Tag Archive for: pr for fast growing companies

6 Ways PR Helped Hypergrowth Healthtech Brands Thrive

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Ever since the pandemic, there has been a new emphasis on the emerging industry of telehealth, many of which are on the pre-IPO track. And while telehealth VC investment is expected to stay flat in 2023, the industry received an exciting $29.1 billion in funding in 2021, mostly for consumer tech services and apps, but B2B is also on solid footing. Regardless of funding levels, how has healthtech PR helped hypergrowth brands thrive through the disruptive business environment?

 

Hims/Hers HealthTech and Consumer Goods Maximizes Growth with PR

  • $233 million raised
  • First day of trading: Jan. 21, 2021
  • SPAC proceeds: $280 million
  • SPAC valuation: $1.6 billion, according to Forbes

Hims/Hers operates two websites offering medical services specific to men (Hims) and women (Hers). To catch the attention of VCs and to eventually go public in 2021,  healthtech PR helped hypergrowth tech brandHims/Hers maximize their most opportune moments. With a total funding amount of $233 million and a successful SPAC IPO, Hims/Hers PR was strategic and purpose-driven, which helped it create consumer trust and make them a media darling at the right time.

Authentic Purpose-Driven PR

In 2021, Hims/Hers followed AirBnB in offering services to displaced Afghan refugees in the wake of the U.S. military’s sudden departure from Afghanistan. Not only did this create trust for their customers, many of whom expect brands to be socially impactful, but they also leveraged tech-based media such as TechCrunch to report the news and capture investors’ imaginations. It may have caught the attention of Walgreens, who missed the chance to contribute when their competitor, Walmart beat them to the punch because three months later, Walgreens started carrying the Hims & Hers personal care products in-store and online.

Targeting Early Adopters with Content

Although it went dark in 2021, Hims/Hers used Medium to own their story, create interest in the early-adopter crowd, and help them navigate the choppy consumer waters during the pandemic. Hims/Hers used Medium to make announcements, and they also hosted Q&As with medical professionals over topics that showed their consumers they understood them and their most personal medical problems.

 

Healthtech Kiira Health Leverages Healthcare PR at Opportune Moments

  • $4 million raised
  • Named one of the most promising startups in 2021 by VCs in Business Insider

Kiira is a healthtech startup that provides an online health clinic to college-aged women with an inclusive and culture-centered approach. The platform provided 24/7 365 access to trusted health experts, including primary care providers, ObGyn, nurse practitioners, and mental health experts. When the pandemic hit, many college-aged women found themselves without access to healthcare. This an especially acute issue because without “adequate resources and guidance, students are at risk for high rates of STDs on campus, unintended pregnancies, adolescent maternal deaths, and other adverse events.” according to CEO and cofounder Crystal Evuleocha, so she teamed up Dr. Candice Fraser, MD FACOG to solve the issue for millions of young women.

Using the Media to Reach Your Target Community

Both co-founders are open about their own experiences with a lack of access to care or questions about how to access care and the dangerous consequences. By leveraging personal stories that speak directly to the organization’s community, the co-founders have shown their audiences that they truly understand them, as they did in Forbes and Essence in 2021.

Moreover, when the founders speak to their community, they stay on message. They share the same information that inspired them to start Kiira Health and they underscore the most pressing issues for young women.

Using Press Releases For Corporate History

Should you issue a press release, or shouldn’t you? One time it’s crystal clear that you should, when there is a big corporate moment that will build your brand credibility with press and/or consumers, as Kiira Health did when it announced its first flagship location in Los Angeles. While press releases aren’t usually the source of media coverage by themselves, it likely didn’t hurt when Crunchbase included them in a story about health and wellness startups. This kind of press release acts a flagpole in the sand for future credibility building for both VC and media.

 

Folx Health Using PR to Elevate Understanding

  • $59 million raised
  • #28 on Fast Company’s list of World’s Most Innovative Companies 2023

Taking Control of their Founding Story

Folx Health is a telehealth platform that provides healthcare services tailored to the LGBTQIA+ community, starting at $59/month. In May 2020, Folx founder A.G. Breitenstein took to Medium to tell how Folx came to be. Although this Medium post is their only Medium post, it shows a particular media savvy. In December that year Folx’s $4.4 million funding led to coverage on Mashable, Built in Boston, and Crunchbase. The Medium post is so important because it is an early flag in the sand about the founding story of Folx, which is important when a big media announcement hits and suddenly there is a lot of press and a lot of opportunities for the founding story to be misunderstood or misrepresented.

