Running a business or a nonprofit can be stressful and often requires the kind of long hours and sleepless nights typically associated with house-training a new puppy. There are many hats to wear, and more moving parts than a Rube Goldberg device. So it's no wonder that many first-time entrepreneurs, and even seasoned ones, often miss the signs that their brand actually needs PR. And it's tricky to tell whether a brand is too early, too late, or just right for PR. Fortunately, I've written some ground rules to help you know when to start, based on my 25+ years brand promotion.

Finding a Good Marketer Nowadays.
I believe marketing should be something that most people can understand, and I work hard to help my clients understand what good marketing really is. I'm tired of tech bros in marketing spouting off acronyms at their customers like everyone in the room has an MBA. There's no 100% proven formula that every brand should follow. There's no "do these five things" guarantee to business success with your email marketing campaigns. Don't trust people who try and sell you their system, despite never having met you. Instead, look for those who genuinely care, who get results, love what they do, and who are dedicated to their craft. These will be people who have walked the marketing path with hundreds of brands and they know how to guide you to a future that works for you.

So now we come to the part of the timeline where AI is not only in the picture, it's screaming at the top of our feeds, it's literally "making" news. It's 30% of the videos promoted to us online (not an official statistic, but more of a speculative one). A lot of brands are wondering how to stand out from the slop, whether or not they should use AI to make their marketing materials, and what the future of customer engagement looks like now. So here is my honest opinion, and yes, it flies against the multi-billion dollar agenda Big Tech wants us all to believe.

Friends, this is a time when being human matters.
Being weird matters. Being authentic matters. The truth is, it has always mattered, but they gave us cell phones and social media feeds to doomscroll so that we would become more distracted, anxious, and easy to control.

Hiring a PR firm is a big step for any new or growing brand. If you've reached this point, congratulations, you’ve gotten farther than a lot of other brands ever have. Here are seven common myths to avoid when considering hiring a PR firm.

1. The Best PR Firms Are Really Big
Choosing a big PR firm that works with big clients can be a bad choice for new and emerging brands for several reasons. Big PR firms are expensive for cost-conscious brands. Unless they have a “small brand” department big PR firms are mainly focused on their big, name-brand clients, because they look good, and they bring in most of the money. Most big PR firms don’t specialize in the nuances of startups. While they may have fancy reports and a fleet of underlings to meet with you regularly, big PR firms don’t usually understand the specific needs of budding entrepreneurship associated with startups. You’re better off looking for PR firms that specialize in, and have results for companies of a similar size and focus to yours.

You’re busy running a startup. You don’t have a communications “team” of 50 people to help you prepare for conversations with the press. You personally don’t have time for an intensive 2 week course on media training. What you DO have is an interview or media opportunity in two days that you’re scared to death about.

Fear not. Here’s what you need to know to get started.

​1. Know The Show
Familiarize yourself with the show or venue you’re going to be on. Do your homework. If it’s a blog, read previous articles. If it’s a TV show, watch previous episodes. If it’s a podcast, or radio show, listen to a few episodes. If it’s available, read over the list of episode titles and guests over the last few months. Try and get a sense of why the show exists and what it’s about.

No product sells itself without help–not even in the best of times. So how is your business supposed to market itself when, as they say in Hamilton, “the world turned upside down?”

On the marketing and PR front, a lot has changed. Ads from “the before time” featuring large crowds or one-on-one interactions can be downright triggering. Regular marketing and PR cycles have been disrupted, major events have been canceled, and seasonal trends that worked last year just don’t make sense now. 

On the homefront, Americans face problems that keep people up at night. More people are working from home, if they’re lucky enough to still have a job. Kids are “learning from home,” putting extra strain on parents and caregivers. Unemployment in the United States is at a historic high. Many have lost loved ones. Many are wondering how they’re going to get through this time.

So what’s a marketer to do? It doesn’t seem right to try to get people jazzed about your product when the world is so very different than it was mere months ago.

Fortunately, there are some simple guidelines to help you keep your company’s brand as stable as possible, despite this most unusual and difficult time.

​To say that PR and the media has changed in the last decade is an understatement. We’ve gone from a 24-hr news cycle to a multi-platform, 24/7, saturated media culture with up-to-the minute headlines that change with the slightest of input.

So what’s a startup to do? Can you still make headlines? What’s changed and what’s still the same? The answers are in the new book; Snow Tires for Startups: How to Get PR Traction. Here are three of the tried and true takeaways from the book that your startup needs to know about PR today.

