How to use a funding announcement to gain awareness and maximise leads

Receiving investment is a huge milestone for a business; it’s a stamp of approval from investors that shows they believe in your business. But more importantly, it’s a source of funds that allows you to accelerate your go-to-market plans. You can invest in growing your product or service, and it allows you to double down on your pipeline, building marketing and sales capabilities to bring you more leads and more customers.

The question is this: how should you make the most of the funding announcement itself?

After all, the funding announcement itself is newsworthy. By announcing it you’ll increase your credibility among your target audience. With resulting press coverage, you’ll amplify that credibility amongst your existing leads and also reach completely new prospects.

Resonance is extremely familiar with amplifying funding announcements. From seed rounds to Series-D and even government grants, we have a process in place to maximise the visibility and reach of these announcements – read on for our tips.

Tip One: write a great press release

A funding press release is your chance to tell your story. How are you changing your industry for the better? Why have you secured your funding – what’s the USP that your investors saw in your company which warranted investment? What are your future plans and how will you use the funding? This is your chance to lay it all down – preferably in fewer than 800 words!

The process of writing a press release is a question of getting all the information and distilling it down into a narrative. Follow the inverted pyramid style – start with the essential information and build on it with each subsequent paragraph. Finish it with a quote from your executive team and ideally your investors too.

Tip Two: plan your pitching

You can have the best press release in the world but if it just sits on your website then it’s unlikely to be read. Blasting it out as an email to journalists might get you a few hits, but to get the best results you need a structured approach.

With a funding announcement, you can maximise results by sending out your news under embargo, giving journalists time to write their article about your company, or even to interview your founders.

Our client StructureFlow, a visual platform for modeling corporate transactions, secured a $3.5M pre-series A funding round in 2022. Through an embargoed pitching approach, we were able to set up interviews with top tier startup press as well as publications within its target industry of the legal profession. Our approach secured 17 pieces of coverage across tech, legal, and business press in the UK, EU, and US.  

By sending journalists your funding announcement, you’re also starting a relationship with these journalists. By maintaining momentum with a steady stream of announcements, you’ll build that relationship and maximise your potential for future press. Continuous coverage will ensure your business is always top-of-mind when it comes to being seen as an expert in your field. 

Tip Three: Amplify the news

Press coverage is great, but how do you leverage the news to help bring you leads?

The key here is to amplify the news through your owned channels. Social media, your website, and email marketing are your best owned amplifiers. Once your funding announcement has been published, you should shout about it on your owned channels. Your owned channels and external coverage should work together in unison to maximise awareness of your business. 

We worked with the cyber security awareness platform, CybSafe, to amplify its funding announcement on LinkedIn and garnered the business 800 organic engagements with the post. A LinkedIn article from the founder further generated 500 organic engagements.

We recommend you use a central platform in order to amplify the news. Our CRM platform of choice is HubSpot due to its usability, adaptability, and completeness of features across contact lifecycle management, marketing and sales. It’s one of the most flexible and powerful platforms for growth.

Talk to us to find out how we can help with your funding announcement

Through our work on funding announcements we have not only helped elevate brands and build brand awareness, but we have also built a solid pipeline of leads that helps startups on their path to future success.

If you would like to find out how we can help you tell your story, get in touch today.