Leveraging PR to launch a new tech product

Intro

Let’s begin, so you have a new tech product? Great! But wondering how to leverage PR to launch this? When it comes to a product launch many aspects can be taken into consideration, such as conducting in-depth market research, forming a positioning strategy, developing promotional campaigns, etc. In contrast, businesses these days have loads of customer information, they are still unable to act upon it. What if this information can be crucial when formalising a PR strategy to launch your tech product?

In addition, whether you’re in Saas, blockchain, AI or fintech PR’s main goal is to get your brand noticed, raise your brand credibility and facilitate conversion from prospect to client.

Warm-Up

Building momentum with the right media goals and techniques

#startup media goal: If you are a tech startup looking for a tech PR, start backwards by setting SMART media goals, to understand what you want to gain out of that particular activity.

Specific: Are your goals well defined?

Measurable: Can you measure the impact?

Attainable: Are they realistic?

Relevant: Are they relevant for your industry, customer base, and potential investors?

Time-based: Have you decided on the deadline or perfect time to launch?

Example: Launching a tech product as a startup

If you are a tech startup company,  your media goal should focus on building credibility. Your actions should comprise as follows.

Actions: Your product launch strategy should focus on getting social proof for your brand, long before, start showcasing and incline your actions by appearing on tech blogs, professional review sites, and consumer tech shows. You must build evidence that your company is an expert in the field and one should take you seriously.

Leverage Buzzing Trends

First things first, for PR it’s critical to analyse the trends and set realistic objectives. It’s good to be ambitious, but what’s the point if you don’t have realistic metrics to analyse your performance. One easy fact to comprehend, journalists are interested in knowing your story, I am sure you must have heard, good stories sell, well it does. Your brand story should be fundamentally correct before your PR activity.

1. Why do you do what you do?
2. How does your company impact others?
3. Who works with you? What’s your company culture?
4. Is your company approach different from your competitors? If yes, what is the positive impact?
5. Can your company story inspire others?
6. Is your business innovative or original to what is available in the market?
7. Do you go beyond your tech product and service offering to support your clients?

Journalists in the tech sector are less inclined to cover your tech product unless you are among Tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Salesforce, etc. Talking about leveraging, Canon leveraged packaging trends for its tech product PR, Canon displayed the product where innovation is clearly announced which can entice a niche reader to engage with it. Therefore, setting realistic objectives and analysing trends is crucial to launch your tech product.

For example, if you are an AR or VR company, join the conversation at tech conferences and summits about the growth of AI, future marketing trends and try to showcase the value you can add.

Leverage Influencer Strategy

Similarly, another key element that drives PR news value is an influencer strategy. How about bringing authority around your tech product launch? For example, if you are planning to do a product launch at a tech conference, influential community members can play a role in delivering the limelight in front of your captive audience. As a matter of fact, if your tech product is something that is actually breaking the barriers, everyone will be happy to associate themselves with it. Journalists frequently prefer to speak with tech specialists, to get their heads around the potential of new products or services they can deliver.

Audible used this strategy where they collaborated with the influencers.

However, we believe it’s not necessary that you always require a particular launch date to get coverage, do amazing things, build community/culture and use it as a milestone to get featured. Furthermore, social media and other marketing activities can be used to achieve great results for your tech PR.

How to work with influencers to achieve sustainable growth in your start-up? Listen to great advice from the founder & CEO of Fitwell, a London based AI wellness tech start-up, on our podcast Tech Brains Talk.

Leverage Broadcasting

Likewise, instead of just concentrating on the product, focus on building the soul of your tech product before the launch. Podcasts can be one of the effective ways to generate awareness for your product. What do you need to do? You will need people from your organisation or founders to step up and give your product a soul. On our podcast, many tech Entrepreneurs shared actionable insights to keep your brand trend relevant.

Leverage strategic partnerships

Strategic partnerships can serve as a rising ladder for your business. Co-branding partnerships can be useful to get your company under the limelight. An interesting example, where Mastercard collaborated with Apple. MasterCard became the first credit card company to allow its users to store their credit and debit cards on Apple Pay.

Partnerships like this can improve your brand value and build a positive image for the services you can offer in the eye of the public.

Leveraging HARO

Journalists are always in search of good sources, websites like helpareporter.com can be a useful medium to get your name out.  After signing up for this you will receive requests from reporters to share your views. It is one of those ways which can set you in motion, to build your relations with the press.

Leverage high value owned media content

Generally, tech PR is not only about reaching out to journalists solely. Your content strategy is crucial for your PR as well. Your owned media needs to be adequate, where your audience can relate to it. If you are an established tech company launching a new product, grab attention from columnists to ensure your website and social channels are efficient at converting your increased traffic into leads or sales.

Wrap up

In conclusion, you will win when your media objectives are aligned with your business objectives. Likewise, from brand messaging, brand identity to your brand positioning, in order to solidify your voice in the industry, you need to focus on your tech PR, the content of information communicated to your audience, managing word of mouth and social media contributions.