If none of these three are true, then relax. "Everybody else should focus that budget on development of the product and building a team internally."
You Are Your Message & Your Message Is Everything
When Hammerling takes on a new client, the first thing she does is separate the key members of the team, including the investors. Then she fires questions at them about the product: “What are you? Why are you? Who are you? What problem are you solving and how are you solving it? Why should people care right now?” The idea is to hear what all of them say — where are the differences? Where are the overlaps? What do the people who care most about the company’s success think it is? This is how a narrative is born.
This was Hammerling’s approach with GroupMe, the mobile messaging startup bought by Skype in 2011. “It’s a great example because they were entering a very crowded space, but it wasn’t chat and it wasn’t just texting — we didn’t even want to call it an app,” she says. “Instead, we called it a ‘messaging service’ and talked about it in the context of a story: the frustration everyone feels when they can’t communicate with a whole group of friends at a music festival or a party. We were able to really differentiate them as a new way for friends to talk to each other.”
A startup can use this strategy without a communications team. “You can come up with your own ideas and compare notes, and develop it together. You might end up somewhere you didn’t predict.” She highlights Uber, not a Brew client, as an expert example of intentional branding.
“They offer themselves as a technology company — not a car service. That’s a very specific message that tells you something about who they are and what they do.”
Brooke Hammerling, Foundet Brew Media Relations
“PR isn’t about hits and it isn’t about placement. It’s about focusing your voice. It’s about finding your place in the market.”
The good thing about separating stakeholders is that everyone will give correct answers to the questions being asked — their delivery will just be different. “It’s not like there’s one perfect answer. Everyone will be right. This just gives you the opportunity to say, oh I like how this one person said that, or how so-and-so explained this concept. You can see who phrased things succinctly and who has a better grasp of the longer narrative. Then you can combine the best.”
The next step is to build what she calls a messaging document, starting with your most succinct, resonant messaging at the top — maybe it’s just one sentence — “It’s what you want to say at everyone has a copy.