How we landed 50+ publications in 14 languages from a single press release

Let’s be honest – getting huge press from one press release is not that common (unless you work for the government or Google). If you’re a growing startup – even if your product and milestones are really impressive – you’re probably happy for any publications at all, including niche or smaller media. 

Working in digital PR, we at Truesix also know this too well. Usually, seeing ten publications that result from one press release is fantastic, but we’re also happy with five (for particularly niche news). 

But then – every once in a while – the stars align.

A few months back, we conducted one of the most successful press campaigns in our experience. The campaign generated over 50 publications, with 19 of them in English and more than 30 in other European languages. In addition, the release prompted around 20 social media posts (that we managed to count). 

Curious to learn more about this outstanding campaign? Let’s have a closer look.

The campaign explained

For about a year now, we have been proudly working with the EIC Scaling Club – a program for scaling 120 of Europe’s best deep tech startups. These pioneering companies represent 10 sectors, from computing to smart mobility and space.

On October 21-22, the EIC Scaling Cub held its community event – Scale 100 Forum – in Athens. Our co-founders Krista and Julia attended the event, interviewed companies on-site, and held a Comms Academy presentation on the stage, sharing best digital PR practices with the scaleups. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the team was responsible for disseminating a press release about EIC Scaling Club’s second cohort of 72 deep tech scaleups joining the first batch of 48 companies already in the Club.

As the second cohort included scaleups from all of Europe, our approach was to create a media list that included the leading media from all the countries represented. To make sure our list was relevant, we didn’t just add the main press of each country – we targeted the journalists who had previously written about the member companies or covered deep tech topics. 

We prepared the pitch email and press release in English, and adapted the release to each country. In addition to the main news, we highlighted each country's respective scaleups in the release. Altogether, we had 25 tailored versions of the original press release on our Google Drive. 

In retrospect, we’re proud to say we managed this without any errors or mix-ups. This was thanks to thorough preparation, which involved several crucial steps:

1. Preparing the releases in advance. Luckily, we already knew the list of new member companies a week before the official announcement. Thanks to that, we could prepare the releases in advance.
2. Setting embargos. A few days before the announcement, we sent embargo emails to some of our warm media contacts.
3. Scheduling emails. With approximately 250 emails to send and personalize in a single day, we had to schedule part of the emails in advance. Since we are a small team and only one or two people could actually disseminate the news, this pre-scheduling was essential to prevent errors and undue stress.

Lessons learned

Campaigns of this scale don’t happen every month, so we made sure to capture our key takeaways. We're now excited to share them with you.

‍Lesson 1 – Don’t overlook niche and local media 

Everyone wants to be on Forbes or TechCrunch. But that doesn’t mean that you have to ignore niche and local media. In fact, these media outlets are often more responsive and interested in the (relevant) news you send them. And, they are often widely popular with their national audiences. 

‍Lesson 2 – Personalization is hard work, but it pays off

The publication success rate demonstrated that tailoring the message to the media’s interests pays off. This time we customized the release to highlight each country's startups, but this same approach can be used for other customizations, such as tailoring data releases for specific countries or regions.

Lesson 3 – Preparation saves the day

Since we don’t send emails in bulk and don’t use bcc in emails, personalizing each message with the journalist's name and the respective country’s release takes time. Given our small team's limited capacity, sending out embargos and scheduling some emails in advance helped us stay on top of the project. 

Lesson 4 – Don’t stop monitoring

Publication timelines can vary, and this project was no exception. While most news appeared on October 21st and 22nd, approximately 12 publications surfaced in the following days and weeks, some as late as November 6th and 7th. We’d have missed those if we had stopped monitoring in the days after the event.

Execution matters as much as the story

Of course, having a strong story is a big part of success. But this case study proves that campaign execution matters just as much. 

We saw that the news of top European deep tech startups joining the EIC Scaling Club, with its ambitious unicorn-creation goal, had clear potential. To maximize it, we created a targeted media strategy that brought amazing publicity for our client – something to save as a valuable blueprint for future campaigns. 

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