Finding Visibility In A Crowded Market

You’re a healthtech or biotech startup. You’ve got an exciting new product that’s going to positively impact patients’ lives and revolutionise your space.

You’ve likely secured some early funding, and you’ve mapped out a marketing strategy.

But really, you’ve been too busy or lack the resources to sit down and map out a long-term PR strategy.

Eventually, someone asks:

“So, what does our long-term PR strategy look like?”

You might feel that you don’t really need a strategy. You just need to ‘get coverage’ and go around doing this, like other companies:

Eventually, you’ll realise that while this is generating some awareness and ‘feels right’ - it’s not really focused or very strategic.

That’s why you’ll need a more sustained approach to PR if you want to move the dial - especially if you want to increase awareness of your product or brand and, better yet, secure investment.

Getting Started: How To Set Out Your PR Strategy

You have a problem: you don’t know how to get started, or where to focus.

And it’s no big surprise. You developed your product to improve health outcomes, whether for patients, healthcare professionals or hospitals - not because you want to market it.

Your natural inclination will be to outsource the work to a PR agency - or at least, bring them in to hear their advice.

This is logical - they have the experience you don’t have.

You think they can get you moving in the right direction and point out any pitfalls on the way.

This is true to a degree, but the problem is that traditional PR agencies are set in their ways.

In practical terms, they’re usually more focused on less strategic, short-term wins.

And while they’re focused on that - they’re overlooking the true drivers of long-term success.

The reality is that you need a more focused approach if your PR strategy is to deliver on your goals.

Not throwing everything in with the kitchen sink.

Find Your End Goal, Then Work Backwards

The secret to effective PR is doing it with an end goal in mind.

And there’s one question you need to ask yourself when planning your PR: will this move us towards our end goal?

If the answer is yes, then do it. If not, you should reconsider.

Obviously - it’s not as easy as that.

The secret to effective PR is doing it with an end goal in mind.

And there’s one question you need to ask yourself when planning your PR: will this move us towards our end goal?

If the answer is yes, then do it. If not, you should reconsider.

Obviously - it’s not as easy as that.

You need to have that end goal in mind first.

There’s a handful of obvious ones that most people are pushing towards, knowingly or unknowingly.

For example:

✅ Building awareness for your product

✅ Engaging your audience

✅ Sales and networking

✅ Launch readiness

These are all positive outcomes, and are mutually beneficial in getting your product off the ground.

But I would argue that you need to prioritise a different goal: securing investment.

Investment is the engine of growth. It gives you the space you need to accelerate innovation, scale your business, and ultimately get your product into the hands of those that need it most - whether that’s patients, doctors or the healthcare system.

When investors learn about your product, they’ll be asking three key questions:

First, does it solve a real problem in this space?

A new product can’t just offer incremental improvement. To truly disrupt and drive widespread adoption, your offering needs to be significantly better than the alternatives.

Second, does this product align with the incentives of stakeholders and decision makers?

Healthcare is complex, with a broader-than-usual range of stakeholders - patients, care providers, insurance companies, regulators. Getting all of these stakeholders in line is key.

And third, and where I want to spend a little more time, are the founders and / or managing team credible, experienced, and how are they showing up within the industry?

If you don’t address these questions, you’ll have a hard job convincing investors.

Raising Your Visibility - All Eyes Are On You (Hopefully…)

And it’s that third question that companies and founders often overlook.

In short: your online presence needs to be optimised to demonstrate your investor-bility, authority and build trust.

Your ‘personal brand’ needs to be convincing, and your peoples’ narratives need to be as good as your product’s.

That’s where executive visibility comes in.

At its core, it’s about raising your profile using a multichannel approach: social media, editorial coverage in trade and consumer publications, speaker engagements and podcasts.

You need to clearly demonstrate your experience and understanding of the space, your stakeholders and customers.

My approach to this starts by optimising founders’ and managing teams’ online presence and ensuring they’re publishing regular authoritative content.

From this foundation, leaders can quickly attract and build a targeted audience of relevant connections, including relevant stakeholders, influencers in the same space, journalists, investors, and peers.

And from there, they have a concrete platform to generate awareness for their brand or product and develop investors’ trust.

Leaders are capable of doing this themselves, but it’s time-intensive, requires consistency, and is usually one of the first things to go when things get busy.

And the thing about startup leaders - they’re always busy.

But getting this right is absolutely vital to securing the future of your product.

The Hard Work Starts Now

That’s why approaching everything you do with an overarching goal of investment is so important.

At its core, your PR strategy must always work to demonstrate investor-bility by maximising the visibility of your founders or leadership team.

Begin with your social media presence and then work outwards through trade publications, podcasts, and industry speaker engagements.

And if you make anything your guiding light, make it this:

If you and your team are visible, in the right places and at the right times, investors will develop trust in you and your product.

Secure that trust, then secure their investment.

Until next time,

Chris

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If you’re looking to raise yours or your team’s profile, but aren’t sure where to start - I can help.

My work focuses on helping CEOs, founders and management teams increase their visibility and build their authority in their space, supporting their investment goals.

Just reply to this email, or DM me on LinkedIn, and let’s have a conversation