PR to Take a Stand

On the heels of its $30 million raise in October 2022, Folx appears to take control of its narrative again. This time, it does so as a fierce source of information about healthcare’s inadequacy for the queer community. Time after time, Folx uses an intelligent combination of data and storytelling to articulate Folx’s purpose and need to a broader audience. And this time, Folx CEO is the spokesperson for thier entire community: The American healthcare system, “at best, wasn’t built for us. And actually, more often than not, it’s openly discriminatory,” says Liana Douillet-Guzmán, of the LGBTQ community.

 

 

All of these hypergrowth healthtech brands provide examples of PR in healthcare brands, but these examples can also be useful for all startups in any phase of growth. Taking ownership of PR in the earliest stages can pay remarkable dividends in the early development and later hypergrowth stages. During times of volatility, PR can be the shining beacon into the future and light the path for future growth, even with past coverage.

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How Direct-to-Consumer Brands Can Continue to Grow

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We live in a world where ideas, products, and signals are happening so fast that it’s hard for the consumer to process everything. Yet, direct-to-consumer brands can continue to grow with a strategic eye on awareness and trust.  If we weren’t bombarded with over 5,000 advertisements per day, we could be more subtle.

The fact is, worldwide, the average person spends 473 minutes per day engaging with media. We also live in a post-ChatGPT world, and one still ruled by search engines and algorithms. Plus, newsrooms are shrinking (in 2021, they had fallen by 25% since 2008) as competition for ad dollars becomes less and less centralized. For this reason, DTC PR strategies need to keep up with the changing media environment and rethink earned media.

There are two ways to approach CPG PR; one is a holistic approach of communications, digital visibility, thought leadership, and product PR where metrics match key business objectives; the other is a laser-focused approach, which could be consumer product PR or thought leadership, depending on the brand strategy with more PR-focused KPIs. In an ideal world, all brands embrace a holistic point of view with a complete bespoke PR program. But, by choosing a strategic consumer PR lever, challenger consumer brands can be precise and thoughtful about their earned media. This is about the laser-focused approach, and consumer brand PR firms must expand their definition of PR to stay useful to DTC, CPG, and consumer product brands.

The Argument for Laser-Focused Media Relations

It’s a harsh world for direct-to-consumer brands to continue growing. For challenger consumer product, DTC and CPG brands – those past startup mode but not a household name – there are an overwhelming number of media options. From Instagram influencers to a dizzying array of advertising choices, the challenger brand has more choices than money. Therefore, it needs to act strategically to do two things at once to scale: build awareness and trust.

That’s one reason PR is the signature choice for consumer product PR: Trust and Awareness.

Trust is the longest game but the most crucial communication goal of any brand. Yet, trust takes a long time to build. Unlike Instagram Influencers (whose influence is waning) and paid advertisements, and the 68% of consumers who think cookie-based advertising is creepy (Marigold 2023), earned media addresses the #1 PR challenge for upstart brands: trusted reach. Whether your target audience is GenZ or a target broader, consumers must trust your brand before you edge in on the market share of competitors or create a new product category altogether, trusted reach is where the smart money goes.

So how do you build trust and awareness when your branding budget is limited? The fact is that branding is expensive, and brands with hyper-growth ambitions need a more direct form of branding.  Indeed, product reviews play a vital role in both trust and awareness, and there’s one way to super charge product trust: product reviews in trusted media outlets. Media coverage has several advantages over other brand awareness options, including stickiness. Unlike a fleeting social media post or a questionably targeted ad, product coverage, especially reviews on online media sites, is extremely sticky, lasting in search results for years.

Owning Content and Messaging with Thought Leadership

Executive visibility has never been so vital. A well-developed owned content program isn’t a blog program; it’s a program that embraces all the thought leadership opportunities available to hypergrowth brands today. From blog posts and contributions to emerging topics to the multitude of contributor opportunities to executives willing to share insights with the broader public, thought leadership is ripe with opportunities for challenger brands. This is especially true for younger audiences who distrust established and entrenched brands more than they do startup consumer brands.

Even if your audience isn’t reading those contribution sites, they add a credible and authoritative SEO link to the website and present executives as willing and open to engaging with their customers. According to the Edelman Trust Report, businesses were more trusted than the government and NGOs. But that trust is tenuous because CEO trust isn’t on solid ground, yet business leaders are seen as unifiers next to NGO leaders and teachers; that’s some pretty good company business leaders are keeping. Plus, the best way to earn trust is to be more visible.  Harvard Business Review says one of the most important ways for consumer brands to succeed includes deepening customer relationship, not just making comparisons with competitors.

