Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, I had a potential client approach me with an exciting opportunity: they wanted to pay $15,000 monthly for PR services to "get their SaaS in front of journalists." The pitch deck looked impressive, the case studies seemed solid, and the team had all the right credentials.
I said no.
Here's why that decision taught me everything about what's wrong with the SaaS PR industry - and what actually works instead.
Most SaaS founders are facing the same dilemma: should you hire a PR agency to handle your awareness campaigns, or can you build something more effective in-house? The conventional wisdom says hire the experts. But after watching dozens of startups burn through PR budgets with minimal results, I've developed a different approach.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why most SaaS PR agencies deliver vanity metrics instead of real growth
The hidden costs that make PR agency retainers even more expensive than they appear
My alternative framework that generates better results at a fraction of the cost
When hiring a PR agency actually makes sense (spoiler: it's rarer than you think)
Step-by-step implementation guide for building your own PR engine
If you're tired of throwing money at agencies that promise the moon but deliver press coverage that doesn't move the needle, this is for you. Let's dig into why SaaS branding strategies need a completely different approach than traditional PR.
Industry Reality
What every SaaS founder gets pitched by PR agencies
Walk into any SaaS conference and you'll hear the same PR agency pitch over and over: "We'll get you featured in TechCrunch, Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine. We have relationships with all the top-tier journalists. Our clients see an average of 50% increase in brand awareness within 90 days."
The standard PR agency promise includes:
Media relationships: Access to journalists at major publications
Press release distribution: Getting your news in front of the right people
Thought leadership: Positioning your founder as an industry expert
Crisis management: Protecting your reputation when things go wrong
Award submissions: Getting your SaaS recognized by industry organizations
This conventional wisdom exists because it worked in traditional industries. If you're launching a consumer product, getting featured in major publications can drive immediate sales. PR agencies built their entire business model around this media placement approach.
But here's where it falls apart for SaaS: press coverage doesn't equal qualified leads. A TechCrunch feature might give you a traffic spike and some social media buzz, but it rarely translates to enterprise customers signing annual contracts.
The bigger problem? Most PR agencies don't understand the SaaS customer journey. They're optimizing for impressions and mentions when you need pipeline and revenue. They're playing a completely different game than the one that actually matters for your business.
This mismatch creates a cycle where agencies deliver what they promised (press coverage) while founders get frustrated with the lack of business impact. Both sides end up disappointed, and the retainer gets canceled after six months.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When that potential client approached me about spending $15,000 monthly on PR, I asked one simple question: "What's your current customer acquisition cost, and how many qualified leads do you need to hit your growth targets?"
Their answer revealed everything wrong with the agency approach. They were a B2B SaaS with an average customer value of $50,000 annually and a six-month sales cycle. They needed 10 qualified enterprise leads per month to hit their targets. But the PR agency couldn't guarantee a single qualified lead - just "increased brand awareness" and "media mentions."
This wasn't theoretical for me. I'd watched this exact scenario play out with multiple clients:
The E-commerce Client Reality: One e-commerce client spent $8,000 monthly on PR for eight months. They got featured in three major publications, won an industry award, and saw their branded search traffic increase by 40%. But their actual revenue from these efforts? Less than $5,000 total. They were spending $64,000 to generate $5,000 in revenue.
The B2B SaaS Disaster: Another B2B startup hired a "SaaS-specialized" PR agency for $12,000 monthly. The agency delivered exactly what they promised: 15 media mentions, 3 podcast appearances, and a feature in a major business publication. The result? Zero enterprise deals attributed to PR efforts. The traffic spike lasted 48 hours, and none of it converted because it wasn't their target audience.
The pattern became clear: PR agencies are optimizing for metrics that don't matter to SaaS businesses. They're focused on vanity metrics because those are easier to deliver and measure than actual business impact.
That's when I realized the entire premise was flawed. Instead of hiring agencies to get press coverage, SaaS founders need to build their own content and distribution engines that actually generate qualified leads.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of hiring that PR agency, I developed what I call the "Distribution-First PR Framework." The core insight: distribution beats coverage every time. It's better to reach 1,000 qualified prospects directly than to get featured in a publication that reaches 100,000 people who aren't your customers.
Here's the step-by-step framework I've used with multiple SaaS clients:
Step 1: Content as Your PR Engine
Instead of pitching journalists, I help founders create content that positions them as thought leaders in their specific niche. This isn't generic blog posts - it's documenting actual experiences and sharing contrarian views that get attention naturally.
