1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,980 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from an author and head of PR firm that has worked with hundreds of hardware startups 2 00:00:05,980 --> 00:00:10,400 Kevin Mako: on best practices for getting free earned media for new physical consumer products. 3 00:00:10,620 --> 00:00:18,440 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between. 4 00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:23,160 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for physical product startups, sponsored 5 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:29,920 Narrator: by PTC's two best in class 3D CAD product development software solutions Onshape and Creo, and produced by Mako Design + Invent. 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:36,940 Narrator: The original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored specifically to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. 7 00:00:37,660 --> 00:00:46,440 Kevin Mako: Welcome back to everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Jackson Wightman of the show. Jackson is the co-author of The Tech PR Playbook, a book that synthesizes 20 years of 8 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:54,620 Kevin Mako: PR knowledge into a single resource. He is also the co-founder of Proper Propaganda, a public relations firm that primarily works with hardware startups and scale-ups. 9 00:00:54,820 --> 00:00:59,860 Kevin Mako: He is also an instructor at McGill University with an MBA, Masters in Polysci, and a BA. 10 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:06,840 Kevin Mako: Today, Jackson is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what earned media is specifically for hardware companies. 11 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:15,580 Kevin Mako: Why earn media and press is so valuable and what are the best practices for getting free coverage from major hardware journalists and publications. Now on to the episode. 12 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:24,820 Kevin Mako: Hey, Jackson, welcome to the show. Pleasure to be here. We're very excited today to talk to you about PR, particularly around earned media. 13 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,880 Kevin Mako: How do you get free media in all these great publications? Like we see tech crunch and everything else where you can get. 14 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:37,220 Kevin Mako: information about your product to the market essentially for free. And that's a very interesting 15 00:01:37,220 --> 00:01:45,360 Kevin Mako: concept. And this is the whole concept around earned media that can be very powerful. I'm excited today to dive deep into all of that so the hardware startups in particular can 16 00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:50,740 Kevin Mako: learn how they can get free earned media and how they can use that to amplify their brand, whether it's their 17 00:01:50,740 --> 00:01:56,100 Kevin Mako: launch or the scaling of the brand or even things that happen in and around their brand as they're building up their hardware startup. 18 00:01:56,200 --> 00:02:03,980 Kevin Mako: But before we get into all that, give us a bit of a history of your 20 plus years in PR experience, working with hundreds of hardware 19 00:02:03,980 --> 00:02:10,820 Jackson Wightman: startups to where you are today. Yeah, so I've been working in PR for 20 plus years, happy to say I haven't needed therapy yet, 20 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:19,620 Jackson Wightman: as sometimes felt like a long time, but it's actually been a wonderful career. And I have had the pleasure of running a firm proper propaganda since late 2011. 21 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:28,160 Jackson Wightman: Our main focus, as you alluded to, is hardware startups and hardware scaleups. We've had the pleasure of working with some very big multinationals as well. 22 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:37,300 Jackson Wightman: And I think the main thing we've seen over the years is that sometimes hardware startups have a slight misunderstanding about what earned media can and can't do. 23 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:43,440 Jackson Wightman: And in some instances, when things don't go well, it's just that they don't know a few very simple rules of the game. 24 00:02:43,660 --> 00:02:53,060 Jackson Wightman: So the bottom line is earned media is amazingly powerful for hardware startups and scale ups. It's just one of these games that is a bit different. 25 00:02:53,060 --> 00:02:58,140 Jackson Wightman: It's a very unique kind of marketing channel, I think, quite different than paid media, quite different. 