Public Relations has been notoriously hard to measure.  Back in the day, PR was all about relationships (it still is) and consistency and availability (it still is) in order to cultivate those critical voices in the market.  Today, PR is measured using many different metrics:  website traffic, influence, sentiment, numbers of followers, friends, retweets, and more. The “authority” and reputation that PR helps to build over time is critical to track.  In fact, in the last ten years or so, we’ve gone from almost no measurement to a sometimes-confusing range of metrics.

What hasn’t changed is the number of capable, experienced, strategic PR professionals available to develop and own the PR program for a high-growth startup.  There are simply too few of them.  We’ve seen a lot of wheat and chaff out there in terms of the PR professionals that “speak startup.” To get the right PR team for your startup, here’s what to watch out for:

Hostage PR– This is where the PR team won’t make a move until the client delivers final versions of all documents, from PPT to FAQs to press releases.  They have no room for iterations or tweaks.  You’re on their schedule, rather than the other way around.  If your PR firm can’t handle double-digit revisions of a press release (which is fairly common when you’re in creation mode at a startup), you’ve got the wrong PR team.

Big Hat PR– A riff on the phrase “big hat, no cattle,” this is a PR firm that likes to talk big—especially about past successes—but in reality exhibits an inability to drive to decisions, deliverables and real action on behalf of the client.  Every startup needs their PR pro to elbow their way to the big table and to be able to hold their own when they get there — with senior management or with the board — by bringing real-world experience, domain expertise, current media connections and creative thinking.  Most of all, a startup founder is counting on a PR pro joining your team, not waiting on the sidelines.

Lightweight PR– When all of the heavy lifting seems to be on the client side, it’s lightweight PR.  There may be program calendars, deadlines for pitches and writing deadlines galore.  But when you look down your “to do” list, it’s your initials next to all of the deliverables, not theirs.  For example, if you’re doing all the first drafts, you’re not getting your money’s worth from your PR team, regardless of the monthly retainer or project rate.  If your PR team can’t deliver a first draft, for example, they haven’t learned your language and you need to make a switch.

All kidding aside, PR is a vital ingredient for a startup marketing plan.  In the early days, an effective PR team that “speaks startup” can play an essential, strategic role that will help put your company on the map.  Our advice, don’t settle.  There are great PR pros out there for you that can make a difference.

Let’s start at The Start.  Whether you call it the ‘opening slide’ or ‘introductory slide’, it’s the most underused/wasted slide in the deck.  A typical company (let’s call them You.com) sees this slide as something you get through to get to the meat of the issue.  So they lead off with something like: ‘Introducing You.com’.  Or worse, they go with some clip-art of two hands shaking underneath the title:  “You.com and ______(insert prospect company name): A Winning Team.”

We teach that the first slide should contain either a bold claim (“Measure every application for every user.”) or a compelling customer benefit (“Your face clears up. Overnight.”).  It can and should be a conversation starter—a way to make the meeting interactive from the very beginning.  The earlier it becomes a conversation and not a monologue, the better disposed the prospect is to you and your solution.

 So, Tip #1:  Don’t let your opening slide go to waste:  put it to good use.

More to come…

Virtual residue-

Like-jacking-  A common social-spam attack on Facebook, known as “like-jacking,” involves duping users into clicking on an image that looks as if a friend has clicked the “Like” button, recommending it.

Cloud watch-  Your product is not really a cloud-based offering.  Instead, you’re giving customers a managed hosting approach, so they’re really on a cloud watch more than a true, multi-tenant instance of a software solution.

Intellectual ostrich- It’s unusual to find creatures lurking about centers of technology innovation like Silicon Valley who lack the intellectual curiosity to stay on top of technologies, applications, trends and developments.  It’s the rare “intellectual ostrich” among us who cannot muster the mental effort to stay abreast of the latest.  But they’re out there…watch out!

What other trends do you think are out/in?

* infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, database as a service

The Blaise Pascal Law

The length of a startup’s press release is in inverse relationship to its news value.

The Headcount Rule

The number of suits attending the weekly PR planning meeting are in direct relationship to the size of your monthly retainer.

The Law of Missing Vowels

The more consonants in the name of the startup or its product, the smaller the marketing budget.

The Rule of Swag

The more swag that’s visible on employees at an early-stage company, the higher the mortality rate of the startup by a factor of 10.

The Law of Nepotism

The higher the number of employees related to board members or founders, the shorter the average tenure of your employees.

Buzzword Roadkill:  The Rule of Three

If the CEO speaks frequent ‘buzz’ (can use three terms like ‘engagement’, ‘resonate’ and ‘compelling’ in a single sentence,) short the stock.

Death by 1,000 Revs:  The Law of Camels

If the number of revisions to your sales presentation reaches double digits (due to “design by committee”,) the impact of the presentation falls by half.

The Law of Cheap Bastards 

As soon as a startup’s payables cycle stretches to 60 days, its access to top vendors and contractors falls dramatically.

Naked Brands Will Rise – In 2012, companies will begin to rethink the choice of “English-word” names for their business or product, in light of the growing role of social search.  As companies begin to appreciate that invented names are easier to identify in social search (and therefore make it easier to engage followers and brand influencers), invented names will become more valuable.

