You’ve been through the start-up phase, you’ve hit initial funding goals, you’ve hired a great team, and you’ve developed a groundbreaking hospitality tech solution. You’re on your way to greatness!
But your marketing team is saying it’s time to supercharge your growth phase with the help of B2B PR. As founder and CEO, you aren’t so sure.
You’ve had bad PR experiences in the past. It’s hard to measure the results of PR. What are the KPIs? Will the PR agency understand my business like I do? You hate the idea of self-promotion and thought leadership.
So, how do you know when it’s the right time to engage a specialist B2B PR agency?
To get you started, here are 5 common signs that your hospitality or short-term rental tech business needs to add PR to your marketing arsenal:
1. Nobody understands what our tech business does
Let’s start with the basics. It’s not easy crafting that elevator pitch. Yet, crafting that pitch is essential – it’s your message to your market, to your potential customers. There are many businesses in the short-term rental sector or hotel and real estate ecosystems that have been operating for some time and still can’t clearly define what their platform does for property managers or what pain point specifically they solve for hotels.
This is why it’s important to work with a specialist B2B PR agency. One which is embedded in your sector, understands your tech business, and knows innately how to create a tailored PR strategy to meet your business goals. A great PR team should spend time at the beginning of your working relationship getting to know your company, asking searching questions, and presenting you with a 360 review of your business.
Once this assessment is in place, an agency like Abode Worldwide will create your PR strategy and road map for how to build your reputation, your brand awareness, so that everyone who’s anyone in your sector (and outside of it) knows what your tech business does.
2. We want to scale but we can’t reach the next level
This is a frequent problem in any business. You are transitioning from being a start-up to a serious company with funding. You have ambitious growth plans, based on investor belief in your fantastic tech platform or senior living portfolio, but you are struggling to scale.
Growing a business is hard. A seasoned B2B PR agency knows all about this and will have helped a whole host of companies make the leap to the next level through strategic counsel, first-class media relations, and targeted reputation building tactics.
This type of agency, as opposed to a generalist agency unfamiliar with your particular lodging or hospitality sector, will work alongside you to nurture your reputation with earned media hits and a thought leadership program.
From this solid base, comes growth in the form of sales conversations with the right potential customers or investors and an increase in website traffic and conversions.
3. We need to make the right connections in the industry
One of the top reasons for hiring a specialist agency, one with a carved-out niche, is the existing relationships it will have built up over time.
Think of it like that little black book of contacts.
It may seem boring and yet it’s anything but. Each PR specialist at Abode Worldwide has their own little black book of contacts and we make those all-important introductions for our clients to industry experts, thought leaders and investors, as well as possible business partners and journalists or podcast hosts. PR is not just about getting great media hits. It also involves supporting clients in winning speaking opportunities at high-ranking trade shows or a guest column in a sector specific publication.
Making the right connections in the short-term rental industry or the co-living sector can be invaluable. It’s a part of PR which is hard to measure but it’s crucial to the reputation building process.
4. We have a specific business goal to achieve
Perhaps your tech business or enterprise property management company has a specific aim to achieve over the next year. A funding goal, or you want to sell, or you want to build up the thought leadership of your CEO?
This can be a great reason for working with a PR agency. Clear goals mean clear KPIs and the right agency will work with you to develop a PR strategy which implements tactics to achieve your business goal.
5. We need strategic counsel and strategic communication
PR involves an element of strategic counsel. When you decide to bring on board a B2B PR agency, you let that agency into your business. You reveal your business secrets and goals – it’s a close relationship. The agency gets to know you well and often has a direct relationship with the C-Suite.
A good PR strategy will guide a company and suggest strategic methods of communication to achieve your specific aims. As we said earlier, a PR strategy is your roadmap to success and is what many companies lack when they try to ‘do’ PR themselves. DIY PR works to a certain extent, but it won’t get you to the next level or offer the strategic overview that a professional PR agency can.
Many agencies, Abode Worldwide included, are more than happy to sign NDAs to give you the reassurance that high level conversations stay confidential. It’s always worth asking that question if you feel the need. Plus, if you have a good agency on side when a crisis hits, it can support your communications as you navigate through choppy waters (be that a global crisis or a reputation crisis).
There are, of course, many other reasons to team up with a specialist PR agency. But as experts, we find these are the most common. If you find yourself experiencing any of these 5 pain points, it might be time to start researching suitable B2B hospitality tech PR agencies. Here is how Abode Worldwide’s journey is going so far… we are always here for an initial chat or a discovery call.
