PR Talks: Navigating New York
Megan Hartwick answers questions about her PR experiences and what she recommends for those looking to thrive in the NY mediascape.
The New York Times, Business Insider, Forbes, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal — These are dream publications for thousands of Public Relations professionals from all over the world, myself included. Doing PR in the US, especially in NYC is an amazing learning experience and a professional opportunity. I still remember my excitement when I held in my hands the first-ever New York Times feature on the startup I was working for back then — called Blueground (I still have the print clipping on my desk!). It took us a couple of weeks to make it happen because the editor was asking for follow-up interviews with executives and clients, a photoshoot with their photographer as well as a lot of information and data. Fortunately, the end result was worth every minute!
As you may have figured out by now, in this blog post we are going to discuss the New York Media and Startup landscape. My guest is Megan Hartwick, a woman and PR professional who I really admire and I am happy to call a friend. Having worked at both PR agencies and in-house, Megan has vast experience in tech PR. We also happen to share the same passion for public relations and startups. For this interview, we chatted about startups, Media, what every first-time entrepreneur in NYC should know, and many more exciting topics. Hope you will enjoy our conversation.
Thank you, Megan, for taking the time to share your story and your knowledge with us. Would you please tell us a bit more about yourself and your experience?
I am a PR professional in New York. I’ve been in the industry for about eight years now and I started off on the agency side of things. Now I work in-house at a company called Templafy which is in the SaaS space. I started my career at a very small boutique PR agency in New York called Affect. My clients there were highly technical in the B2B space — think electric providers and AEC technology. Not exactly the New York PR glam you might expect, but it was a really great place to learn the fundamentals and the foundations of PR. Afterward, I joined another PR agency called Diffusion and I worked there for about four and a half years. I started as an Account Executive and worked all the way up to Account Director where I was overseeing a portfolio of different clients from consumer to B2B companies. Working at Diffusion was great because I gained experience working with so many different types of startups and companies at various stages of growth. Then, I joined a real estate tech startup — Blueground — for about a year and now I am at Templafy where I am leading the company’s global strategic communications strategy.
That’s impressive! Speaking of agencies, what do you think startups should do — hire a big agency, go with a boutique agency or look for an agency that is focused on startups?
It really depends on what your needs are. I think in the beginning, if your goals are really just to get that exposure and to get some brand awareness and media coverage, you can work with a smaller, more boutique agency. Generally, they have folks on staff who are very good at media relations, storytelling, and securing that kind of coverage. When you’re talking to agencies or when you’re evaluating them, make sure to ask for examples of coverage they’ve been able to place for their other clients. Don’t overlook that as a small portion of the spec process. Also, ask to speak to some other customers as references.
For companies who are looking to establish themselves in the US market, you should look for somebody with a wide breadth of experience. I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t go to an agency that only has experience in one specific vertical or one specific industry because that’s basically like buying a playbook that already exists. Choosing a specialized agency means you may not have access to the same variety of new ideas circulated from varied perspectives. When you work with people or agencies that have a really broad, vast experience with a lot of different topics, you’re getting their ideas from the B2B side, from the B2C side, and combining it all together. That’s really where the most creativity often comes up in terms of planning. This is really important specifically for tech companies. There are a million tech companies out there, yours needs to be doing and saying something different.
I totally agree with you. It all depends on the company’s needs and who would be working with the agency. At many startups, the CEOs / founders do all the PR. In this case, what would you advise?
If a CEO decides that they want to be involved in PR in the very beginning, the best thing that they can do is educate themselves on what they’re hoping to achieve. I don’t mean just sitting down and writing out goals, such as “ I want to be in The New York Times.”, but taking time to actually understand the impact that PR can have on their business. Most times I’ve seen PR fail is when the CEO has this expectation that they are going to get in The New York Times every week and doesn’t truly understand the process of PR and the value it can bring if it’s done properly. In this case of an NYT piece every week, any agency or practitioner would likely fail because what they want is highly unlikely. Being able to educate themselves on what the actual benefits are for their business will lead to success. Then finding an agency that shares those values and can help them plan for growth, because that’s another piece of it, right? Relationships with agencies are a two-way street.
