Open source software (OSS) is a pillar of the tech world, providing businesses and developers with various options for tackling problems without relying solely on proprietary solutions.
If you’re running a business that develops and sells OSS solutions, public relations (PR) can be a critical element that can help ensure success. But how? Here are three ways why PR can supercharge your OSS business.
The sales pipeline is critical to any business looking to succeed. In turn, PR is essential to generating leads from potential customers who are already interested in your product or service.
PR is an invaluable tool in content creation and media coverage, which are invaluable in generating awareness, validating you among prospects, and scoring backlinks to bolster your domain authority. This will improve the number of inbound leads while making outbound prospects more likely to recognise your brand and take interest in your outreach.
By offering valuable information about your product or service, PR won’t just generate more leads. It will also help build trust between customers and your team by helping to signal transparency and engagement in the issues that matter to them.
PR is vital in helping to position the innovation and value of your OSS solutions. It also can be critical in improving your team’s reputation as thought leaders in the open source space. This can be key to attracting investors who can help your business grow and scale.
By positioning yourself as an expert in the field, you can secure much-needed coverage in outlets read by VCs and investors, such as Sifted, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat. This helps raise awareness of your solution and team among potential investors, and also improves the confidence of existing or prospective investors in your continued market leadership.
Finding quality talent is critical for any growing tech company. But this is especially true for OSS businesses working on solutions at the cutting edge.
PR can help attract top talent by showcasing the value and sophistication of your projects, signalling your company’s values and concerns, and sharing the opportunities available with your team. Through your content, news, awards, events, and beyond, PR can show potential candidates why they should choose you over other employers offering similar roles within the OSS space.
So, PR can clearly add significant value to OSS businesses. But how does this look in practice? In practice, there’s typically not a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, a good PR plan will depend heavily on your team’s exact solution, culture, and priorities.
To do that, you need a partner who can understand the complexity and nuance of your team and solutions and translate that into an actionable plan that meets your particular needs. If you want to supercharge your OSS business with PR, book a consultation with us today to discuss what that might mean in practice.