26 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:01,880 Jackson Wightman: and search quite different than some other things that your audience might engage in. 27 00:03:02,100 --> 00:03:07,860 Kevin Mako: And it's just important to kind of know the rules of the game. It's interesting. You mentioned that there's just some really key simple tips. 28 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:14,000 Kevin Mako: And when you've been in it long enough, you can see that clearly. But from a new emerging hardware startup, it's a confusing landscape. 29 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:19,360 Kevin Mako: And it's hard to really understand how these things take place, let alone how to actually achieve those types of results. 30 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:24,580 Kevin Mako: So before we get too much in depth, just describe what is earned media and how does it 31 00:03:24,580 --> 00:03:34,280 Jackson Wightman: apply to a hardware startup? Absolutely. So earned media is part of the broader kind of topic of PR. And when we talk about earned media, 32 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:43,240 Jackson Wightman: we talk about editorial media coverage. So it is an article in the New York Times, a review in tech crunch, that kind of stuff. 33 00:03:43,500 --> 00:03:53,380 Jackson Wightman: You are not paying for it. It may not be thus wholly positive. It may not sound exactly like you would have written it yourself, but it is earned in the sense 34 00:03:53,380 --> 00:03:59,600 Jackson Wightman: that it is unpaid editorial coverage, and as a result of that, tends to be very, very trusted by 35 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:07,960 Jackson Wightman: people. So Nielsen, who your listeners would probably know from TV ratings and things like that, Nielsen does an annual trust in advertising survey. 36 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:15,220 Jackson Wightman: And every year, for 20 plus years, the results always come back saying that, you know, obviously recommendations from a friend are 37 00:04:15,220 --> 00:04:23,360 Jackson Wightman: very, very trusted, but earned media, editorial media coverage is very, very trusted, a lot more trusted than, say, a banner ad or a 30-second spot on television. 38 00:04:23,380 --> 00:04:27,960 Jackson Wightman: television. And I think when we talk about it, that's what we're talking about. And when we think 39 00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:34,140 Kevin Mako: about why it's powerful, it's powerful because it is perceived as trustworthy. That's incredible 40 00:04:34,140 --> 00:04:38,520 Kevin Mako: because it really tilts the odds, especially in favor of a hardware startup. And people, 41 00:04:38,860 --> 00:04:44,160 Kevin Mako: especially readers, understand that it's trustworthy because it's not like you're a big corporation that maybe even owns a media outlet. 42 00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:52,060 Kevin Mako: You are a small startup getting off the ground. So if a journalist in the space who is educated and knows the industry that you're in is essentially 43 00:04:52,060 --> 00:04:58,420 Kevin Mako: talking about, recommending, is interested in your product. What more valuable of a resource than that 44 00:04:58,420 --> 00:05:04,240 Kevin Mako: to show to the world to say, look, this is a real sophisticated individual that believes in my product 45 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:12,060 Jackson Wightman: so much that they're publicly writing about it on their respective media channel. Right. You've hit the nail in the head. One of the interesting things about it, 46 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:18,240 Jackson Wightman: and I think some of the hardware startups that are listening will understand this, certainly some of the scaleups will understand this if they've had coverage. 47 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:27,460 Jackson Wightman: If a guy like Brian Heater, who's the hardware editor a TechCrunch. If Brian Heater says your robot, your keyboard, your headphone is the greatest 48 00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:34,340 Jackson Wightman: thing since the life's bread, everybody knows that Brian Heater is a very authoritative guy. He's been in the game a long time. 49 00:05:34,580 --> 00:05:43,060 Jackson Wightman: So that quote where he says, this is a wonderful headphone or this is God's gift to keyboards or whatever it is that he says, you can take that. You can put that 50 00:05:43,060 --> 00:05:52,540 Jackson Wightman: on your Amazon sales page. You might deploy that on your Kickstarter page. If you're at the Kickstarter stage, you might put that quote into an investor deck if 51 00:05:52,540 --> 00:06:00,140 Jackson Wightman: you're doing the rounds in Silicon Valley seeking money trying to raise that C round or that A round. So one of the great things about earned 52 00:06:00,140 --> 00:06:10,040 Jackson Wightman: media is that it tends to be evergreen. And the quotes you get out of that CNet piece or that piece in The Verge or that piece in New York Times, they live on. 53 00:06:10,100 --> 00:06:19,160 Jackson Wightman: And they're going to be with you for the life of your business. And there's a range of other kind of contexts, marketing and other, where they can really serve your business goals. 