With a specialty in B2B tech clients—most of whom are backed by VCs or private equity companies—Three Rings principal Doug Broad says there are "two primary times" when those businesses are looking for media relations support.

One of those times is when "they're starting to think about talking to investors for a round of funding" and the other is "after they close the funding and obviously want to highlight the investment and talk about or use that as a platform to talk about their technology, their customer momentum or their strategy."

Broad tells Simon that most clients coming into the communicatons process already have a clear sense of the value of market awareness and media relations. However, "they don't always understand the process and the time it takes to achieve the results they're looking for. "

In addition to getting clients on board with the basics of media relations, Broad also says that communicators need to spend time developing an earned media culture within their own organizations. "It really helps if people are hands on and not removed from it. It gives everyone a much more detailed and informed view of what's happening in the market, both in terms of key trends, how reporters are reporting on different stories and more."

The relationship between phone pitching and online pitching also comes up for discussion. "You can be really compelling on a phone call. It's the same way with the pitch, whether it's a direct message on social media or you're emailing someone, it's a similar process.

The growth in venture capital activity, Broad says, "presents an interesting challenge from your communications perspective because you can be working with a company that does ten acquisitions in a year and looks totally different in December than it did in January of that year."

"Another really important thing from a communications perspective," he tell Simon, "is to understand what is the exit strategy. And that should be kind of the first question when you're talking about whether it's a funding or private equity is, you know, once that company, your client takes that money, what are they trying to do? What is you know, what is the exit plan? A lot of companies or executives will outwardly say, well, we're growing the company. We hope to go public. But in reality. you know they'll say, we're looking to sell this within 18 months. And it's important to note, because the strategy is going to be totally different."

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D S Simon Media helps clients get their stories on television through satellite media tours and by producing and distributing content to the media. The company also produces live social media events.