PR for Tech Companies: A Comprehensive Guide for 2024
In the not so distant past, the internet—and how it worked—was still a novel concept to the general public and technology was a realm guarded by the programmers and developers who spoke its language.
But over the past two decades, technology has integrated itself into nearly every aspect of our lives—from the way we communicate and interact with media to the way we bank and shop—and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. And now, as we approach the brink of another technological epoch, we are witnessing artificial intelligence (AI) transition from its former image as a science fiction antagonist into a multifaceted, multi-industry hero.
Yet, every tale has its trials and the saga of modern technology reveals a new set of challenges: Amid a throng of competitors vying fiercely for attention and market dominance, the quest to capture the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers, investors and stakeholders has grown increasingly perilous. These challenges do not have to be ever-daunting, however, and standing out from the crowd doesn’t have to be a Herculean task. With the right approach, public relations (PR) offers a path forward for tech companies ready to navigate the complexities of the modern digital ecosystem.
In this guide, we outline a roadmap of actionable tactics and strategies tech companies can take to create impactful narratives that shape perceptions, build credibility and carve out their unique identity in a crowded marketplace.
The State of PR Tech in 2024
The tech space is louder than ever. Whether they’re a budding startup or a legacy company, breaking in or trying to rise above the cacophony of voices may seem intimidating— if not downright impossible—for many tech companies.
In addition to market saturation, the complexity of the tech sector itself also creates some barriers to entry. Companies must be able to explain extremely niche products and solutions to the media and prospects in a way that is both digestible and highly transparent. However, due to the inherent culture of confidentiality around intellectual property and product development, achieving this task can be particularly challenging.
The key to overcoming these challenges lies in the development and execution of a tech company’s PR strategy. Although it varies by company—especially in the technology sector where there are many categories a business can operate in—there exists a universal opportunity for all tech companies to make significant strides when executing on a PR strategy custom built for their needs.
A PR team plays a critical role in helping tech companies identify their unique selling points and create a distinct presence in the media. Furthermore, a strong PR strategy will align closely with the company’s short-term and long-term goals while crafting messaging and a public image that resonates with their target audience.
Impact of technology trends on PR strategies
The influence technology trends have on PR is profound. As emerging technologies like AI, blockchain and quantum computing reshape businesses operations and communications, tech companies must also adapt their PR strategies accordingly. The public will always be captivated by whatever new, shiny tech trend is currently dominating the newscycle—there’s no other way around it—and your company needs to be able to talk about it, too.
However, participating in conversations isn’t enough. Strategy is the name of the game and when commenting on new tech and your dialogue and responses need to uphold a higher purpose for your company. This could be highlighting your company’s expertise in the area, revealing a new product that aligns with the popular technology or offering a new perspective that only your company would know—either way, anything done in the public eye should work toward your company’s established goals and objectives.
This also applies when communicating over social media. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube have transformed how tech companies engage with their audiences by offering direct channels for them to share news, updates and thought leadership. When posting, reposting and commenting it is always essential to keep in mind how the content will further business goals and image.
Key stakeholders and audiences in tech PR
The purpose of this curated tech PR strategy is largely to get in front of and influence the businesses’ key stakeholders and audiences. These audiences are largely made up investors looking to fund the company, current and prospective customers, employees and partners.
It is essential to ensure all primary stakeholders have the same understanding and vision of the company that the business wants them to have.
Building a Strong PR Foundation
At the core of any PR strategy lie the goals and objectives the company aims to achieve. It’s essential to first define the desired outcomes of your PR program, which will then inform the development of a strategy that will best make those goals a reality.
At Channel V Media, once we understand a business’s goals and objectives, we work with them to identify three to five key narratives that will best advance those objectives forward in the market. Every initiative, project and campaign following are designed to align with these narratives and ensure that anytime the company is in the public eye—whether in print outlets, broadcast or on social media—the coverage is reinforcing narratives that ultimately point back to those greater objectives.