54 00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:26,800 Jackson Wightman: We've even seen stuff. I mean, one of the reasons that we get hired sometimes by scale apps, hardware scale ups in particular, is they're looking to hire. Well, 55 00:06:27,220 --> 00:06:33,100 Jackson Wightman: having good coverage to show that genius engineer who's going to come write flawless code for you, 56 00:06:33,420 --> 00:06:38,100 Jackson Wightman: having good media data points he sees or she sees when they search on Google is very powerful. 57 00:06:38,260 --> 00:06:47,280 Kevin Mako: So there's a lot of context where earned media kind of does things for a business beyond the immediate publication date. That's amazing because there's so many different. 58 00:06:47,300 --> 00:06:51,700 Kevin Mako: avenues beyond just sales and something that you mentioned there is basically repurposing your media. 59 00:06:52,220 --> 00:07:00,280 Kevin Mako: So if you can get this earned media, that's just the tip of the iceberg to what you can do with it. You can then repurpose that on a whole variety of different campaigns or uses to 60 00:07:00,280 --> 00:07:05,920 Kevin Mako: engage various different types of stakeholders, which I also find is very interesting about what you say because it's not just customers. 61 00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:08,560 Kevin Mako: It's everything from your various stakeholders, investors, 62 00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:17,180 Jackson Wightman: employees, potential partnership deals that you're working on, other media avenues that you're looking to get into, etc. Right. And this touches exactly, Kevin, on the 63 00:07:17,300 --> 00:07:22,280 Jackson Wightman: idea, I think, of the power of brand equity. And, you know, I know often hardware startups, 64 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:29,980 Jackson Wightman: when they're right out of the garage, when they're kind of going maybe to their first Kickstarter Indiegogo campaign, they're thinking product. And that's rightly so. 65 00:07:30,260 --> 00:07:36,220 Jackson Wightman: You need to have a viable product, a good product that's going to work, that the market is going to respond to. But once that 66 00:07:36,220 --> 00:07:43,760 Jackson Wightman: is sort of settled, once you've kind of got that dialed in, it's very important to think about brand equity, because brand equity touches everything. 67 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:50,880 Jackson Wightman: And I think we see some early stage hard or startup founders understand this. Some do not, and that's fine. You know, I know a lot of people 68 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:57,400 Jackson Wightman: are coming from a product background and engineering background and they may not necessarily think this way, but brand equity touches everything. 69 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:06,980 Jackson Wightman: And I think earned media is a very powerful way to build brand equity. When you think about the brands we all know and maybe love the apples, 70 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:16,780 Jackson Wightman: the Teslas, the Nikes, it's the brand. It's brand. It's brand equity that's powerful. And I think media coverage, earned media coverage via PR is a key cornerstone. 71 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:23,820 Kevin Mako: in the building of brand equity over time. It's very powerful and extremely helpful to a hardware startup because you're building a new brand. 72 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:29,700 Kevin Mako: So what better way than to actually get that brand being talked about by reputable people in 73 00:08:29,700 --> 00:08:36,260 Kevin Mako: media outlets that are also reputable so that you can amplify that brand from really something that nobody's ever heard about before? 74 00:08:36,540 --> 00:08:38,400 Kevin Mako: That's how you can kind of get off the ground with this sort of thing. 75 00:08:38,560 --> 00:08:45,940 Jackson Wightman: So understanding that there's all these different types of benefits to earn media, how do you actually go about getting it? This is a great question. 