The Nuances of Growth Stage PR
By David Barkoe
March 2022
The scope of the public relations program for a growth-stage company is much broader and more complex than a startup. In those chaotic early days, brands are laser-focused on introducing themselves to the world — convincing potential investors, customers, and media to buy into the vision, and preparing to launch the first product or service.
In this next stage, you're not just planning for growth, you're executing on that plan. You have proven there's a market for what you offer and are in a place where finding a true agency partner can help you build and run a sustainable PR program to achieve your business objectives.
As you look for that partner, look for one that "gets" the nuances of a growth-stage company and how to keep leveling a brand and its executives up. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Too Many Hats at a Growth-Stage Company Can Mean Not Enough Focus on PR
As your company grows and you have access to more resources, you will need to find more people to carry out business functions across sales, product development, customer service, finance, marketing, and more. Whatever the roles and responsibilities, the critical consideration is whether to expand your employee base or find outside experts who can take on work on a project basis or serve as an extension of your internal teams. If your cash flows are volatile (and they often are for growth-stage startups), outsourcing and keeping your internal team small – at least for now – will give you more financial stability and flexibility.
If you hire an experienced communications professional to join your team as your new VP of marketing, there's too much for one person to do. Jamie Viggiano, the CMO at venture capital firm Fuel Capital, does a good job of breaking down the many marketing duties and responsibilities:
Brand marketing: Brand strategy, positioning, naming, messaging, visual identity, experiential, events, community.
Product marketing: UX copy, website, email marketing, customer research and segmentation, pricing.
Communications: PR and media relations, content marketing, social media, thought leadership, influencer.
Growth marketing: Direct response paid acquisition, funnel optimization, retention, lifecycle, engagement, reporting and attribution, word of mouth, referral, SEO, partnerships.
Note that "PR and media relations" are part of the much larger whole. Whether the person charged with running marcomms is a marketing professional or another senior executive responsible for other business areas, it's difficult for them to keep daily tabs on PR strategy and execution. Inevitably, communications tactics like media and influencer relations, content marketing, and social media don't receive the attention they deserve.
"As you can imagine, that's a lot for one person to manage, let alone be an expert in," states Viggiano. "What's more, the skillset and experience required to excel in growth marketing are quite different from the skill set required to succeed in brand marketing. The reality is that anyone who excels across all marketing functions is a unicorn and nearly impossible to find."
Think of a PR partner like Apple's manufacturing partners. Apple's internal teams focus their time and energy on developing iPhones, iPads, iMacs, and other cutting-edge products, as well as the software that runs on them. Its designers, engineers, and sales and marketing teams don't have the time or resources to handle the day-to-day work of manufacturing and shipping those products worldwide. So the company partners with manufacturers they trust to do so.
The same model holds for public relations. The CEO and other senior leaders have their priorities and can't afford to spend time on tactics like building media relationships and trend jacking. You want a PR partner solely focused on growing your brand's profile through media and communications strategies – taking on all the things that your internal team can't.
Growth-Stage Companies Need PR Focus Across the Business
Growth-stage companies need a public relations team with eyes across the entire business — building relationships, scouting opportunities, offering up ideas, and more. That requires the agency to expand its working relationships beyond the CEO or whoever is responsible for marketing. It should also embed itself with other departments to incorporate those teams' objectives into its planning and day-to-day work.
This whole-business approach helps agencies understand the brand's growth strategy to develop a comprehensive PR program. It allows them to ideate and run with ideas faster, whether or not there's an in-house person focused on PR. At more mature companies, we still recommend this approach; but usually, there's at least one full-time in-house person who manages many of the internal relationships and communications and filters out what is the priority.
At the Growth Stage You Need an Agency that Collaborates with other Partners
As the company scales from an early-stage startup, marketing programs become more complex. A growth-stage company typically has more external partners like advertising and digital marketing agencies, branding and event experts, web resources, and more. A PR agency must be willing to – and have prior experience in – working closely with your other outside consultants. PR is most successful when it works in concert with other marketing activities to bring holistic value to your company.
For example, you may decide to hire an event marketing team to focus on your slew of trade shows for the year. They'll focus on experiential elements, client entertaining, and more. Who will take advantage of the onsite media or thought leadership opportunities? Who will convince the media to stop by for a product demo, sit for an interview, or work with the conference organizers to develop a session description that will engage audiences and drive business? That's where your PR agency comes in.
And take this a step further: don't hesitate to charge your PR agency with the task of scouting for outside experts who can take the lead on specific tactics. We've brought everyone from video experts, talent bookers, graphic designers, SEO experts, and global freelancers into the loop when it made sense.
Growth-Stage PR Agencies Must Embrace Flexibility
The agency-client relationship typically begins with the agency developing and executing a plan that maps to the client's business strategy. Everyone may agree on that plan at the outset, and the results may even be good, but change at a growth-stage company is inevitable.
The former CEO of Hubspot said this about change and flexibility in a startup and a growth-stage company:
“In startup mode everything comes at you quickly, and you tend to react fast. If you’re a manager and make a wrong decision, you just roll it back. Simple. In scale-up mode, however, you have a choice: You can do things fast or you can do things right. There’s always a balance, but in scale-up mode you need to shift toward doing things right more often than doing things fast.”
When change happens, you still need balance. Maybe the product roadmap shifts, the sales team identifies new customer segments to target, or new leadership comes on board and sets a new direction.
Whatever the catalyst, you should expect your PR agency partner to not only help define a core narrative but also be flexible enough to pivot and revise that narrative (or even craft a new one) to support your company's strategy. This is why growth-stage companies typically work with boutique agencies. Just like steering a naval aircraft carrier is a slow, laborious process, a large agency can have trouble making that narrative or strategy pivot.
Vetting Your PR Partner
Ask yourself if your PR agency is a partner that will grow with your company. If they can't, they're merely a short-term answer to today's challenges, and you'll likely have to sever ties, and spend time and money hiring and onboarding a new agency.
Here’s an example of growing together. We started working with proptech and smart local solutions company Lockly in 2018. They were a relatively unknown brand outside of Hong Kong looking to raise U.S. awareness for their products. For the first two years of partnership, PR was the only marketing spend they made and they secured national retail partnerships with Lowes, Home Depot, and other national retailers as a result. We’ve since added influencer campaigns to our scope and, today, Lockly is a top five brand in the smartlock space sold all over the country.
The partnership and the institutional knowledge were deep, and the results strong, so growing together made strategic sense. It also gave Lockly peace of mind knowing they were already in good hands and could continue on their trajectory with a trusted partner by their side.
So how can you tell if a company will grow with you?
The first giveaway is when the agency starts nickel-and-diming you over the initial statement of work that no longer reflects your company's changing priorities and strategy. You want your agency to be proactive in proposing new ideas and directions to the PR program that support all lines of business – including any related costs – not stubbornly insisting on sticking with the original plan.
Second, the senior leaders who were so impressive during the pitch presentation and the first few months of the engagement are no longer involved in the work. You want a team of experienced people to support all aspects of expanding the marcomms program every day.
The old saying that "the only constant in life is change" describes working for a growth-stage company. You have a product (or products) in the market, a roadmap, a solid customer base, and are probably pursuing another funding round. Your top-line business objective is growth, and that requires moving into new markets, raising money, hiring more employees, and launching new products or services.
A public relations agency can play a key role in the success of all of these activities. The challenge is identifying one that will serve as your trusted partner throughout your company's evolution, not a roadblock.