Now is truly the time to embrace thought leadership because of the trusted status of businesses. From 2022 to 2023, businesses earned a 20-point bump in ethics on the Edelman Trust Report, so this is an area of opportunity for consumer brands – especially if they embrace purpose-driven PR. But even if a true purpose-driven message isn’t right for a consumer brand, there are likely aspects of ethics to which the leaders of the consumer brands can speak. And that’s important because 63% of consumers buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs and values.

 

Embrace Digital PR Completely with Product Reviews

Digitally savvy PR keeps their eye on the future instead of “of the moment.” Let’s be clear: for trust and authority, there are no short cuts Google sees those work around tactics and actively adjusts against them. This is not a recommendation to game the system; it’s a recommendation to embrace the system. Getting a bunch of low-grade links is actually more damaging than helpful. And the idea of an influencer is changing. A few years ago, brands rushed to implement Instagram influencer campaigns, 90% of which fell flat because they weren’t well executed influencer campaigns. And as the influencer’s trust continues to wane, brands need to understand where their target markets are and who they trust. GenZ audiences don’t trust social media but look to social media to find the news. And 49% of GenZ trust cable news and network news, while 52% trust online only news sites. These online-only news sites are a boon to consumer brand PR because they constantly work to churn out content; they always need new ideas and angles. Plus, product reviews drive eyeballs and, as an added benefit, can also be sources of revenue through affiliate programs. Creating digitally savvy content that supports hero reviews alongside gift guide inclusions is an excellent way to focus consumer product PR budgets.

How Digital PR and Earned Media Work Together

Working alongside journalists to support their objectives is and always will be the objective of media relations. Today’s savvy media relations teams understand how to help digitally savvy online news outlets so that their content surfaces on Google (and AI-driven search like Chat GPT). It goes beyond keywords into the deep algorithm that is Google’s search engine. Direct-to-consumer brands can continue to grow by leveraging Google’s search and trust algorithm for themselves. And that search engine is leaning heavily into authority and trust. There are millions of ways to signal that your brand is trustworthy, but one of the most attainable is aligning with Google’s most trusted sources, and that’s where consumer product PR can make the biggest impact.

Upstart consumer brands can become hypergrowth consumer brands by investing in very defined strategic PR initiatives. Connect with us today to learn more about our laser-focused PR programs for ambitious brands.

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What Is A Hypergrowth Company?

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If there’s a single buzzword that describes what every entrepreneur and investor is chasing right now, it’s “hyper-growth.” Hypergrowth refers to the exponential expansion that certain businesses experience as they quickly go from non-entity to ubiquity in their field. Think Zoom, Uber, Facebook, and many of the other fastest-growing companies you’ve heard of. But while rapid expansion might not seem like a bad problem to have, if you aren’t prepared for it, your business’s growth could collapse just as quickly.

If your company is seeking a hyper-growth model or otherwise finds itself in a period of massive growth, it is imperative that you have a plan in place to prevent your company’s leadership and workers from getting burned out by the challenges of dealing with rapid expansion. Let’s take a closer look at what a hyper-growth company is, and what you can do to ensure that a period of hyper-growth doesn’t end in an equally steep downturn.

What Does Hypergrowth Look Like?

The term hyper-growth first appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 2008. According to the World Economic Forum, compound annual growth rates (CAGR) above 40% define hyper-growth. Hypergrowth is at least double the rate at which a company’s growth can be considered rapid (20% CAGR), which is itself very fast. To put all those numbers In perspective, most medium-sized companies would be thrilled at sustained 10% growth. Hypergrowth usually occurs after the business’s products and services first become available but before the company has fully developed.

Hypergrowth companies are the envy of the business world. Some examples of well-known hyper-growth companies include Amazon, Facebook, Uber, Stripes, and more recently, Zoom, a company whose hyper-growth was fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Entrepreneurs are constantly trying to start the next big hyper-growth business, and venture capitalists are constantly trying to be the first to identify the next big hyper-growth company (and shove cash into its hands).

Although companies like Facebook, Uber, and Amazon all maintained their growth and did not experience a rapid downturn, they are the exception to the rule. The reason why so many hyper-growth businesses fail is because company leadership failed to properly plan for the many challenges inherent to rapid change and wildly increasing demand.

Challenges of A Hypergrowth Business

Companies that deliberately seek hyper-growth often lose money for years as they rapidly grow, snap up competitors, corner markets, and slash the costs of their products to appeal to consumers. It can sometimes be many years before investors in the business finally see a return on their investment.

For instance, Amazon was unprofitable nearly 20 years before it finally starting turning a profit in the middle of the last decade. Investors take a risk by putting their money in potential hyper-growth businesses, and if they do not remain committed to keeping the business afloat through frequent cash infusion, then collapse could be inevitable.

