5 CleanTech PR Strategies for Right Now
Cleantech startup PR is a crucial aspect of creating, organizing, and measuring the effectiveness of a cleantech PR strategy. Cleantech PR may cover a single goal or a year-long campaign. A cleantech PR firm ensures the drive is creative while illustrating how the brand adds value to the customer. If you are still on the fence about using a cleantech PR agency, you are at the right place. Here are 5 cleantech PR strategies every tech-based emerging industry company needs for success.
1. The Rise of Cleantech and AI
It goes without saying that as public relations and AI evolves, it will also affect cleantech PR. The great news is that there is no need for tech-based companies or startups to fear because, in the future, AI and cleantech PR will go hand-in-hand, with the former helping with all the heavy liftings when it comes to creating relevant content and SEO-optimized social media posts that are going to completely automate the process of maintaining public relations.
Many forward-thinking PR professionals are already utilizing AI-powered tools for monitoring and analyzing all social media mentions and online conservations to identify patterns of negative or positive sentiments.
When averting the negative impact of a crisis, AI-powered tools can help cleantech PR teams monitor, evaluate and identify possible emerging issues or existing negative sentiments that threaten to put a cleantech startup in a tailspin.
AI-driven technology will, without a doubt, completely revolutionize how cleantech PR firms can respond to concerns. The team can help mitigate possible damage detrimental to a cleantech-based brand.
Many examples show how forward-thinking tech-based businesses and cleantech PR firms harness AI’s power to track online media, analyze impressions, and correlate sales results to planned media coverage. Using AI’s latest tools, such as natural language generation, sentiment, and predictive analysis, cleantech startup PR firms can help emerging businesses and the top renewable energy experts in the cleantech space.
2. Media Outreach
One cleantech PR approach is media outreach, which is reaching out to various media sources and journalists to promote the cleantech company’s message and what their target audience may anticipate. This strategy is crucial since it saves tech-based companies both time and resources in the future when pitching their ideas to journalists for publishing.
Cleantech companies must carefully filter out the ones unrelated to their sector or business and focus on the channels relevant to their brand and expertise. It boosts the chances of publication and will give the cleantech company an idea of how to organize their material in a way that those specific sources consider worthy of publication. Social media is generally the go-to platform for cleantech PR firms looking to promote brands making waves in the clean technology space.
Social media is an excellent resource for media outreach mainly because it provides a casual platform for communicating with tech journalists, channels, and other resources naturally and acceptably.
With this in mind, while social media is considered a casual platform where cleantech PR agencies and journalists can connect, it is crucial for you as a company or PR agency not to be too simple and carefree when reaching out or communicating with journalists and other related channels mainly because you risk saying something inappropriate or something that may offend the particular journalist or media channel that you are reaching out to.
To ensure you leave an excellent first impression, studying the journalist or media outlet and how they interact with others on social media platforms is essential. You can then emulate the style they use in their communications to come across as someone they want to communicate with.
Unlike other PR agencies, cleantech PR professionals are consistently in the know when it comes to the journalists and media outlets that matter and know exactly how to extend their reach in a not considered inappropriate way.
3. Backlinking
Backlinking is one of the most cost-effective ways to disseminate cleantech PR strategies. Backlinking is contacting journalists, bloggers, and other media sources, offering articles on themes in which your brand shines, and obtaining a reference to your website and business.
The mutual advantage comes from journalists receiving content for the industry in which they are interested from an expert. At the same time, the cleantech company gains much-needed exposure and brand awareness. While connecting with tech journalists, bloggers, and social media influencers is no longer shrouded in secrecy, a dedicated cleantech startup PR firm can communicate with the relevant journalists, bloggers, and social media influencers who will be interested in your service or product.
Only an experienced cleantech PR firm knows the importance of keeping tech journalists engaged even when you have nothing to pitch, mainly because if a cleantech PR agency only reaches out to a tech journalist whenever they have a new tech product or service to sell, then that’s going to be a clear giveaway that neither the cleantech PR agency nor the tech-based company is genuinely interested in establishing a long-term working relationship with them.
It will negatively impact the overall relationship between the journalist and the cleantech PR agency. It can also be disadvantageous as the journalist will be less passionate about what your brand offers and why a cleantech startup or business must hire cleantech PR agencies always who know the importance of keeping journalists and others in the industry engaged, despite of whether or not there’s a new product or service on offer.