76 00:08:45,940 --> 00:08:53,160 Jackson Wightman: And I think this is sometimes when PR programs don't go the way people wish they would have, there were a few kind of common mistakes. 77 00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:59,480 Jackson Wightman: And so there are a few common things you can do to kind of make sure that you're, as a 78 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:05,840 Jackson Wightman: hardware founder, as a hardware startup or hardware scale up, you're doing the right things to kind of bolster the chances of success. 79 00:09:05,900 --> 00:09:10,600 Jackson Wightman: The first thing is to understand that one, it is very competitive. 80 00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:20,220 Jackson Wightman: If you want to get into an ARS technica, if you want to get into an NGAS, if you want to get of venture beats and inverse, understand that there were a 81 00:09:20,220 --> 00:09:26,880 Jackson Wightman: lot of other hardware companies, some of whom are the Samsung's and Sony's of the world, some of whom are scale up, some of whom are 82 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:35,380 Jackson Wightman: startups that are trying to kind of generate coverage in those places. So the first thing is to kind of understand, hey, it's a competitive game. 83 00:09:35,560 --> 00:09:42,000 Jackson Wightman: It's not like TechCrunch and Reporter X or Y at Tech Crunch is going to cover every pitch he or she receives. 84 00:09:42,740 --> 00:09:51,740 Jackson Wightman: Once you understand that, if you're competing for very limited airspace in some ways, you have to really think about your story from a differentiation perspective. 85 00:09:52,260 --> 00:10:01,780 Jackson Wightman: So the first thing a tech reporter always asks for when presented with a hardware pitch is, how is this different than what has come before? So if you are building 86 00:10:01,780 --> 00:10:09,200 Jackson Wightman: Me Too products, and I know that Me Too products can work well, they can sell very well on Amazon. We all know we've all probably bought Me Too products. 87 00:10:09,380 --> 00:10:15,020 Jackson Wightman: Me Too products are not worth typically putting PR budget into. But if you have a differentiated product, then you are trying to be. 88 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:24,180 Jackson Wightman: trying to build a brand based on differentiation, you have to think very carefully about how you articulate the problem you solve, what the status quo solutions 89 00:10:24,180 --> 00:10:32,660 Jackson Wightman: to that problem are, why there are problems with them, and then how you differentiate. And so that's the first thing, is kind of focusing on differentiation. 90 00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:43,060 Jackson Wightman: I think the second thing that hardware startups need to do is make sure they are targeting the right media. You don't want to pitch the automotive guy at NGadgett 91 00:10:43,060 --> 00:10:49,040 Jackson Wightman: with your video game. You want to make sure that you are going after reporters who cover the space 92 00:10:49,040 --> 00:10:56,280 Jackson Wightman: you are in. And at most of these big tech outlets, there is somebody for each kind of division broad category of hardware. 93 00:10:56,440 --> 00:11:04,020 Jackson Wightman: So there's somebody who's going to cover headphones, somebody who's going to cover keyboards. Make sure you find out who that is. Make sure you look at their coverage 94 00:11:04,020 --> 00:11:10,040 Jackson Wightman: and pitch them. And then I think the third main thing that we need everybody to focus on, 95 00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:19,760 Jackson Wightman: if they're going to DIY their PR, if they're going to go out and get earned media, is articulating themselves in kind of a brief way. Media tend to be time crunched. 96 00:11:20,220 --> 00:11:21,820 Jackson Wightman: There's a real need to kind of 97 00:11:21,820 --> 00:11:29,860 Kevin Mako: make your points, make your case for differentiation quickly and concisely. Those are the big three things. Wow. That's very powerful. 98 00:11:30,140 --> 00:11:37,800 Jackson Wightman: And that's really three key things that if you can look at it in that order, that's essentially the foundation for structuring a smart PR campaign for earned media specifically. 99 00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:42,600 Jackson Wightman: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think targeting is so important. Gravity is so important. 100 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:47,340 Jackson Wightman: There's a couple other things that I might add that sometimes we say hardware startup founders forget, 101 00:11:47,980 --> 00:11:53,640 Jackson Wightman: particularly in the early stage when they're just kind of, say, post crowdfunding or even just coming out of the garage. You need to have good assets. 