No Budget, No Problem: How to Build PR Like a Pro (Even If You’re the Whole Team)

Forget $20K/month retainers. Here’s how to earn coverage, build credibility, and drive pipeline with a PR strategy that actually works.

Prefer to Listen? For those who prefer to consume information through audio, I’ve used Google’s NotebookLM to transform this newsletter into a short podcast episode, featuring a natural conversation between two AI hosts. You can listen to the podcast by pressing the play button below.

Disclaimer: This podcast was generated by AI based on this written newsletter content and reviewed by me to ensure ethical and responsible AI use. It’s designed to provide an efficient, more inclusive way to consume information.

—

You know PR matters, but $20K/month for a PR agency isn’t happening. So, how do you cut through the noise and get your brand in front of the people who matter most? In a world with fewer reporters and more noise than ever, the question isn't whether PR still works; it's how to make it work without blowing your budget.

The traditional PR playbook is outdated. We live in an era where buyers trust people more than brands, influencers more than outlets, and proof over promises. But the good news is that you don’t need a six-figure agency to help you build credibility and visibility.

Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with incredible PR teams when budget allowed. But more often than not, I didn’t have the dollars to hire an agency. I had to build and run PR programs myself. Today, I’m sharing the exact playbook I used for media relations and how you can leverage it to position your company as a category contender, attract top talent, and create momentum where it matters most: sales conversations, investor updates, and competitive markets.

B2B PR Has Changed

Unless you’re a billion-dollar company, the days of relying on a press release for coverage are over. The media landscape is fractured, the buying process is more anonymous and research-driven than ever before, and brand trust is earned through consistent, human-centered storytelling. Success today comes from understanding where your audience is paying attention and how they prefer to engage (you MUST know your ICP). It’s about creating moments that spark curiosity, build credibility, and ultimately support business goals.

Here are some of the biggest shifts reshaping modern PR:

• Newsrooms are shrinking, and editorial standards are higher than ever. Pitching fluffy "news" won’t cut it. You need a real story.

• Buyers do their own research. And what they see in Google results (or answer engines) matters more than your last nurture email.

• LinkedIn > legacy media. Executive presence and founder Point of View (POV) are essential parts of the earned media game.

• Owned channels are power plays. If you can’t get covered, understand why, revise it, publish it yourself, and amplify.

• Pipeline > press clippings. 1990 called and wants its giant press book back. Weren’t those the worst? Created simply for the thud factor. Awareness doesn’t pay the bills. A well-executed PR strategy can create demand, drive traffic, and support sales.

PR Still Matters

PR isn’t just for unicorns or IPO hopefuls. A consistent program that nails every aspect wins every time. PR can provide:

• Credibility when you’re entering a crowded market

• Visibility when you’re fundraising or expanding into new categories

• Trust when you’re trying to shorten sales cycles

• Recruiting when you need to attract top-tier talent

• Positioning when you’re creating or reshaping a category

• Crisis or reputation management when something goes wrong

• Investor visibility or exit readiness

To begin, you need to know what you’re hoping to achieve with a PR program. Asking PR to be and do everything is a heavy lift, but it can be done. For example, in my last in-house role, I didn’t have the budget for an agency and needed to get our name into the market in a bigger way. We were one of the smaller players in a crowded market, and simply distributing press releases wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to earn credibility, garner visibility, and share our positioning (our why and competitive differentiation) to help build our brand with our core ICP. So as I designed my program strategy, I kept these things in mind. They became my North Star.

Something important to note: you always need a separate crisis communication strategy. Regardless of your business focus, market, or audience, this must be proactively built. As a CMO, it should be built within your first 120 days. More to come on this in a future newsletter. Subscribe today to receive it when it goes live.

DIY PR That Works: A Step-by-Step Approach

I’m going to use my last in-house leadership role as an example as I walk through my step-by-step approach to DIY PR.

I knew that I wanted to leverage a PR strategy to help build our brand, stand out in the sea of sameness, earn credibility, and share our why/differentiation. And to do that, our strategy needed to focus on specific areas within PR that I knew, if delivered effectively, our ICP would notice. For us, I chose to focus on media relations, awards, content development, and executive presence (thought leadership). This DIY approach is specific to media relations.

Before step one of my process, you need to think through what you want a strong PR program to deliver. What is your why? Why are you building a PR strategy? Be clear. Until you know this, I don’t recommend starting the process.

