You just secured a round of funding, now what? It’s time to celebrate, but don’t pop the champagne just yet. How you announce your funding is almost as important as the funding itself. The below five steps will help ensure a successful announcement.
Communicate with your investors and establish a timeline
Your investors are paramount to the success of a funding announcement. Without their clearance, support and willingness to participate, there is no announcement to share. Ask your participating investors if they are interested in having a quote included in your announcement press release and/or willing to speak in more detail with journalists should the opportunity arise. How do they prefer to be referenced publicly? You may know them as CA Venture’s, but formally, they go by California Capital Ventures. Make sure you have all of the important information in place.
Once proper communication with your investors has been established, it’s time to begin crafting your messaging, aligning on announcement timing and identifying your media targets.
Determine your message and key audience
After identifying your key audience, it’s important to develop messaging that will resonate with them. Whether you’re looking to use the funding to expand operations, launch new products or fuel growth, your messaging needs to convey the value that the funding brings to your company and its stakeholders. These messages should be included in your announcement press release. Some questions to consider addressing within your release include:
- Who participated in the raise? How much was raised? Who are the investors? Which investor led the round? What stage is the company?
- What does the company provide, who is the founder / CEO, what are the future plans with the fundraise?
- What is the reason for the investment fundraise? What do your investors have to say about it?
Right time, right place
While it’s natural to be eager to share your big news with the world, it’s important to ensure that the timing is right. Sharing your announcement at the wrong time can lead to your news being buried among other stories or overshadowed by major events.
It’s important to consider the stage of your business when making your announcement. For example, if you’ve just secured seed funding, you may want to wait until you have achieved certain milestones before making your announcement. On the other hand, if you’ve secured a significant amount of funding, it may be appropriate to make your announcement as soon as possible to capitalize on the momentum and generate excitement.
Ultimately, the right time to make your announcement will depend on a variety of factors specific to your business and industry.
Align on your media strategy
To maximize the impact of your announcement, consider the most impactful approach with media through either an embargoed or exclusive media strategy. An embargoed strategy allows you to control the timing and messaging of your announcement, while also giving multiple outlets time to prepare and potentially cover the news. With an exclusive strategy, however, a single media outlet receives the opportunity to break the news first, in exchange for more in-depth coverage and/or a larger audience. This can be an impactful strategy if you are looking to develop a relationship with a specific publication and/or journalist. Regardless of the strategy and how you choose to approach the media, be sure to use compelling messaging that aligns with the publication’s core audience.
Lean on social media to amplify your message
Social media is a must when creating buzz around your announcement in order to increase your brand visibility in the market. By creating a strategic social media campaign that incorporates visually appealing graphics and catchy hashtags, you can generate excitement and interest around your news. It’s also a good idea to leverage your existing media coverage by sharing links to your followers. One platform that can be particularly effective in celebrating your team’s achievements and showcasing your work is LinkedIn. With its professional focus and vast user base, LinkedIn can help you connect with a diverse audience that includes potential investors, clients, and partners.
In the case of Rally Point client MOGL, a technology platform that is changing the sports industry, their funding announcement successfully hit all of these key elements. They clearly communicated the impact of their funding, highlighted their talented team and recent achievements and created excitement and urgency around their growth potential. As a result, they secured exclusive coverage in Axios and were featured in several other notable publications resulting in over 70 million earned media impressions.
Want to chat about your upcoming funding round? We’re happy to offer a 30-minute PR introductory call at this link. https://calendly.com/jcrp