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StoryBolt

Challenge:

Establishing a clear digital footprint that resonates with press and their audience.

Sometimes, the biggest challenge for impact-driven startups trying to build out their digital footprint is to stake their claim on Intellectual Real Estate.

Our Media Landscape Analysis revealed considerable amounts of what we called “DEI-washing” — our term for companies that are claiming to implement DEI without actually getting results.

Learnings:

• Needed to identify the Intellectual Real Estate that was non salesy

• Needed to build out co-founders’ thought leadership

• Needed to shift messaging to be more

• ✅  Inbound pitches are highly competitive -- but this doesn’t mean we should stop submitting.

  ✅  Events are good to build list of potential relationships, but are not driving press pick-upsThey aren’t necessarily going to translate to immediate stories. Long-term, some reporters interested in attending webinar but no pickup. 

  After aggressive pitching and outreach, we learned that webinars do not drive ongoing ROI for PR.

  ✅  Hand-Tailored Talking Points We are getting engagement and opens, but not yeses -- so perhaps the story topics need to continue changing.

  Crisis in DEI • Mental Health • Gender Bias • Specific Questions Customers Ask • Specific Questions 

  ✅  Thought Leadership publication is critical to get noticed, as is Name-Dropping and Data.We’re on the right track with submitting HBR style  articles, posting on LinkedIn to get onto LinkedIn Features, and working towards a TED Talk.

  
  

  Webinars don’t drive media traction; pointed thought leadership speaking points that are not self-promotional and promise value do. Moving forward, we need to pivot our strategy and talking points for StoryBolt leadership to encompass these learnings and drive greater traction.

Scope:

Solution:

Deliverables:

Latina, Latina, Washington Post, Forbes, Crains NY, TEDx

Using our Media Landscape analysis, we hypothesized several factors that could change media reception and tested multiple angles to see what was resonating with press.

How we found success:

• identified angles that weren’t resonating

• shifted our approach

• obtained higher quality features

We secured a live, local TV segment that lasted for 9 minutes, 4 minutes beyond the expected segment length. We were able to secure coverage not only for VWS, but for 3 other female founders in the plant-based space.

Our team flew out to support press attendance at the Vegan Women Summit, navigating over XX # of press. We successfully negotiated over XX interviews and coordinated with VIPs and publicists in-person for interviews. During a security threat for one VIP, our team quickly pivoted and executed a plan to make sure that the VIP was well-accommodated for and had a private space with which we coordinated and personally escorted each member of the press in and out of the room.

We crafted a full Book Launch strategy for Social Media and Press, as well as a Book Tour that garnered wide acclaim, including a PBS Channel 13 TV segment on the book.

6 Months of Traction by the Numbers:

The founder secured over 70 backlinks across X features, with over 4.5 k engagements at the 6 month mark. Coverage views exceeded X.

278 to 459 domains referred

Domain Authority Increased from 46 to 50 out of 100 in 6 months.