audience.

Anshika Arora: 9:27

Perfect. So that's super helpful, Sonia, I guess, following on from that, what would you say is a good thing for founders to keep in mind when they're finding that right hook when they're trying to pitch to journalists?

Sonia De Mello: 9:37

It's really important for you know, founders, to consider the current news cycle.

Sonia De Mello: 9:50

It's very I think it's probably quite easy when you're in a company, when you're focusing on your product, to really be quite siloed, but it's so important to get your head up and think about what's happening in the news, what's culturally relevant, what journalists are talking about, what they're interested in truly relevant, what journalists are talking about, what they're interested in. And so, for example, if it's a product around I mean for children, and it's around like reading reading materials for children, a good time to probably do some sort of announcement is around September, for example, when you know schools are opening, people are going back to school, or is it at the beginning of summer when kids are actually trying to figure out what their reading materials are going to look like. So, in terms of the hook, I think thinking about the, the context and culturally and and the timeliness of that story is really important we hope you're enjoying the episode so far.

Amardeep Parmar: 10:38

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Anshika Arora: 11:13

Okay. So, Sonia, that's really helpful because you've really interestingly touched on and I love the example of if you have a children's business, then September might align with the best time as we go back to school. Equally, what would you say are some effective ways in building that, those relationships with journalists and outlets throughout the year?

Sonia De Mello: 11:32

Even then, even though you know that your pieces may only be applicable to certain seasons, or more so, in particular months, building relationships is very much the foundation of a good PR strategy and it's actually much more than just pitching your story, but it's about building those genuine relationships and connections. So if there are three things to remember when you build a relationship with journalists throughout the year, it's prepping your story and your personal brand, creating meaningful connections and then keeping in touch and being consistent with maintaining that connection. So, in terms of prepping your store and your personal brand, think about what makes you memorable, how you can stand out in front of them and really show your authentic self and why you've developed. You know the organizations that you have, but it's not like pitching to an investor. So try to get rid of that marketing speak or the industry jargon. Make sure you can deliver yours and your brand story in a way that relates to an everyday consumer, through personal anecdotes, interesting data as I mentioned earlier and information that is relevant to the news cycle. But it's about creating meaningful connections.

Sonia De Mello: 12:37

So journalists don't just want to have those superficial relationships. They've got thousands of emails coming in through their inbox every day, so don't try to sell to them straight off the bat. You want to build those relationships first, understand their beat, the stories that they're covering, understand what interests them in a personal level, because you never know where you can connect over there and I think this applies very much to networking in general and not just media relationships. But you want to think about what's newsworthy in their eyes. So understanding their beat and the audience that they're trying to write to is just really important when you're landing that story and the story might not be right for right now, for example, but think about how you can help them out as well. So you know introducing them to someone in your network or a piece of information from an industry in the industry insider could win you some favors down the line, so that when you are reaching out, you've got, they're opening your inbox. So they're opening your whatsapp, um and probably giving you feedback a lot quicker than if you were just called, calling like any sales agent.

Sonia De Mello: 13:45

So it's about keeping in touch. Don't just reach out when you want something to be announced. Engage with them regularly, you know. Keep in touch, share valuable insights, articles that are relevant to them, comment on their stories on social media and when you do have something to pitch, I would say to think about planning that one month in advance. You're going to need some time to create the assets, that's, your press, release your pitches, and then you want to get in touch about two to three weeks before the announcement goes live, just a soft sell, and then, closer to that time I mean, it really depends on what journalists and if they're a feature writer versus a news writer but you want to, yeah, have as not too much space that they'll forget about your story in the meantime, but still enough time for them to write about it, think about it, ask questions and, yeah, hopefully write about your, about your product or your launch or your announcement or whatever that is.

Anshika Arora: 14:42

And I guess, on that, are there any specific tools or platforms that you recommend for founders when it comes to PR, just to assist them a bit more.

Sonia De Mello: 14:51

I mean there are definitely a few cost-effective tools, but I do want to focus on LinkedIn. I know I've mentioned it earlier. It's a gold mine for founders looking to raise their profile and connect with the right audience. I mean, it's the largest corporate social media network. One in four LinkedIn users are senior level decision makers, so you can use that your personal platform to target them with engaging content, and the algorithm is actually really prioritizing individuals over brands, so it's an opportunity for founder-led content to really lead the way.

Sonia De Mello: 15:25

And there's actually a rise in vertical videos that you may have seen. A few big media titles are talking about it this week. Even so, CEOs are starting to use more informal, relatable videos to reach investors and customers, and that's like behind the scene. There's a video of some pretty big CEOs walking through the corridors of their office talking about their earnings reports, but also in just a very casual way that has attracted audiences. So I would say that you should empower yourself and your senior leadership team to do the same. So it's not just about brands page anymore, but it's showing the people that make up this company and really bringing that story to life through interesting social media content.

