Fesselndes Business Blog: Startup

Sunday, April 16, 2017

10 Ways for Startups to Score Media Coverage

Every startup craves media coverage, as getting featured by major outlets has many benefits -- from branding and referral traffic to SEO.

Email and social outreach pitches bombard the top-tier media outlets and their journalists around the clock. So, how do you stand out and obtain media attention for your startup from the strongest outlets? After all, these outlets are covering startups daily -- so what are those companies doing differently?

Consider adapting these 10 ways to secure media coverage into your outreach strategy.

Small Business Ideas

ACCOUNTANTCreate a flier outlining your services. Before you do that, you need to know what those services will be. Do you want to simply do bookkeeping for a small business? A more involved level of accounting would be do actually work up balance sheets, income statements, and other financial reports on a monthly, quarterly, and/or annual basis, depending on the needs of the business. Other specializations can include tax accounting, a huge area of potential work.
BICYCLE REPAIRIn many parts of the country, this business tends to be seasonal, but you can find ways around that. Rent a storage unit and offer to store people's bicycles over the winter after you do a tune-up and any needed repairs on them. If you want to cater to the Lance Armstrong wannabes, you can have business all year round. These road race riders are training through snow, sleet and dark of night. Some of them work on their own bicycles, but many of them don't, so you can get their business all year. And if you keep Saturday shop hours, you can be sure you will have a group of enthusiasts coming by to talk all things cycling.
BOAT CLEANINGBoats that are hauled out of the water for the winter or even just for mid-season repairs will need the hull cleaned. And depending on the type of boat, it is a good time to give a major cleaning everything else too--the decks, the sleeping quarters, the head, and the holds. Start by approaching homes that have a boat sitting in the yard. Or you could market your services to the marina to contract you to do the boat cleaning it offers to customers.
BUSINESS PLAN SERVICEOffer a soup-to-nuts business plan, including market research, the business plan narrative and the financial statements. Plan your fee around the main one that the client will want and offer the others as add-on services. You can give clients an electronic file and allow them to take it from there, or you can keep the business plan on file and offer the service of tweaking it whenever necessary. Have business plan samples to show clients--and make sure to include your own!