In the tech industry specifically, there should always be a narrative that highlights how a product or solution is unique and solves a certain problem that stakeholders have. This, alongside the other pillars, is essential to conveying to the media and public who the company is and why audiences should take notice. This is, ultimately, the linchpin for standing out in the crowd.
Essential PR Tactics for Tech Brands
To implement and roll out the strategy and narratives outlined above, there are a few essential PR tactics that tech companies need to use.
Media Relations
One of the most important tactics in a PR strategy is media relations. This can encompass connecting with journalists and reporters at both print and digital outlets, producers at radio shows or broadcast segments and tech industry influencers.
Every one of those people are responsible for one the most sought after things in publicity. External validation. The articles, stories, videos, and blogs that the media publishes is what key stakeholders will read to learn more about your company. And it’s where through carefully curated outreach and communication the narratives established will play a large role in the direction those third-party articles go in.
PR guides the stories and is responsible for making sure the stories written are representing your company in the way you want to be seen. Articles can be about anything from new products to new hires to new partners but no matter what the PR strategy will be front and center, angling each news item to fit the brand and goals.
Thought Leadership
Another important tactic in the PR toolkit is thought leadership. Thought leadership refers to material that is bylined or contributed to by a company’s senior leaders that demonstrates their expertise, insights and perspectives within their respective industry. This content aims to educate and inform their peers which, in turn, builds a level of trust and credibility in your business.
Thought leadership content can take on many forms including news commentary on current industry trends, guest interviews on industry podcasts or bylined articles in tech trade publications.
Crisis Management
In an ideal world, there would be no bad press. Every company would have complete control over the narrative surrounding their brand and only positive stories would make it to the broadcast floor. That, as we all know, is not the case.
Despite best efforts, every once in a while an article, post or comment will come out of the woodwork to threaten the carefully curated company image you have worked so hard to create. In such situations, having a well-defined crisis management plan within your PR strategy will become essential to moving past any negative press quickly and with as little impact as possible.
Proactively preparing messaging enables companies to reply quickly to discourse while still providing the public with a thoughtful response. Of course, every situation is different and messaging will never be one size fits all, but with well-established brand narratives and values, companies will have a framework for developing responses that are easier and more genuine.
Digital Marketing Tactics
In addition to the tactics defined above, there are also digital marketing initiatives that are essential to supplementing any strong PR strategy.
Content Marketing
Content marketing and PR are interconnected disciplines that can work together to enhance a company’s brand image and reputation.
By leveraging branded content to enhance visibility in a curated, strategic manner, tech companies can attract the interest of journalists, bloggers and industry influencers who are looking to share interesting and relevant information with their audiences. Through formats such as podcasts, whitepapers and videos, tech companies can create and distribute content that establishes their own distinct voice and positions themselves as frontrunners in their industry—all while maintaining complete control over the narrative.
Moreover, content marketing enables companies to gauge the sentiment of their key stakeholders. By monitoring how consumers react, a company knows whether to buckle down on an initiative or to change course.
Social Media Strategy
The narratives and brand image established within a PR strategy can also be seamlessly integrated into messaging and content for social media.
Platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn are a hot spot for consumers and target buyers. Virtually everyone maintains an account on at least one of these platforms and how users interact with content is distinct from traditional media outlets.
Furthermore, leveraging social media platforms for brand development in the spaces where customers invest significant leisure time is essential for garnering recognition and engagement with key audience groups.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Just like most companies would want to see their names in the headline of an article or on the front page of a newspaper, they should also want to be the first ones who pop when prospects search for services related to them.
This can be achieved through search engine optimization (SEO). By incorporating relevant keywords, optimizing meta tags and creating high-quality, shareable content, tech companies can increase their chances of ranking well in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attracting organic traffic. This not only enhances brand visibility but also supports PR efforts by making it easier for journalists, bloggers and industry influencers to discover and reference the company’s content.
Case Studies and Best Practices
Once you’ve laid the groundwork of establishing narratives and implementing tactics, you might be wondering how you can measure the success of all your hard work.
