While it can feel incredibly daunting to compete with massive PR budgets that fund expensive dinners and experiential events, these are no longer required to get coverage of your innovative ideas. 

When I left my corporate tech job post-pandemic to start a PR agency for founders and emerging brands, I turned to age-old methods of connecting with journalists, with mixed results. It didn’t help that global conflict and macroeconomic conditions strained newsrooms and led to layoffs across the media industry.

In the three years since then, we’ve found multiple ways that savvy journalists are navigating smaller editorial teams and strained resources to find innovative companies and experts to weigh in on the world changing around us.

This PR “tech stack” now includes: 

• AI-powered platforms where journalists are matched with sources and products to review
• Substack newsletters that freelance writers publish both to solicit and offer help to PR professionals
• Real-time feeds about news cycles, coverage, and editorial job updates that you can plug right into Slack

Every day we use these channels to play matchmaker between journalists and our climate tech, healthcare, fashion, and beauty clients who are disrupting age-old industries with much bigger pockets. 

And while we know that there are splashy Goliath-size campaigns out there competing for the media’s attention, we are confident that there’s an appetite for the Davids we work with using these platforms.

(This coming from someone who started her career doing a Thanksgiving pop-up store to celebrate a parade balloon touting the nutritional benefits of potatoes.)

What this means for you

As an innovator driven by a mission to make things better, your expertise, products, and services are in high demand by journalists. You are at the forefront of change, and that matters more than the money spent on fancy schwag.

It’s more important to be in the right place at the right time, than it is to invest in the right wine and dine “relationships.”

When it comes to PR for mission-driven companies, there’s never been a better time to dip your toe in.

Amy Jackson is founder and CEO of TaleSplash.