It’s all about advance notice. Deal flow reporters are seeing hundreds of pitches weekly, if not daily — so you need to give them two key things: 1) A sizzling hook; 2) Plenty of advance notice.

The story angle is pretty obvious, you need to demonstrate why not only the reporter, but also his/her readers should care — especially when you don’t have a monster multiple in the tens of millions or above. For any entrepreneur whose raised 05-venture-beatmoney, they know $1mm can go a long way. But, you need to consider that the press has become somewhat desensitized to smaller figures – so sell the story: the background story, team, innovation hurdles, and market disruption potential.

It’s critical to know the media you are pitching — the focus and tone of the outlet, and the personal story contributions of the reporter you are pitching. Do they cover features, deal flow news, or a little of both? Know their style, their hot buttons, and the key notes they like to highlight in their stories — so you can frame your pitch in the most effective way (which helps them, as much as you).

While securing coverage for client Gluru’s $1.5mm of new funding in VentureBeat, we knew reporter Kia Kokalitcheva covered relevant topics such as funding, tech, and startups. We were fortunate enough to work with her on previous stories, so we had a clear idea on how to present the news to her.

Next is time. Considering all of the news you are up against, make “lead time” your friend. This gives the reporter enough time to learn the story, and then write it while also balancing their assignments and tracking other news. This is your best chance to align the story date with your announcement date.

For Gluru, we were able to give Kia a week of advance notice, so she could buffer in some time to write the story, submit for editorial review, and schedule it to be published just as our  press release crossed the wire.

In PR, best practices can go a long way.  And they just might get your next funding news covered by VentureBeat.
Read the full article online here:

Gluru nabs $1.5M to pull up all the files you need during a phone call

Excerpt:
Jumping on a conference call during your train ride to work, and need to pull up that slide deck the client sent you earlier?

Well, good luck sifting through your phone’s apps and content to find it. But that challenge is something a group of former Amazon, Apple, and Google employees set out to fix with Gluru, a startup building an upcoming set of mobile apps that contextually serve you with what you need. Gluru is announcing today that it has raised $1.5 million in new funding.

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