Measuring success isn’t always about the numbers. Of course, an abundance of press hits is a great thing to see, but more often than not the quality of that coverage holds greater significance. The effectiveness of your PR strategy is better gauged by the quality of the press coverage, how it aligns with your company’s narratives and the degree to which your company is positioned favorably—all of which increases the likelihood of generating real leads.
To ensure our clients are witnessing the effects of their public relations strategy, we maintain regular meetings to synchronise on effort and discuss pending opportunities such as media coverage and award nominations. In Q4, we compile a comprehensive report that showcases the progress we have made throughout the year.
We have included an example of one of the tech PR campaigns we have worked on below for reference:
Channel V Media Launches Meteomatics Into the U.S.
Switzerland-based weather intelligence company Meteomatics had seen success throughout Europe, with companies including Tesla Energy, Toyota, and AirBus, using its high precision 1k weather data model, as well as its first-of-its kind “Meteodrones”, to gain in-depth visibility into weather phenomena and its effect on business decisions.
But despite their European track record, Meteomatics was primarily unknown by businesses and media in the United States. The climate tech company was looking to draw the attention of U.S. companies in industries at the intersection of weather and business, from energy to insurance to aviation.
The challenge from a press perspective was that, at the start of the program, the U.S. media, as well as businesses in those industries, weren’t yet aware of the major impact weather forecasts could have on their business success. Drone technology, like Meteomatics’ Meteodrones, was also not a widely recognized method of collecting weather data.
Meteomatics tapped us to address these problems and secure U.S. media interest in the company.
We focused heavily on developing Meteomatics’ positioning, defining the industries it would be most beneficial to target in the U.S., and creating messages to put out in the media in order to drive awareness among those industries.
The first couple of weeks with Meteomatics consisted of planning for the companies’ first U.S. Meteodrone launch at GrandSKY in North Dakota.In just 12 days, we turned Meteomatics’ Meteodrone launch, a local event, into national news, garnering 20+ pieces of coverage from local radio to national broadcast to aviation trades. News stations including Fox, ABC, and CBS ran segments on the Meteodrone, and publications such as Aerotime and DroneDJ recognized the technology as the U.S.’s first drone-based weather service. This served as the official introduction of Meteomatics to the U.S.–and validated the business as a “U.S. approved” company.
CVM used this success to start a cadence of media coverage, using Meteomatics’ unique perspective of the weather industry at the intersection of business to insert them into national weather conversations. We also brought Meteomatics’ business impact to life across the energy, insurance, and aviation industries by strategically placing company stories, and commentary to show U.S. media and businesses how weather intelligence can solve industry challenges.
We positioned Meteomatics as the answer to power-grid overloads as Texas turned to renewables in publications such as PV Magazine and E&E. CVM also showed Meteomatics’ impact through the lens of its customer, Heimdall Power, giving a real-life example of its work in publications like Electrek and Interesting Engineering.
In the insurance sector, we used State Farm and All State’s shut down of new policies to demonstrate how Meteomatics’ will help the insurance industry in publications such as Digital Insurance and Insurance Times.
In the seven months of working together, CVM secured 50+ unique press hits for Meteomatics and our work together has won multiple awards, most recently two gold Stevie Awards.
Future Outlook
From standing out in a crowded marketplace to weathering the storm of public scrutiny, the challenges facing tech companies are myriad. As the pace of technological change accelerates and the stakes of public perception grow higher, the importance of strategic PR in guiding tech companies through tumultuous waters cannot be overstated.
Channel V Media stands ready to assist tech companies in elevating their brands and navigating the complexities of the modern marketplace. Through a blend of strategic narrative driven messaging, targeted outreach and content marketing solutions, Channel V Media offers comprehensive PR solutions tailored to the unique needs of the tech industry. Whether you’re a burgeoning startup looking to make your mark or an established firm seeking to reinforce your position, Channel V Media is dedicated to helping you thrive in the competitive tech sector. Contact us today to learn more about how we can partner to turn your company into the tech sectors next hero.