For a cleantech PR firm, keeping in touch with the relevant journalists and social media influencers could be as simple as sending out regular ICYMI “in case you missed it” emails, sharing relevant stories or news articles, and leaving comments on their websites or blogs. Keeping in touch is a fantastic way to ensure the journalist knows you are genuinely interested in their work.
These thoughtful and organic interactions between cleantech PR professionals and journalists ensure a high trust they can build over time. It also makes a clean tech-based company position its brand name as an authority in a particular niche and not just some fly-by-night company.
For new companies ready to enter the cleantech space, it is crucial to realize that PR is now one-sided, as the cleantech PR agency is one of many doing all the work. There is a need for collaborations between the cleantech PR firm and the drivers of your cleantech message, such as journalists, media outlets, and influencers, now more than ever. It is why cleantech PR firms must understand the brand/client perceptions and work on a PR strategy accordingly.
4. Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility is another crucial part of the PR world, especially for cleantech companies always looking to find a way to spread the word about their new and fantastic product to a broader audience. When it comes to conveying a tech-based company’s message regarding corporate social responsibility, it’s all about creating a soft image of the company. It may involve sharing information on how the tech-based company seeks to reduce customers’ carbon footprint with their new products or that the firm is paying their staff more than the minimum wage.
It is not unheard of for tech-based companies to show their support for non-government organizations and charities, message their audience about what they care about, or even set up their own charity or social welfare program that benefits the local community. Hiring an experienced cleantech PR firm means that technology-based brands can come across as caring for the planet and the people.
It is optional to be a non-profit to show corporate social responsibility. In short, tech-based companies that follow the CSR model focus on the company’s bottom line, profit, and two other Ps: people and the planet.
Besides, you would want the cleantech PR agency you hire to convey your CSR vision to your clients, mainly because not all CSR-based companies are Certified B Corporations, which means the organization meets very high standards regarding positive social and environmental impact. But, the truth is that a tech-based startup or business can practice and convey its CSR message whether they are certified or not.
One of the best examples of CSR done correctly is Dawn liquid dishwashing soap. During the 70s, research found that the brand was highly effective at cleaning bird victims of oil spills. Ultimately, P&G, the product’s parent company, donated crates of Dawn dishwashing liquid to Exxon Valdez. It became a media fixture in the cleaning-up process during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Sure, when it comes to cause-related marketing, it’s usually the company that selects the non-profit, but in this respect, it is the other way around. But, smart brand positioning gained something positive (for Dawn) from a sticky situation. So, what does this tell us? Regarding cause-related PR, tech-based companies must pick a cause strategically tied to the brand’s positioning.
5. Crisis Management as a CleanTech PR Strategy
Preventing a crisis is most important, but containing the PR impact is critical when you have one – especially for high-trust businesses like energy startups. Crisis management is an area of PR that you must recognize, mainly if your company operates in the tech space where software and product malfunctions are part of the package. A crisis management strategy is crucial, especially when an injury or a negative social media campaign is involved.
Hiring the expertise of a cleantech PR agency means you have professionals who will not only develop a plan but also coordinate resources toward dealing with the issue in a mutually beneficial manner. The team will find a way that helps repair the reputation of the brand and addresses the needs of the affected party.
In short, hiring the expertise of a cleantech PR firm for crisis management is analogous to extinguishing a fire. It is only possible to employ a cleantech startup PR firm that always has a crisis management plan mapped up, documented, and communicated.
While we most certainly would like to think that we can “rise to the occasion” under pressure and handle any stressful situation like the professionals we are, that’s seldom the case. Keeping that sad but actual fact in mind, it pays to invest in a cleantech PR agency to handle the situation when …hits the fan.
Ending Note
In the end, cleantech PR is a dynamic industry constantly evolving to keep up with the advancements in new “clean” technologies and the challenges that arise. However, tech-based businesses and startups that need to realize the importance of consulting a cleantech PR firm are bound to be vulnerable. They might not just face the negative press but also need to catch up on the note-worthy shifts constantly occurring in the tech niche.
Hiring a reputable cleantech PR firm’s expertise will also help identify new business opportunities in the clean tech sector, allowing startups in the cleantech space to scale up their business and reach greater market visibility.