For one B2B SaaS client, we created a weekly newsletter sharing behind-the-scenes insights from building their company. No PR agency was needed - the content itself became the PR engine. Within six months, they had industry leaders subscribing and sharing their content.
Step 2: LinkedIn Personal Branding Strategy
This is where I discovered something that transformed how I think about SaaS marketing. For one client, their founder's LinkedIn personal branding was actually driving more qualified leads than their entire paid advertising budget.
Instead of hoping for press coverage, we systematically built the founder's presence on LinkedIn by sharing specific insights from their industry. The key was focusing on the exact problems their target customers were discussing, not trying to appeal to everyone.
Step 3: Community-Driven Distribution
Rather than pitching to journalists, I help clients identify where their target customers are already gathering - industry Slack groups, specialized forums, niche conferences. Then we create valuable content specifically for those communities.
One SaaS client got more qualified leads from sharing insights in three industry Slack communities than they ever got from traditional PR efforts. The content was the same, but the distribution was infinitely more targeted.
Step 4: Strategic Partnerships Over Press
Instead of chasing media coverage, I focus on building relationships with complementary SaaS companies, industry consultants, and potential integration partners. These relationships generate actual business opportunities, not just vanity metrics.
The total cost for implementing this framework? Usually less than two months of a PR agency retainer, but the results compound over time instead of disappearing when you stop paying.
Framework Foundation
Build your content engine before anything else - this becomes your PR foundation without ongoing agency fees.
Direct Channels
Focus on LinkedIn and industry communities where your exact customers are already engaged.
Strategic Partnerships
Forge relationships with complementary businesses rather than chasing journalists who don't buy SaaS.
ROI Measurement
Track qualified leads and pipeline impact instead of vanity metrics like impressions and mentions.
The results speak for themselves, but more importantly, they're the kind of results that actually matter for SaaS businesses:
Client 1 (B2B SaaS): Within four months of implementing this framework, they generated 23 qualified enterprise leads directly attributed to the founder's LinkedIn content strategy. Compare that to zero qualified leads from eight months of traditional PR efforts.
Client 2 (Vertical SaaS): Their community-driven approach resulted in 12 enterprise demo requests in the first quarter, with an average deal size of $35,000. Total investment: less than $3,000 in content creation and community participation.
But here's what surprised me most: the long-term impact. Traditional PR coverage has a half-life of about 48 hours. But content-driven personal branding compounds over time. That LinkedIn content from six months ago is still generating inbound leads today.
The founder of one client told me: "Our PR agency got us featured in TechCrunch, but our customers don't read TechCrunch. They read industry newsletters and participate in specialized forums. That's where we needed to be all along."
The approach also eliminated the most frustrating part of working with PR agencies: the lack of control. When you build your own content engine, you control the message, the timing, and the distribution. You're not dependent on a journalist's editorial calendar or a publication's content priorities.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this framework across multiple SaaS clients, here are the seven most important lessons I've learned:
Distribution channels matter more than content quality. A mediocre piece of content in the right community outperforms brilliant content with poor distribution every time.
Your customers don't read the publications PR agencies target. They're in industry-specific forums, Slack groups, and newsletters that agencies don't know about.
Founder personal branding is the ultimate PR strategy. People buy from people, especially in B2B SaaS. Your founder's voice is more powerful than any press coverage.
Consistency beats intensity. Publishing valuable content weekly for a year trumps any single major press hit.
Community participation requires genuine value-add. You can't just promote your SaaS in industry groups. You need to genuinely help solve problems.
Measure business impact, not vanity metrics. Track qualified leads, pipeline value, and customer acquisition cost - not impressions or mentions.
The compound effect is real. Unlike PR campaigns that end when you stop paying, content-driven approaches build momentum over time.
The biggest mistake I see SaaS founders make is treating PR like a growth hack. They want immediate results and massive exposure. But sustainable SaaS growth comes from consistently reaching the right people with valuable insights, not from viral moments that don't convert.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Start with LinkedIn personal branding for your founder - it's free and immediately measurable
Document your product development journey publicly - this creates natural PR opportunities
Focus on industry-specific communities where enterprise buyers actually gather
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce businesses:
Consumer PR agencies might actually make sense - your customers do read major publications
Focus on product placement and influencer partnerships over traditional media
Track direct sales attribution from any PR efforts to justify the investment