102 00:11:54,040 --> 00:12:02,500 Jackson Wightman: You need to have a product that is not going to get stage fright when it is demoed, say, for an outlet, you need, if you're sending samples to 103 00:12:02,500 --> 00:12:09,640 Jackson Wightman: a reporter, you need to make sure that those samples work. You need to make sure that the instruction manual doesn't read like it was written by a five-year-old or something. 104 00:12:09,820 --> 00:12:18,620 Jackson Wightman: So there are, I think, some other things if a reporter says, yes, I would like to see this, or yes, I want a sample or yes, I'd like an interview, whatever they say. 105 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:26,140 Jackson Wightman: There's a few other things you need to look for to make sure are tight. And those, I would say, are assets around the product and then making sure 106 00:12:26,140 --> 00:12:35,060 Jackson Wightman: that prototypes and our samples are working well. And I know a lot of hardware founders, whether they're scale up or startup, have gone through and have tested things. 107 00:12:35,180 --> 00:12:40,920 Jackson Wightman: It's very important, I think, and we always do this for our clients at proper propaganda, it's very important that people 108 00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:46,800 Jackson Wightman: who are not, you know, part of the core team test a product because the way I, a non-techy human who 109 00:12:46,800 --> 00:12:51,780 Jackson Wightman: was not, you know, in the garage with the founder, will test something and will kind of expect 110 00:12:51,780 --> 00:12:58,000 Kevin Mako: something to behave is often quite different than the way the sort of, you know, the chief engineer might. That's great on two fronts. 111 00:12:58,100 --> 00:13:05,980 Kevin Mako: First of all, in differentiation, you really want to focus on what's truly unique. And one of the problems with hardware startups is they're so focused on the details. 112 00:13:06,220 --> 00:13:15,360 Kevin Mako: that they forget about the one or two key differentiators to their product. So they end up spending a lot of time and not being brief describing how 113 00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:20,020 Kevin Mako: it works and functions and the manufacturing behind it and what it took to get there and all these sorts of things 114 00:13:20,020 --> 00:13:25,780 Kevin Mako: where they missed the differentiating factors or that was just a side note, 12 bullet points down the page. 115 00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:30,680 Kevin Mako: So if as a founder you both look at the key differentiators and then make sure that people 116 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:38,780 Kevin Mako: who don't understand the product, A, understand those differentiators very quickly and very fast. B, can use your product quickly and efficiently via either your instruction 117 00:13:38,780 --> 00:13:46,420 Kevin Mako: manual or very clear instructions on how to actually use that prototype if that's where you're at or first units if you're a little bit further in the production process. 118 00:13:46,600 --> 00:13:52,260 Kevin Mako: All of that is key to understanding what they are going to see when they get this product for the first time. Because I think a big 119 00:13:52,260 --> 00:13:56,900 Kevin Mako: conception, this was also in the sales avenue as well. It's not just earned media, but sales too. You 120 00:13:56,900 --> 00:14:02,000 Kevin Mako: understand your product inherently and you expect that a buyer or a journalist within that space 121 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:06,040 Kevin Mako: is going to instantly be able to figure it out, well, they've got a thousand things on their plate. 122 00:14:06,180 --> 00:14:12,240 Kevin Mako: Even if they have the sophistication to understand specifically your product and your product market, they may not have the time. 123 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:20,640 Kevin Mako: They may not have had the ability to spend the efforts on the specific things that you wanted them to really review. So it all comes down to that simplicity 124 00:14:20,640 --> 00:14:24,720 Jackson Wightman: and clarity, both A, about what you're actually pitching to them as your differentiation and 125 00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:31,940 Jackson Wightman: B, showing them that that differentiator actually works, which is your actual product, your asset. You know, these are humans. That's an important thing to 126 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:37,540 Jackson Wightman: remember, your points are very good one, Kevin. The idea that we don't all have the same day every time, at least most of us don't. 127 00:14:37,740 --> 00:14:46,220 Jackson Wightman: There are days when we are at our best, there are days when we at our worst. And you need when dealing with the media to communicate in a way that is very stripped 128 00:14:46,220 --> 00:14:53,720 Jackson Wightman: down and very easy for them to understand, but also to acknowledge and understand that these are humans. And maybe somebody's child had a meltdown that morning. 