Anshika Arora: 16:07

That's definitely a massive trend that we've seen, I think. On a recent podcast, we spoke about how it's switching from UGC, which is the user generated content, over to EGC, which is employee generated content, which is employee generated content. So it's really interesting to see that such not just be prevalent in something like TikTok or Instagram, but also coming through in LinkedIn, specifically when it comes to building that personal brand. Amazing, I guess. As we close off, what would you say are some of the most common mistakes, um, that startups make with PR?

Sonia De Mello: 16:38

Yeah, I'd say probably it's lack of prep and when people are pitching to media and there's a chance that startups may not research the journalist properly or their audience and think about how their story really fits within that current media trend or what that journalist is interested in. So it's really important to do your homework, like read the publication, understand what's relevant to them, read that journalist piece from before. You know they may be tricky in some interviews. So you want to make sure that you're prepped for that and I would just say, consider media training. Just because you're a founder or you're experienced in your field doesn't necessarily mean that you're really good at speaking to journalists, and they can be quite tough.

Sonia De Mello: 17:20

So it's. There's numerous ways to prep for media training and that will help you land your message in front of in the most impactful way. So you know shameless plug I work at a company called Woodrow that offers media training and leadership coaching and that's something that we do day in and day out and love to watch our founders do really well on the news because of it. And I would just say that maybe the other thing is just focusing too much on the product, for example. So it's a trap of thinking that PR is just solely to show a product launch, for example, or dive into a specific announcement.

Sonia De Mello: 17:57

But because it's a long-term game, you want to think about your overall brand story and your vision and impact and how this specific moment or announcement will impact the wider industry that you're playing in. So I would just say those are the two things to consider in terms of PR.

Anshika Arora: 18:16

Yeah, and I think that ties in really nice and kind of a full circle moment to what we started off with, where you explained the differences between PR and marketing, and marketing is definitely a lot more product or service led, whereas PR is the story around it. Thank you so much, Sonia. It's been amazing having you on the podcast today and having you on the podcast today and I've learned so much, and I'm sure all of the founders listening have as well. As you know, before we close up the podcast, we always ask our guests three main questions, so I'll kick it off with number one, who are three British Asians doing some incredible work that you think our listeners to should watch out for.

Sonia De Mello: 18:50

I'm so excited about this question it's. It's great um. I would kick off with Hamzah Selim. He's a nhs medic and he developed an app called Mindstep which basically helps um deliver fast, accessible and clinically approved neurological diagnosis. So it's through an app, basically. He noticed that snapchat was allowing um you, basically through VR, you could tell where your eyes are moving and create like these different visual things on your face through Snapchat. But he actually used that technology to help assess everything from migraine and brain fog to concussion on the app and the team has um come together to create some an amazing data-driven app to to help identify issues specifically around mental health, which is now um at the same accuracy as a regular GP, and they're now um, you know, partnered with nhs, which is really cool.

Sonia De Mello: 19:47

So I would say number one is Hamzah. Number two is Sohini Banerjee. She's a supper club host and private chef. She is really inspired by her Bengali roots but also, having grown up in the UK, to create really interesting food experiences. I've been eating her food for maybe like pre-COVID, so maybe six, seven years, six, seven years, and it's been amazing to see her go from um organizing smaller supper clubs at her house to working with big events and brand partners to to bring this more, this different way of cooking, to life, which has been awesome. And then the last one is Nadir Nahdi. He is a storyteller and a filmmaker and he uses his social media platforms to showcase the impact of food and culture on identity and communities, and um has just created some really inspiring content that I highly recommend um checking out. It's just a beautiful way of using social media and creativity to to actually showcase brands, but also stories and communities, and um, yeah, just creates really amazing storytelling amazing.

Anshika Arora: 20:58

Thank you so much. We'll be sure to check them out, and how can we find out a bit more about you and the company?

Sonia De Mello: 21:03

In terms of finding more about me, uh, get in touch with me by LinkedIn. Um, I'm sure we'll share some links around, but pop me a message directly. I do separately run a food Instagram called Trans Atlantic foodies, so I love to share food and restaurant inspirations in London and abroad. So, you know, give it a follow if you need some foodie recommendations. Um, they're more professionally. Uh, check out Woodrow's um. It's um where I work, a PR agency where 30 people based in London, Nairobi and New York. We just to share a little bit more about us, we're a team of 30 crafting strategies and stories that help our clients to shape the conversations of tomorrow. So, from media relations and advocacy to sustainability campaigning, content creation, we offer a full suite of comm services. So we're proud to work with everything from multinational services, trade bodies, foundations and a lot of entrepreneurs. So it was great to speak about them today. But definitely check us out online and on LinkedIn. We're very active on Instagram as well, so check out Woodrow Communications.

Anshika Arora: 22:10

Amazing, and is there anything that our audience listening can do to help you?

Sonia De Mello: 22:15

Probably just give us a check out our website and LinkedIn, give us a follow and get in touch. I love to help people out with their PR questions, so I'm sure there's a way we can work together in the future. Absolutely Any final words from you. Remember that, as founders, PR is all about relationships and, whether it's media or your presence on LinkedIn, it's about telling a story that people will connect with. So, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, consider it more around building out your influence rather than just gaining fame.

Amardeep Parmar: 22:50

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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