The Pursuit of Scrappiness #37 Marek Unt 🇪🇪 (Grünfin, ex-Wise, Bolt). “The PR Special” on what makes Elon Musk newsworthy, and how to build personal brand, measure PR ROI & leverage fundraising announcements
Marek Unt is one of the most seasoned tech PR professionals in the Baltics who has worked for 4 of Estonia’s Unicorns. He served in senior PR & Communications roles at Wise and Bolt having tenured at Skype and Playtech prior to that as well. Currently, Marek is CMO of Grünfin, a sustainable investment platform.
In this episode, we discuss the role of PR for tech companies as well as the impact the founder has on building successful PR. We also talk about starting up PR at your company, building personal brands, measuring ROI on PR initiatives, and the specifics of fundraising-related PR.
The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps
[01:45] - INTRO AND THE ROLE OF PR FOR TECH COMPANIES
- PR as a guild of craftsmen
- The role of PR for tech companies
[06:20] - B2B VS B2C PR
- B2B vs B2C PR
- The newsworthiness of a business/product
- What industries do journalists want to write about today
- Getting your message heard
[16:55] - ON FOUNDER PR INVOLVEMENT
- Talent vs. preparation
- How Bolt and Wise founders emphasize their core messaging in interviews
[21:50] - ON STARTING PR FOR YOUR COMPANY
- Getting first breakthrough PR piece
- Luck vs. grind
- Months of work behind the scenes to get into the New York Times
- Importing outside knowledge through PR agencies
[25:45] - BUILDING PERSONAL BRANDS TO PROMOTE COMPANY
- The phenomenon of Elon Musk - authenticity
- People like to follow people, not companies
- #buildinginpublic
- Is it worth building a personal Twitter presence?
- How much work goes into tweets, concise messaging
[32:35] - ON MEASURING ROI ON PR ACTIVITIES
- ROI in a marketing sense
- Define what you want to achieve with PR
- Other types of ROI
- Use SWOT analysis to plan your PR efforts
- Journalists are not obliged to share your story
[40:55] – PR FOR FUNDRAISING
- Fundraising provides a rare and timely news hook/milestone
- How to make the most out of that opportunity
To reach out to Marek use:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marekunt/
Twitter: @mrknt
Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/
Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/
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Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/