129 00:14:53,840 --> 00:15:01,800 Jackson Wightman: Maybe somebody had a fight with their spouse. So the simpler you can make things, the easier you can make it for them to test 130 00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:07,820 Jackson Wightman: what you want to see what you want them to see, that's what you need to do. Try to eliminate serving 131 00:15:07,820 --> 00:15:14,360 Kevin Mako: them and all you can eat buffet where they have a million things to try and digest and understand. Keep it simple. Keep it straightforward. 132 00:15:15,220 --> 00:15:21,360 Kevin Mako: And you're going to win the day. Love it. I mean, that's great product development knowledge as well. The simpler you make the product, the more you can 133 00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:28,400 Kevin Mako: focus on those key differentiators, the less on all these other bells and whistles and add-ons and accessories, especially for a hardware startup. 134 00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:36,240 Kevin Mako: If it's your first product getting to market, simplicity is key. about this a lot on the show on the product development side of things. But you can see as a hardware 135 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:41,860 Kevin Mako: startup how the development, by keeping it simple in development, that applies all the way through 136 00:15:41,860 --> 00:15:49,840 Kevin Mako: to and including not just sales, but also PR and marketing and all these other things. We hear countless people on the show talking about simplicity. 137 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:58,780 Kevin Mako: And as a hardware startup, that is your job to prevent feature creep and to focus on your winning pieces. And your winning pieces don't have to be massive. 138 00:15:58,980 --> 00:16:08,580 Kevin Mako: Numerous people talk a lot about 5% or 10% differentiation. You just have to prove how you are slightly better or more efficient or more useful, solve a little bit of a pain 139 00:16:08,580 --> 00:16:12,240 Kevin Mako: point that something else doesn't, whatever it might be that adds value to your product. 140 00:16:12,460 --> 00:16:20,800 Jackson Wightman: Focus with laser precision on that. And in hardware in particular, make sure you do a really good job of execution because nobody will forgive quality. 141 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:26,980 Jackson Wightman: No, and that's the case on the immediate side. So two points just in reference to which he said, number one, we always say internally 142 00:16:26,980 --> 00:16:31,960 Jackson Wightman: of the agency, that feature bombs are the hardest product to get press for it. Because a feature 143 00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:37,560 Jackson Wightman: bomb, even if I can get press for it, which is another conversation, and it's often hard 144 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:46,860 Jackson Wightman: to get press for feature bombs, even if I can get press for a feature bomb, it's never the press that the founder of the company wants, because there's too much to pick from. 145 00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:52,940 Jackson Wightman: So you often see a journalist reporting on feature X when the founder would have said, hey, come on, get us press 146 00:16:52,940 --> 00:17:01,100 Kevin Mako: for feature Y. It's very hard to do. I just think, as simple as things, can be made. That's what you want to do in your intermediate channel for sure. Amazing. Now, 147 00:17:01,180 --> 00:17:05,280 Kevin Mako: you've got a book coming out fairly soon, and it talks about a lot of these issues, particularly 148 00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:11,660 Jackson Wightman: for the tech industry. Give us a bit of a highlight of what's coming out. I think it's on March 23rd that it comes out. Yeah, March 23rd. 149 00:17:11,860 --> 00:17:19,920 Jackson Wightman: The book is written with my agency co-partender Borianus the Peachovich. March 23rd on Amazon, the title is the tech PR playbook. Pretty simple title, 150 00:17:20,020 --> 00:17:26,060 Jackson Wightman: pretty self-explanatory title. What we've done is we've taken 20 plus years in the business each of us 151 00:17:26,060 --> 00:17:32,820 Jackson Wightman: and sort of said, okay, what is it that leaders tend to miss? Founders at hardware startups, 152 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:38,520 Jackson Wightman: founders at hardware scale ups, where do they go wrong? What are the common misperceptions we've seen 153 00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:47,960 Jackson Wightman: that lead to sometimes failures and what are the common perceptions, correct perceptions, that have led to successes. And we really tried to distill those. 