Step One: Define Your Goals

You’ve established your why, and you’re ready to build your program. Let’s talk about what you want PR to do for you. Be specific. If the program is successful, it will look like XYZ. Modern PR goals go beyond “getting press.” PR is now an integrated part of your GTM strategy, so your goals should reflect your business impact. Some examples might be:

• Increase qualified traffic to a new category page

• Drive branded search by improving credibility and awareness

• Build buying committee engagement

• Position executives as thought leaders

• Expand reach via podcasts and newsletters

• Improve recruiting through culture storytelling

• Support sales with social proof and nurture content

• Grow pipeline in new markets or accounts

The best PR programs define goals aligned with key business milestones, such as funding rounds, product launches, market expansion, or hiring sprints, and set outcome-driven metrics to measure their impact. Ensure that you have defined your goals before starting your program, so everyone is clear about how success will be measured.

Step Two: Build Your Message and Narrative

You need a clear, ownable point-of-view (POV) that doesn’t sound like everyone else. If your competitor put their logo on your press release, thought leadership, or social post, would it make sense? If it does, you’ve failed and don’t have a unique, ownable story. Using my example above, there is little differentiation in the market we were in. The focus might have been different, but every firm in our market tells the same story. So I needed to ensure that we had a story that stood out. To do this, I:

1. Built out 2-3 anchor themes tied to our market context

2. Developed a founder/exec POV that adds insights (not just hype)

3. Focused heavily on that differentiation and how that aligns with what our ICP cares about

I pushed differentiation hard because in that sea of sameness, having something different that I could back up with quotes, success stories, and data allowed us to stand out. One of our first big articles (in the Wall Street Journal, no less) was specifically focused on that differentiation. And that’s a win every single time.

Step Three: Build a Targeted Media List

This is one of the most important steps in this process. While some people will tell you to ditch the spreadsheet, I still use one religiously to track everything. Before building your list, you need to go back to your ICP. Where are your target audiences consuming information? Is it online, via podcasts, or perhaps YouTube channels? Because you know your ICP, you can narrow down the list of targets. You don’t want to spray and pray; rather, you want to focus on key people who can help share your story, insights, and unique POV in a meaningful way.

To build your list, focus on:

1. Industry trades and niche newsletters

2. Relevant podcasts and Substacks

3. Journalists who write about your space. Think locally and nationally.

For all, your list should include email, phone, and social media (including LI and Twitter/X). LinkedIn and Twitter/X are key ways many journalists communicate about stories they are writing. If you're not following or connected to the writers that matter for your market, you are missing key channels.

It’s not enough to simply build the list, but know what these writers care about, what they share daily, and where their interest lies. A part of my PR process was to do a quick read of the content my list was producing daily. You can’t effectively pitch without knowing what your media list cares about.

Step Four: Build a Relationship

Sending a one-off pitch to someone you don’t really know won’t yield much, even if you have what you believe is an incredibly compelling story.

One of the reasons PR teams can secure interviews (which hopefully result in coverage) is that they have built authentic relationships with journalists, analysts, and influencers. They don’t only reach out when they have something they want to share. These relationships are important and can be the difference between getting coverage and not.

Relationships are not built overnight, and while I’m sharing my approach, your approach should be tailored to you, your personality, and feel authentic to you. Here is my approach:

1. After building my media list, following socials, and reading their work, I reach out for an introductory meeting. The goal of this meeting isn’t to talk about yourself or your company. It’s to get to know them. Understand what they are working on, what trends they are paying attention to beyond what you see on social, how they prefer to work with internal teams, and the best way to engage them moving forward.

2. If you haven’t already done so, follow their work, engage with their content on social, and share insights they’d care about. You are not pitching anything. Instead, use this as an opportunity to be helpful, not promotional.

3. Read their work. If I read something exceptional, I will send a quick note sharing how much I enjoyed the piece and why. I’d also share it with my network to introduce them to the work.

4. Acknowledge milestones. Great articles, cover stories, anniversaries, anything personal they’ve shared via their socials.

Once you’ve built rapport, stay in touch. Offer context, new angles, or thoughtful commentary, even when it’s not about your company. You’re building trust and long-term visibility. These small touchpoints lay the foundation for future collaboration and often determine whether your pitch gets opened or ignored. Without a doubt, the standalone Wall Street Journal articles I’ve been able to deliver wouldn’t have happened without the time I spent building relationships.

Step Five: Create a Modern Pitch

Your paid-for PR team isn’t sending a mass email with a press release attachment and hoping for the best, and neither should you. Instead, you should send short, sharp, relevant emails that include the following:

1. The subject line should be clear, not clever. Don’t waste the journalist's time trying to inspire curiosity to get them to open the email. Because you have a relationship, the email will likely be opened. Don’t insult them with marketing spin in the subject line.

2. Keep it short. If the pitch you are sending is five paragraphs long, you’ve lost the plot. Keep it short. I typically keep it to five short sentences or fewer.