You want them to be a strategic partner at the end of the day since what you’re doing with PR is communicating the milestones and messages of the company externally. Having a shared vision with your PR partner is essential.
That’s a very good point about The New York Times. As I mentioned in the beginning, getting published in NYT was like a dream for me. When people outside NYC think about PR in the US they think about NYT.
Yes, agreed. Entrepreneurs who are expanding into New York have The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, and Fast Company top of mind when they’re thinking about PR and they think that hiring an agency means being in all these publications during the first month. But most of the time, this doesn’t happen. Those publications require a certain threshold of information to make stories “media-worthy.” Simply because it’s news to the CEO or their community does not mean it’s media worthy. Any PR person worth their salt will tell you when a story will hook the interest of a reporter or media outlet and when it won't. Getting featured in those top-tier, mainstream publications takes time.
Being told “no” now doesn’t mean “no forever”, it just means not yet. And keep in mind that every publication has different requirements.
For TechCrunch, it usually has to be a unique, first-solution-to-market company launch or a fundraising announcement. You have to pick these really big milestone moments as storytelling opportunities and plan ahead of them.
In regards to an outlet like The New York Times, I always say that it is even harder to get into because they’re not going to cover those company milestone moments, really, unless you’re a huge tech company like Google or Salesforce. For these types of outlets, you want to start by pitching a trend story that pinpoints the relevance of your company and brings a unique angle that hasn’t been covered to the table. Also know — that might not be enough to secure a story! But if you’re good, it will start a relationship with the reporter and over time, that relationship can lead to a discussion that helps uncover the right media opportunity for the company. We cannot forget that the best media relations is a two-way relationship between the company and the reporter or outlet — you want to understand their weekly columns, their beats, how they report, and what they’re interested in. From there it’s about building up to a storytelling opportunity that can meet all of those marks.
Very good advice. Now, let’s say that a startup is planning to announce upcoming funding round with the aim to target new investors. What publications that they should have in mind?
I would definitely say TechCrunch. But there are also a lot of other investor-focused publications to consider in the NYC/US media landscape like Axios, VentureBeat, AlleyWatch.
Exclusivity versus Non-exclusivity. What is your opinion on that?
Giving an exclusive means offering one reporter and outlet only the opportunity to tell a specific story. There are a few reasons why you’d consider offering an exclusive: you could be telling a really specific, important, complex, and/or sensitive story and want the opportunity to work closely with one reporter to give an in-depth view. Exclusives can often excite reporters or outlets as they consider the prospect of covering your news because getting that exclusive means they’re the first ones to break and cover the story. However from the company’s perspective, if you want to use an exclusive strategy, you have to be comfortable with the fact that it may be the only piece of coverage you ever get. Once the news is covered by the exclusive article, it may be picked up by other reporters but in agreeing to an exclusive, you agree not to share the news with any other media outlets, at least until the piece is published. This is a decision that you have to make based on the story and what you’re hoping to achieve. If the goal is to have a nice range of coverage, then I would not use exclusivity because it becomes very challenging to pitch the same story for multiple people without ruining relationships with reporters.
I agree. So let’s say again that a startup is launching in New York, where and how they could find the right journalist? What should be their first step?
When you work with PR agencies, they generally have a database like MuckRack or Meltwater that they can use to find journalists (check out my previous blog post for more info about MuckRack & Meltwater). You can search by beat or area of coverage, etc. But if you’re on your own, especially if you’re working in a startup environment, you don’t always have access to those tools, so you’re back to basics, which means doing deep dives into the publications you want to target and the reporters you want to work with. In my opinion, you should be doing this anyway, even if you have access to databases. Also, I personally think that Twitter is extremely useful in terms of finding relevant journalists. You get an idea of what the reporters are talking about, potentially interested in, even outside of the areas they’re currently covering. LinkedIn can be useful too, especially with broadcast journalism. If you have a very good story don’t be afraid to just tweet them, something like, “Hey, I have a story on XYZ, I think you would be interested in it. What’s the best way to be in touch?”
Something else that I think companies don’t realize is how many emails journalists receive every day. For example, a journalist on Business Insider may receive, like, how many, 200 emails per day?
