How Mynewsdesk is blazing a PR trail for tech startups

For the second year running, Mynewsdesk has partnered with the Tech Trailblazers Awards (TTA) which seek to recognise the most promising startups, small businesses and true innovators across the tech industry that are 5 years old or less.

It is a global competition which aims to reward enterprise technology startups who have developed products or services which deliver innovation in the fields of big data, cloud, emerging markets, mobile, networking, security, storage, sustainable IT and virtualization.

As you know, Mynewsdesk provide online newsrooms and multimedia PR platforms, so why is this a relevant partnership?

The importance of PR for startups

PR is essentially the practice of communicating with those most important to your organisation through traditional print, online and social media to build awareness of your brand to support and bolster your business.

Rose Ross, Chief Tech Trailblazer stated: 

“Great PR and outstanding content are essential for all startups, but especially the ones in the enterprise technology space that our Tech Trailblazers operate in. The Mynewsdesk partnership and the branded newsrooms for our finalists will be yet another boost for them and a great way to keep our judges and the voting public up to speed with their news”

Building relationships

It can be incredibly difficult for startups operating in any industry to gain media coverage as their brands will be unknown. It is especially challenging for those whose businesses are based on concepts which are difficult to explain or if their product or services are not easy to differentiate from their competitors. What’s more, many start-ups, especially those in the tech industry, will be focused on developing their product rather than investing time and limited budgets on marketing.

However, building positive relationships with tech journalists and bloggers is an incredibly powerful way of raising your brand’s profile while spreading the word about your product or services. The 2012 Nielsen Report on Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages found that earned media sources (3rd party endorsements whether they be by journalists, customer reviews or personal recommendations) remained the most credible while trust in traditional paid advertising messages declined.  Below is a table which demonstrates the extent to which consumers trust the different forms of advertising: 

The power of good content

Creating your own valuable content for your target audience and stakeholders is a huge part of PR. Publishing content on your blog and chosen social media platforms which is highly useful to your target audience and directly relevant to your product will position you as an expert in your field and help to build a positive reputation of your brand.

Recent research by Axonn Media found that 67% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands whose content they enjoy, 68% are willing to supply contact information in exchange for high quality content such as whitepapers and 55% of marketers credit content marketing for an increase in sales.

Ultimately investing time in building relationships with all of your target audiences, be they journalists, bloggers, potential customers, current clients and so on as well as devoting time to produce your own valuable content, will help you find consumers or people willing to invest in your business.

How will Mynewsdesk support the competition entrants?

All shortlisted entrants will be provided with their own multimedia newsroom for two and a half months, the duration of the competition. This will give participants the opportunity to showcase all of their news releases, multimedia content, blogs and social channels from one central hub.

This will help participants to more effectively engage with their target audiences as well as helping them to promote their organisation to the Tech Trailblazers judges as powerfully as possible.

The category and regional winners will get the Mynewsdesk newsroom and PR platform free for one year, as well as a ticket to a Mynewsdesk event of their choice. A 50% discount on a six month subscription will also be awarded to the category runners-up.

The closing date for entries has been extended to 26th September and the shortlisted entrants will be announced mid-October. To have a look at the winners from last year, click here.