Building a Strong Relationship with Your Media Relations Agency

In the ever-evolving realm of startups, the relationship between a company and its media relations team is pivotal in navigating the dynamic business landscape. When trust and collaboration are two main pillars of the partnership, your media relations team can feel like an extension of your business strategy to stay aligned with a rapidly evolving startup.

This year, BAM celebrated its seventh anniversary working with the team at Medcrypt, the proactive cybersecurity provider for medical device manufacturers. Over time, our partnership has evolved alongside the company, which has grown from a staff of three to 60+. BAM and Medcrypt have worked together to share the latest news and information on the company’s growth through funding rounds, strategic partnerships, customer announcements, and pivotal new board members. 

We sat down with Mike Kijewski, CEO, and Vidya Murthy, COO to discuss how our partnership has changed over the past seven years and distilled what we learned into five key takeaways.   

A media relations partner should be flexible 

Navigating the ebb and flow of market demands requires a strategic partner that can scale up or down as business needs change. A strong media relations team offers a flexible framework that allows businesses to optimize costs in tandem with their media relations strategies. Whether increasing media outreach during peak seasons or streamlining efforts during lulls, this partnership ensures that financial resources are allocated efficiently.

When asked, Mike said,“ Working with a startup is a rollercoaster and there are times when things are great and times when things are tight. BAM was a great partner in making sure we could scale up and down our engagement as needed and having a partner that was willing to work with us in this way was really important to us”.

Creating the right narrative 

The startup landscape is often noisy — thousands of companies vying for the same audience's attention. Clear collaboration with your media relations team becomes the linchpin in crafting and conveying a brand story that resonates authentically with your audience.

“In our space, there is the temptation to try to sell on fear. We sell cybersecurity tools for life-sustaining medical devices and someone who hasn’t worked in this space might say, ‘Write an article on how everyone with a pacemaker is going to die if we don’t do cybersecurity correctly,’” Mike said. “We were very clear in working with BAM that we didn’t want to sell on fear and that we wanted to talk about the bright side of this problem and avoid being hyperbolic.” BAM worked closely with Medcrypt to ensure that every message we put out fit into a narrative that felt true to Medcrypt as a brand and reflected the core values of the business.

“The collaborative aspect of our partnership is really important to us. As the BAM team has changed over the years, anyone who has joined the team is very inquisitive and wants to genuinely understand our business. That really matters to us and makes us want to work with you even more,” Vidya added.

Building the right story: Creating change within an entire industry 

For startups, the importance of good storytelling is more than just positive brand affinity — the right story can build trust with customers and catalyze industry-wide transformation. Collaborating with a media relations agency takes on a profound significance when the shared goal isn’t simply communicating a message, but crafting a narrative that sparks change across an entire industry.

“When we first started Medcrypt, we were told by medical device manufacturers and investors that cybersecurity in devices wasn’t a thing and nobody cared about this,” Mike added. “Now, Congress is passing laws effectively making it a thing and the FDA is refusing devices that don’t have security proactively built in. So for us, being able to message the importance of solving this problem is critical to our business's success. I can’t imagine a scenario where Medcrypt is not investing in media relations due to the importance of helping this market evolve and grow in the correct direction.”

Keeping things fresh: Pivot as needed 

As you’ve probably guessed, our media relations strategy with Medcrypt changed a lot over seven years. Whether facing market uncertainty, bank collapses, emerging trends, new government regulations, or changing customer demands, the ability to pivot quickly ensures a nimble and responsive approach.

”When we’ve had SEO questions, BAM helped us with that. You’ve supported website changes and messaging —really anything we’ve asked for,” said Vidya. “So I think what we did in the beginning has evolved a lot over the years. And over time, we’ve identified new things that we need to focus on together.”

Why media relations should be a business goal 

Media relations and marketing is a lot of pivoting to find what’s going to work for us  and that’s changing all the time. As a business, if we choose to shut off this part of the engine, that would be a real loss for us,” Vidya said. “Our investors are regularly giving us feedback that they see Medcrypt everywhere, which has obviously been great for our overall success and growth.”

Media relations is a process that takes time. In the last seven years working with Medcrypt, we’ve secured over 800 pieces of coverage and have built lasting reporter relationships that we leverage on a regular basis — a testament to the importance of a long-term media relations strategy and the power of collaboration and strategic communication.   

Want to hear more about the benefits of a long-term media relations partnership? Get in touch to learn how BAM can tailor a media relations strategy for where you are in your growth journey.