WordPop Case Study: Brand Evangelists
Tell your story through those who have been affected by your organization’s mission.
Question
How do you work with brand evangelists to keep the PR momentum going?
Our client Hera Labs is a nonprofit business accelerator that helps female-led businesses. Over the past few years, our PR firm has positioned Hera Labs founder, Dr. Silvia Mah, as a leading expert in entrepreneurship. Part of our approach has been to secure TV spots and op-eds for Dr. Mah, demonstrating her business expertise. Now that we’ve demonstrated Dr. Mah’s position in the media, how do we create new press opportunities for Hera Labs; opportunities that unveil the impact of the organization?
Solution
WordPop is helping Hera Labs harness the power of the many people who have been bolstered by Hera Labs over the past few years. By engaging brand evangelists, we’re telling the Hera Labs story in new and interesting ways.
Successes
Example 1: Urban Translations
Urban Translations, a technology startup, demonstrates the synergy power of this approach. WordPop was tasked with earning pre-event and post-event press leading up to Hera Venture Summit, Hera Labs’ annual event which brings together startups and angel investors. We’d been speaking with a contact at Huffington Post who covered the event the previous year, but her beat had changed to a technology focus. That’s when we brought Urban Translations into the story, illustrating how Hera Labs has helped tech startups on their way to success. Because Hera Labs gave Urban Translations the opportunity to get mentioned in the Huffington Post, when Urban Translations’ PR firm landed a story in San Diego Business Journal, the team, when interviewed, mentioned Hera Labs and its role in the organization’s success. By taking a “sharing” approach, both organizations earned two media placements instead of one each.
Example 2: Donation Match
Donation Match is an online platform that pairs those in need (like schools, PTAs and nonprofits) with those who have something to donate (usually corporations). We worked with Hera Labs to nominate Donation Match for a San Diego Daily Transcript Leading Startups award which they won. In addition, on behalf of Hera Labs, we connected Donation Match with the San Diego Business Journal, resulting in an excellent feature story. To return the favor, Donation Match mentioned Hera Labs in the story. Win-win!
Example 3: Roundups
There’s strength in numbers: it’s much easier to illustrate a trend and “prove it” to a journalist when you can show multiple examples, not just the one example of your organization. “Roundup” articles are one technique we’ve found to be effective when pitching Hera Labs. In our pitch, we feature multiple organizations, business leaders or products that fall into a particular category, like women business owners or mom business owners.
If you have any questions about how you might harness the power of brand evangelists, don’t hesitate to ask April. Brand evangelists can help you earn press and can earn press for themselves, too.