I would say close to 500, maybe even more. Depending on who the journalist is, if they have a broader beat, they’re going to get more pitches rather than if they cover something super granular. So you have to remember, just because they haven’t responded to your pitch in that one day doesn’t mean that it’s not interesting to them. Following up is really important to make sure that you get back at the top of a person’s inbox and on their radar. If you don’t get a response, they may just have simply not seen it or had time to respond based on their current deadlines. time It doesn’t mean that it won’t happen for you in the future. I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten replies from pitches that I sent out years before!
How would you describe the perfect pitch? How do you make it stand out?
The subject line is definitely important because you want to make sure you’re getting across what the topic of the pitch is going to be and what story you want to work on telling together. Specifically, it needs to be written in a way that’s really compelling and digestible at first glance. Pay attention to the preview of the email — those first sentences are very important. You need to get to the point of the story right away. I’d challenge you to get good at writing pitches that are around 100 words. As a rule of thumb, try to think like this — Reporters are very busy people who get a lot of emails every single day. How can I package the information in a way that a reporter could look at it in three seconds, understand what the point is, and make a decision on whether or not they want to cover it?”
NYC Media Vs US Media Vs Local Media — What should a startup look into first?
Unless you have a very highly specific market-based goal, always look at the media market as an entire US media market. Even though local publications like the Boston Globe and The L.A. Times have very high readership across the entire country, not just within their local markets. In regards to local publications, you need highly relevant local news, meaning you have to be deeply involved in the community. You have to have employees who are on the ground there. Also, customers who are willing to speak on your behalf about the community problems not just of the general trends in the US.
That’s true. On another note, are there any startups currently doing a great job in PR that entrepreneurs and PR professionals should check out for inspiration?
I have always admired the PR efforts at Slack. I think that they’ve done a good job, not just their media coverage, but actually in defining a narrative and making that narrative present in all of their earned media and owned communications as well.
People often think about PR and communications as just media relations. But it’s really about how a company presents itself to the world. Today’s PR pros have to think about other channels besides media outlets, diversify how they can tell stories. Sometimes that means owning your own narrative on your own website or blog or digital experience. I think Slack is doing a really incredible job of that.
Any last advice to PR professionals or entrepreneurs that are looking at the New York market?
Be open to what’s happening in the media landscape. PR is about news, you have to be on the pulse of what is happening now, not just the pulse of what has happened over the last couple of years. Just because you have an understanding of PR as a concept, doesn’t really mean that you know what’s going on right now.
The world’s changes impact your company’s PR, whether you like it or not. You can’t just put messages out there and hope that they land. You have to be thinking about what is the context of everything around you.
Any specific publications to look at in order to get familiar with the US news market?
You can subscribe to newsletters like the Morning Brew, which can be really helpful. I think all the Axios newsletters are great. Fortune also has a really well-rounded set of newsletters that provide an update. One of them is called Term Sheet, providing info about all the big investment deals of the day. And the Broadsheet, which talks about women in business. If a CEO or a PR professional is very interested in trying to understand the market, again, Twitter is helpful. My entire feed is the reporters who are most relevant to me in that specific role or job. I just open the app and see what’s going on out there.
Last but not least, what is your favorite NYC cafe for Media meet-ups?
Such a good question. It’s so hard because, in Manhattan, there’s no space anywhere. But close to my old office, there was this place called Bourke Street Bakery, an Australian bakery with really great pastries. Also, their coffee is so amazing. Here, in Brooklyn, there’s a cafe called Winner that’s really good. I think it’s always fun to bring a journalist to a place where there are both good drinks and food because if they’re the type that wants to have lunch, you can get food, but if not, you can just have drinks and be fine. The best place is just somewhere flexible where it’s quiet and you can hear each other talk.
Connect with Megan on LinkedIn & Twitter
Do you have any other useful advice to share? Comment below 😀
This blog is about PR, Marketing, and Branding within startups and international environments. In each blog post, we’ll be diving into specific topics or tech ecosystems with the help of local experts. My goal is to create a place for discussion and knowledge-sharing with professionals from all over the world. Hopefully, this blog sparks new ideas and topics you could discuss with your colleagues.
I would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and topic ideas. Feel free to reach out to me at hello@eleniaktypi.com