154 00:17:48,060 --> 00:17:55,480 Jackson Wightman: And so the book, I would say, focuses first and foremost on what is this thing for? What is earned media for? Because I think 155 00:17:55,480 --> 00:18:03,360 Jackson Wightman: successful hardware startups, successful hardware scaleups, understand it is for a very limited set of business activities. 156 00:18:03,580 --> 00:18:12,280 Jackson Wightman: And obviously that primarily revolves around brand equity. But there's only about five or six other things that earned media really delivers well for a business. And I would say 157 00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:18,700 Jackson Wightman: those are recruitment, if one is soliciting investment, if one wants to boost employee morale, if one has 158 00:18:18,700 --> 00:18:23,760 Jackson Wightman: SEO goals, or in some instances, if one wants to try and bolster direct sales, there are certain 159 00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:32,860 Jackson Wightman: types of earned media that can sort of service each of those broad six business goals. So we really touch on that. We touch on kind of some of the pitfalls that we've seen people 160 00:18:32,860 --> 00:18:38,620 Jackson Wightman: make. And often those pitfalls are not only around perception, but sometimes in how one approaches a reporter. 161 00:18:39,140 --> 00:18:45,500 Jackson Wightman: As you've alluded to a few times in our conversation, reporters are very time crunched people. So, you know, you got to keep it simple. You got to keep it straightforward. 162 00:18:46,100 --> 00:18:52,020 Jackson Wightman: We lay some of that out. We lay out a range of kind of things if one is at that moment that many 163 00:18:52,020 --> 00:18:56,440 Jackson Wightman: hardware scaleups are where they're thinking about agency helps that we sort of have a chapter on 164 00:18:56,440 --> 00:19:05,800 Jackson Wightman: here's how you'd screen an agency here are some questions to ask here are some red flags to look out for if an agency says x y or z the book is peppered with you 165 00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:11,440 Jackson Wightman: know a range of kind of useful tools templates all of that that people can use whether they're working 166 00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:18,140 Kevin Mako: with an agency or whether they're DIYing their PR so march 23rd tech PR playbook on amazon and yeah hopefully 167 00:19:18,140 --> 00:19:27,140 Kevin Mako: it's useful for people amazing i'll put all those links as well to proper propaganda your agency for hardware tech firms as well as putting the link to the book so that people can 168 00:19:27,140 --> 00:19:31,600 Kevin Mako: click there when it comes out March 23 or later in 2023 and pick 169 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:33,100 Jackson Wightman: up a copy and learn all of the 170 00:19:33,100 --> 00:19:40,580 Kevin Mako: insights from 20 plus years of both you and your co-founder's experience working on hardware products getting to market with earned media. Yeah, sounds great. 171 00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:45,700 Kevin Mako: Thank you. Thanks so much for all your words of wisdom today. Really appreciate it and we'll look forward to talking again soon. 172 00:19:45,860 --> 00:19:50,100 Narrator: Amazing. Thank you, Kevin. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup 173 00:19:50,100 --> 00:19:54,840 Narrator: podcast. If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and leave us a quick five-star review. 174 00:19:55,100 --> 00:20:04,500 Narrator: If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us any time at our email, podcast and MakoDesign.com. That's podcast at MakoDesign.com. 175 00:20:04,900 --> 00:20:12,820 Narrator: This show is hosted by Kevin Mako. North America's leading expert on product development for physical product startups. Huge thanks to our sponsors, PTC, and their two 176 00:20:12,820 --> 00:20:17,900 Narrator: best-in-class 3D CAD product development software solutions Onshape and Creo, and Mako Design 177 00:20:17,900 --> 00:20:26,640 Narrator: and invent the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored specifically to startups small manufacturers and inventors thanks for joining and 178 00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:27,500 Narrator: see you next time