3. Include the hook, not the product. Yes, you want product or service coverage; however, your pitch can’t look like an advertorial. Share why they should be interested in your news.

4. Don’t forget to include a CTA. What do you want them to do? Schedule time with the CEO? Learn more about XYZ? What should they do?

I customize the pitch for every publication/influencer based on the relationship we’ve built. Do this, and your success rate should increase.

And remember, your email to your media list shouldn’t only be when pitching. Relationships are give and take. Reach out when you’re not pitching as well. Not to needlessly take their time but instead to offer commentary, praise, or thoughts.

A note about reactive pitches: There are three services that you might want to consider. Peter Shankman’s SOS Media Inquiries, HARO (Help A Reporter Out), and Qwoted each share requests from journalists asking for experts and thought leaders for specific articles they are working on. Beyond my former job, I’ve gotten easy coverage leveraging these channels with a tight pitch. Because you likely won’t have a relationship with the people you are responding to, you will want to follow their instructions and avoid the pure product pitch.

Step Six: Amplify Through Owned Channels

You’ve secured coverage and now have a great placement or article. Congratulations! You now want to amplify it through your own channels. This includes LinkedIn posts, LinkedIn insights based on the article, newsletter inclusions, enablement for your sales team to share, etc. One good mention is better than a dozen touchpoints, so use the content to turn it into pull quotes for social media, stories into carousels, your career page, and, if appropriate, in your pitch deck.

Step Seven: Evaluate Performance Against Your Goals

Measurement isn’t just a box to check; it’s how you close the loop and refine your strategy. Once you’ve executed your PR plan, step back and assess how well it performed against the goals you set at the start. Ask yourself:

1. Did we see an increase in branded search, site traffic, or newsletter signups?

2. Did we see a corresponding lift on pipeline or closed business?

3. Were we able to secure placements in the right publications or platforms?

4. Did our media outreach convert into interviews or inbound opportunities?

5. Are sales and investors referencing the earned media in conversations?

6. Did we see improvements in domain authority or referral traffic?

Track your wins, analyze what underperformed, and feed those insights into your next PR sprint. The best DIY PR programs are iterative. They learn, adjust, and improve with every cycle.

That Seems Like a Big Project. How Will I Do This as a Team of One?

It’s worth acknowledging the time commitment required. Expect to spend an hour a day reviewing content and working on your relationships. You’ll spend more during product launches, funding announcements, and the like. But the compounding return on brand, trust, and pipeline is worth it.

DIY PR isn’t a “set and forget” strategy. It requires consistency, thoughtfulness, and follow-through. Building media relationships, crafting compelling narratives, and amplifying coverage takes time. And it also takes the right person. DIY PR should be done by the person leading marketing. Someone skilled at creating strategic narratives, building the right relationships, crafting the perfect pitch, and measuring what matters. Can your graphic designer or manager do this? Maybe. But you might not see the results you expected.

How to Use AI to Scale PR (Without Sounding Like a Bot)

AI isn’t going to replace PR. When used strategically, AI can help you move faster, work smarter, and reduce the friction that often slows down DIY PR programs. But like any tool, knowing how and when to use it makes all the difference.

The goal isn’t to churn out robotic press releases or mass pitches. Instead, AI should help you enhance personalization, uncover story opportunities, and streamline repetitive tasks so you can focus on what matters: building relationships and telling a compelling story.

Use AI for:

1. Researching reporters and their beats

2. Brainstorming pitch angles or subject lines

3. Summarizing trends for thought leadership

4. Drafting first-pass press releases

5. Repurposing articles into posts, summaries, or decks

Avoid Using AI for:

1. Mass generic pitches

2. Replacing your founder or CEO’s voice

3. Faking social proof or data

AI isn’t always right, so to leverage it, you need to know how to do the job first. You can’t spot a bad pitch or press release if you haven’t first figured them out on your own. You want to treat AI as your co-pilot and not your spokesperson.

PR Is a Strategy

PR isn’t simply a department anymore. It’s a strategy. And it belongs to founders, CEOs, marketers, and sellers alike. When you use it right, even a lean team can build a brand that punches above its weight.

If you’re trying to build a high-impact PR program but aren’t sure where to start or you want a sounding board for your strategy, I’d love to help. I’ve worked with companies at every stage, and there is always a way to do more with less. Reach out with your questions, challenges, or ideas. Let’s build something meaningful and get the right people talking about it.

---

If you’re new here, welcome. Growth, Accelerated is a weekly newsletter on go-to-market strategy, leadership, and the real work behind high-performing teams. If you found this useful, subscribe or forward it to someone who needs this reminder today.