​Knowing when to start PR isn’t always easy, especially for startups. In my years of public relations and marketing experience, very few startups begin their PR efforts too early. Some startups wait to begin public relations until they’ve been selling products for over a year, and some wait until they feel like they have a story worth sharing. With so many outside voices insisting that a startup “must start now” on advertising, social media, SEO, rebranding, choosing an office space, hiring a team, winning awards, and giving cars as signing bonuses, it’s a lot. I get it. 

Face it; there are a lot of emails that will never be read. Don't let yours be one of them. Here are seven deadly mistakes email marketers make.

1. Your Subject Line Is Pointless.
​The first few words have to compel the reader to keep reading and open your email. If you're having a 25% off sale, lead with the words: "25% off." Don't lead with the words: "Today only, get a special, once-a-year promotion for 25% off your entire purchase."
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2. Your Preview Text Wastes Space.
You've seen it; that text that previews an email's content. Too many n00b brands and some established ones waste that space with boilerplate, unsubscribe text, or other, non-essential information. This is often a remnant of the email sending service you are using. Send a test to yourself before sending the email to a group. If the preview text is not your immediate content, modify your template so that information is placed elsewhere. Preview text should always be compelling. -- mac windows, gmail, outlook, iPhone Android

You've survived the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and even earned your startup a few media mentions in the process. You're finally taking off. As far as you're concerned, your name belongs up there with Musk, Zuckerberg, and Curie.

You may think the bulk of your PR work is done for the year, but it's only just begun. The difference between startups that flicker and fade and those who become household brands is all about media presence–continued media presence. Here are the most common PR mistakes startups make after CES.

Introducing the media to your startup is an important job–one that shouldn’t be done without careful research and consideration. Knowing what to expect from a potential PR firm is often challenging for startups. Here are some must-ask questions to address with any PR firm your startup is thinking of working with.

Who will do most of the daily work of promoting my startup?
Large PR firms often have interns and in-experienced people on-hand to conduct research, preform initial pitches, and manage smaller accounts. Since you’re paying a PR firm to represent you, you should know what you’re paying for and how much of your account will be handled by “underlings” versus senior management. ​

2. You Don’t Care About Your Appearance:
Relying on old PR placements shows that staying relevant isn’t important to your brand. When media placements for a brand are more than a month or two old, it’s the same as wearing dirty laundry to work; it looks bad, people notice, and no one will tell you.

3. You’re Wasting SEO Opportunities:
One of the number one ways people research new products is online, and media placements are a great way to drive SEO for your brand. If you’re not actively getting your share of media placements, your brand is missing some meaningful web-traffic.

4. You’re crippling your sales team:
Sure great salespeople can sell “anything” but if you have Ghost PR Syndrome, your forcing your team to trot out the same horse time, after time, trying to sell to leads, who are becoming more and more familiar with the competition. Current media placements can go a long way to lending credibility to your product and that can speed-up and unburden your sales team.

5. You’re Isolating Your Customers:
Lack of PR makes current customers less confident in the best of times and more skeptical if they have a problem. Hanging out with the “cool kids” is still a thing. Even if you have won customers and they’ve been with you for a long time, they may decide to go with the competition if the news is raving about how wonderful a similar product is. For customers who’ve had a problem, (as long as that problem is handled in a favorable way), positive media stories can help them have faith in your company while their problem is sorted out, leading them to believe that their issue is isolated, and not the tip of the iceberg of doom for your brand.
 
Is Ghost PR Syndrome Preventable?
Yes. You need to make PR a priority for your brand. Work with a firm that understands your desire to stay relevant in your market. Talk with a number of firms who represent brands of a similar size and industry to yours. Talk with fellow founders, executives, and colleagues and ask who they recommend. You can overcome Ghost PR Syndrome and get your brand back on track.

The Bottom Line: 
If you want your company to stand out, attract new customers, and stay relevant, active PR should be one of the most-valuable, most-used tools in your marketing toolbox.

​Have you ever had a PR campaign that just didn't work? Are you planning a new campaign? Here's the top 8 reasons PR campaigns fail and what you should avoid.

1. You're Starting Too Late

Do you have a story that has to "go live" this week? Next week? You're too late. Sure, you can try and see what happens, but you need to have sent out your stories at least two to four weeks in advance.

Looking to get coverage in a print magazine, try three months or more in advance.

Looking to get your new product/service on a major TV show? That could easily take 6 months of hard work and dedication.

Do you have a holiday campaign coming up? Start in August or September. After that, it's too late.

Starting with a new PR firm? Bring them on, at least a month before you need to start pitching anything.