While company news — including funding, new customers and key hires — is great fodder to share with the media, it’s often not enough to inspire journalist to draft a story. When it comes to keeping your brand in the news, there are a number of ways your team can develop compelling stories that generate buzz — no press releases or announcement required.

So, don’t wait around for your next announcement to figure out how to hook the media outlets you want. Here are three things you could be doing right now to uncover stories to share with the media:

1. Ask yourself: How does what I’m doing impact the industry?

Instead of solely focusing on features of your product or benefits for your customers, consider how the product is currently impacting or will impact the industry at large. Is it the first of its kind? Does it speak to an overall industry trend? Once you’ve done this, you’ll have your talking points for a bigger angle on the industry as a whole, rather than just pushing your product. This strategy can be used to help to extend the life of an announcement, but it can also generate opportunities for thought leadership by identifying overarching themes and possible areas where you can better educate your target audience.

2. Pair a product with a problem.

Your sales team (hopefully!) does it all the time: Identifying potential customers’ pain points and then pairing those pain points with your product. Chances are, those pain points aren’t unique. Instead of starting a story with, “here’s my product,” look to build your story around that pain point. For example, if your company offers a recently a product for contract management, try developing and pitching a story about the pain points people experience that might lead them to search for a contract management solution. Make the piece informative by suggesting factors to look for when considering a solution. This strategy can also work well when your scale-up has an announcement to share.

3. Read what your targets are writing.

Just because a reporter doesn’t typically cover your scale-up’s specific product or service, doesn’t mean they won’t be interested in a trending industry topic or larger business lesson. The best way to understand what a reporter is interested in and what they’ll cover is to read what they write. This is partially true with business outlets — like Forbes, Inc. or Entrepreneur. Will these outlets cover your latest algorithmic IT operations (AIOps) product feature? Likely not. Will they want to hear about how AIOps is changing the landscape of IT operations management (ITOps) as a whole? Or, an unconventional way you landed a major round of funding? Possibly!


These are just some of the ways you can inspire the media to include your tech company in a story, even without a formal announcement. Still aren’t sure how to get started? Download our guide to storytelling for more ideas on how to develop stories that resonate with the media and help keep your scale-up in the news.