But while the concept of hyper-growth runs counter to a more traditional model of growth, successful hyper-growth businesses can eventually turn into giant corporations that deliver huge, regular profits to investors.

Unsurprisingly, businesses pursuing hyper-growth face certain unique challenges, including:

  • Too much focus on growth – Although prioritizing growth is one of the hallmarks of a hyper-growth business, a company can fail if leadership gets too focused on scaling the business. By focusing too much on revenue growth, you may neglect problems in areas like IT and operations — the areas that ultimately fuel that growth. As the company grows, more money must be spent updating systems to adapt to the business’s increasing size and workforce. While you are focused on growing revenue, you should also focus on scaling other areas of your business to keep pace. Consider your internal communication with employees and utilize internal and external hyper-growth PR strategies to ensure you’re staying focused on emerging trends that may impact your reputation.
  • Overworking employees – Employees at booming businesses may be expected to work long hours, but there can come a point where those workers get burned out — and even startup culture can’t prevent the exhaustion that working 80+ hour weeks can bring. When some employees put in excessive work hours, that signals to other employees that they should do the same, and it’s at that point that hyper-growth business culture can become toxic and unsustainable. Even though many employees may be eager to work exhausting hours because they believe in the company’s vision and business objectives, overwork leads to mental and physical health issues that could hurt the company more than that hard work helps it.
  • Marketing expenses – The bigger your business gets, the more it will cost to market your business effectively. At some point you may need to reevaluate your marketing solutions and determine if there are any lower-cost options. By maintaining exhaustive and meticulous metrics, you’ll be able to track your profit margins appropriately.

The following tips can help you manage a hyper-growth business in a responsible way and ensure that it successfully overcomes the challenges listed above:

  • Strategize – If you are too focused on growth, you may lose sight of other challenges that may obstruct your business’s path to success. Have a solid growth strategy in place, and consider working with a PR firm to develop a plan that serves your business’s best interests. Select a PR firm that has experience working with clients in your specific field, a vast network of industry influencers and experts, a team of creative content developers who understand your target audience, and access to top-level consultants who can help you safely sustain this period of hypergrowth.
  • Focus on culture – A good company culture is what keeps employees committed to your vision and your company’s growth, and attracts the high-quality candidates you’ll need in order to sustain that growth. Ensure that your employees have a healthy work-life balance, and foster camaraderie and friendship among your workers. As you are developing your company’s culture, remember to provide employees with benefits and perks that they actually want and that actually improve their lives. Beer on tap and arcade games in the lobby may seem cool, but they’re a poor substitute for a company that actually cares about its employees as people and fosters a good work-life balance.
  • Don’t forget about profits – Many companies can successfully burn through cash as they fuel rapid growth, but few can turn endless investor patience into a long-term business model. The end goal should always be sustained profits, not eye-popping revenue fueled by even larger losses. Build loyalty and trust with your investors by laying out a future profit plan.

PR for Fast-Growing Companies

If you have more questions about hyper-growth business strategies, contact our PR professionals at Avaans Media today to discuss your business objectives and get to know our team.

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What Makes Hypergrowth Businesses Stand Out?

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While there is no blueprint for creating a successful hyper-growth company, many of these businesses share some common qualities that help them stand out in the crowd of tech startups. But first, it’s essential to understand what a hypergrowth business is.

What Is A Hypergrowth Business?

Hypergrowth businesses are businesses that maintain a rapid rate of growth over time. The term “hyper-growth” was first coined in the Harvard Business Review. To be called a “hyper-growth” business, it must have a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 40% or more. Businesses with “rapid growth” have a CAGR between 20% and 40%. And businesses with “normal growth” maintain a CAGR below 20%. Hypergrowth usually occurs before a business has fully matured.

Many startup businesses are looking to be the next big hyper-growth company. Amazon, Uber, and Facebook are all excellent examples of hyper-growth companies. However, many hyper-growth companies eventually take a quick downturn and ultimately fail. Many hyper-growth companies fail because they get so focused on growth that they neglect to plan for challenges that the business will most certainly face during its rapid rise, including overworked employees, marketing costs, and a customer-focused culture, and more.

How Hypergrowth Companies Stand Out

Companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Uber all set themselves apart from other hypergrowth companies and continued to maintain a steady growth rate over time. You gain insight into how hypergrowth companies like these stand out from the competition by following these tips.