The Mobile Tsunami Grows More Powerful – A trade association has named each of the last few years “the year of mobile.”  But in 2012, the tidal wave of adoption of smartphones and the rise of the gang of four platforms coalescing on mobile devices – Amazon (marketplace, content and infrastructure), Facebook (social), Apple (tablets and entertainment) and Google (search, social and payment)– will make mobile more important than it’s ever been.  This has massive implications for any startup marketer wishing to deliver content and acquire and engage new users.  For 2012, every marketer should, at a minimum, start by making their website mobile friendly.

Content Elevates Corporate Marketing – The role of corporate marketing will rise in startups, as the increasing role of data and measurement highlights the crucial part that content has in engaging customers and maximizing their value.  And that’s not a tweet that lasts a mere 20 minutes on average.  Thoughtful, consistent, strategic and well-crafted content – everything from white papers to video to podcasts – is vital to recruiting and converting early customers to gain traction in the market.  And it’s corporate marketing that will drive the development of content, measure its role in building and converting site traffic, and ultimately target the best performing content to drive growth.

The Cloud Becomes Obsolete – As almost everything becomes “cloud-based,” this label will become less and less important as a differentiator.  Increasingly, we will see the rise of new “service” labels and market categories:  infrastructure-as-a-service, database-as-a-service, etc.  To stand out in the crowd in 2012, think hard about how much “cloud” is in your marketing.

Playing Defense with Patents – As patent trolls continue to roam the startup countryside and as technology-driven companies continue to innovate their way onto the market, smart startups will change their IP strategy.  Early patent filings will prove to be a defensive weapon for many startups, particularly as new patent laws go into effect in early 2013 that favor earlier, cheaper filing to protect IP.

Gamification: Just Say No – People will stop talking about it already.  It’s a design feature. Please.

Privacy Over Transparency – Again, stop talking about it.  Focus instead on the hot button issue of privacy.  Marketing leaders in 2012 will know, understand, publish, and adhere to privacy standards that your customers can know and trust.

Social Media Rules – After recognizing the benefits of social media in PR and inbound marketing, savvy startup marketing leaders will appreciate that consistent investment in social media also has long-term benefits in search.  In progressive startups, social media staffing will move out of PR and marketing and be elevated in the organization.  It will become more of a strategic role for customer engagement and reputation management.

Crowdturfing–

Astroturfing– This is the practice of disguising online marketing or lobbying campaigns as grassroots efforts.  Crowdturfing: Black Hat Social Media Scam on the Rise (Infoboom).

Chinese Water Army– In a blog post on Technology Review the expression “Chinese Water Army,” described the crowdturfing and astroturfing practices using this term because they “flood” social sites with spam comments.

Smishing– Text messages on your cell phone could direct you to “phishing” pages – fake sites meant to trick you into disclosing personal information and passwords – and the new term for these is “smishing,” a riff on SMS, another term for texts.

Threatscape– The information security landscape and the collective viewpoint of the threats and vulnerabilities facing business and consumers today has been dubbed “threatscape” by a number of IT security experts.  It’s also been grabbed as the name of at least one player in the market space.

It’s not that we’re anti-event.  Some events, such as those run by analysts and other associations—where every company is more or less equal in the space and time it gets to pitch its story—are well worth the expense.  But trade shows, especially for small companies with tight budgets, will always go to the bottom of the ROI list.  First off, a 10×10 booth, which is all that most startups can afford, hardly screams ‘legitimate and here to stay’.  And the cost for the booth is just the start:  there’s the time to prepare, the time and expense of participation, and the storage costs afterwards.  Couple that with Sales’ general disdain for trade show leads and you can see why they fall to the bottom of our list.

On the other hand, we do advise our clients to launch at industry events when possible, but to do it off-floor—in a suite or meeting room. You get all the benefits of the show at a fraction of the cost.  Or, if there are sponsorship opportunities at an industry event, that’s worth a look.  Sponsorships can give a startup branding opportunities along with a speaker or panelist slot and access to attendee leads, all of which can deliver valuable ROI in startup marketing.

Pre-Powerpoint companies– It’s two technologists who have a great idea but they haven’t even raised a seed round.  No marketing required.

Pre-Seed companies– The founders are probably moving from a garage to setting up shop at Plug and Play, or one of the many incubators or accelerators.  They are likely self-funded and are making the rounds seeking early funding from an Angel investor.  Marketing is not even on the radar.

Pre-Traction companies– Somewhere between seed round and Series B, these startups have a product and a handful of proof-of-concept customers, but no real market traction that will help scale the company.  Marketing is done on a preliminary basis: name, ID, shadow website, analyst PPT, etc.

A Restart– They are still a startup.  They are likely already at a Series B round or beyond.  But something’s gone awry – a new competitor, product glitch, or the sales ramp is slower than expected and there’s impatience at the board.  Or, perhaps there’s been a shakeup in management and a new CEO has been named who is setting a new course.  The point is that the “restart” button has been punched and the team is regrouping with a new plan.  Marketing is often labeled as part of what’s gone wrong in the past and we’re brought in to analyze where they are in the market today, where and how Sales is encountering difficulties, and are the systems in place to track and develop their new business opportunities.

The goal with all of these startups is to engage Marketing at the right time and make the right investment.  Using a bad nautical analogy– it’s cheapest to service or fix a boat in dry dock (pre-launch) than out in the safe waters of the harbor (around the launch) or, most expensively, when the boat is out in the open sea (the dreaded restart).