They Keep Track of Emerging Trends and Offer Customers Real Value

Because the market is constantly in flux and consumers are continuously rethinking their wants and needs, hypergrowth businesses understand that they must keep track of emerging trends. When they see an opportunity, they take it. When they see a gap in the marketplace, they fill it with a product or service that has value for customers. Hypergrowth businesses understand that perceived value is not enough; customers seek products and services that add real value to their lives. Being flexible and focused on the company’s target audience and their changing wants and needs enables hypergrowth businesses to scale rapidly when an opportunity becomes successful.

They Know How To Identify Areas for Growth

Most businesses grow by expanding their current customer base by regularly offering new products and services or by targeting new customers by diversifying the products and services they offer and testing opportunities in new markets. Hypergrowth companies are successful because they know how to identify the most significant opportunities for growth and then strategically pursue that opportunity while keeping an eye on product performance and marketplace trends.

They Hire Focused Leadership

Hypergrowth companies understand the value of competent, focused leadership. Hypergrowth businesses that fail often do so because company leadership got so focused on the company’s rapid growth that they were unable to focus on other challenges that would inevitably arise due to rapid expansion. Successful hypergrowth companies hire leadership that can focus on both scaling the business and scaling other business areas to match the company’s growth.

Successful business leaders do much more than share a vision for the company’s growth. They also move the business forward by spotting emerging trends and constantly adapting to the constantly changing market. While remaining focused on the overall vision, they also focus on executing a business strategy to achieve their business objectives.

They Value Their Employees

Hypergrowth companies value the people who work for them and strive to foster a healthy workplace culture. Overworking employees can quickly cause a business’s culture to become toxic. Hypergrowth businesses provide employees with rewards and benefits that have value. A good work-life balance is far more rewarding and important to the average worker than access to ping pong tables and craft beer on tap. Hypergrowth company leaders understand that their employees are the catalysts for rapid growth and that the company’s culture starts with its workers. Hypergrowth company leaders are intentional about developing a healthy and unique company culture from the outset.

They Turn Their Customers Into Brand Ambassadors

Successful hyper-growth companies turn their customers into ambassadors for their brand. There are few things more powerful for a company than its customers going out into the world and gushing about the company’s product or service. Hypergrowth businesses rely on word of mouth and constantly identify potential brand ambassadors to promote their products and services. In addition to customers, other brand ambassadors might be employees or industry influencers. No matter how they spread the word about your brand, word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools a business can leverage.

They Measure Their Success

Hypergrowth businesses understand that success doesn’t happen due to dumb luck. Successful hyper growth businesses are constantly tracking their successes and failures, gaining insights into what is working and what isn’t by harnessing as much data as they can — the more data, the better.

They Are Flexible and Innovative

Perhaps one of the most important qualities of successful hyper-growth businesses is their flexibility and ability to innovate constantly. In the digital age, the world is changing rapidly every day. Successful hyper-growth companies understand that to achieve success, they must be malleable, constantly reassessing consumers’ wants and needs and new marketplace opportunities. Because consumers today have more choice, successful hyper-growth companies must constantly innovate to stand out above other companies.

Marketing for Hypergrowth

How can you market your company for hyper-growth? Implementing a focused and strategic public relations campaign is one of the best methods for customer-driven companies that are on the brink of or are already experiencing hypergrowth. The keys to successful hyper-growth PR is to reach a broad audience, keep them engaged, and letting your service or product sell itself. Some ways to do this include:

  • Running giveaways and other promotions to attract new customers and keep them engaged
  • Keep your existing customers informed and engaged with your company
  • Show all of your customers that you care, not just through words but through your actions

PR for fast-growing companies can be challenging, and especially for those experiencing hypergrowth. With so many tasks to complete, outsourcing some of these efforts to a company with specific experience with hypergrowth PR is often recommended.

Contact Avaans Media

The foundation of any company is its vision, but a successful hyper-growth company grows due to a solid business strategy that meets its goals. If you have questions about hyper-growth business strategies, the PR team at Avaans Media is here to answer all your questions. Contact us today to discuss your business objectives.

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The Single Most Inexpensive Form of Marketing for Startups: Advocacy

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Ways for Startups  & Hypergrowth Companies to Inspire Radical Employee Loyalty

This presentation will take you less than 5 minutes to get through but will make you re-think your startup marketing efforts permanently.

In today’s world where disruption is everywhere, it’s never been more important for hyper-growth companies and their executives to think holistically about their marketing and PR – inside and outside.

Leaders at even the fastest growing companies can create empowered, full-filled employee advocates that supercharges every single business goal. 

How can CEOs of today’s fastest growing companies create thriving cultures where employees are your best advocates?

 

Download the presentation here:

Employee Advocacy for the Startup for Hypergrowth CEO

 

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