Go-to PR Strategies for 2026

In the crowded tech landscape of 2026, building brand awareness isn't just about flashy logos or polished websites; it's about breaking through the digital noise with authentic human connection. The challenge right now is that corporate posts are being ignored while the AI slop of generic, machine-written content is eroding trust with potential customers and investors. On this episode of FiredUp!, we tackle the essential PR tactics that actually move the needle. We explore why executive visibility is seeing a massive resurgence and how you can leverage personal authenticity to outshine the robotic "Uncanny Valley" of automated marketing. This week, episode 127 of the FiredUp! podcast is about go-to PR strategies for 2026!

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In this episode of the FiredUp! podcast, the Firebrand team shares the best ways to make your c-suite executives more visibe and actionable steps you can take right now to build a strategic PR plan for 2026. 

Morgan and Chris discuss:

• Prioritizing Executive Visibility: Potential customers want to buy from people, not just faceless corporations.
• Seek Smaller Podcasts To Start:. Seek opportunities on smaller podcasts to build confidence and sharpen your talking points, preparing you for the big leagues.
• Authenticity Over AI Efficiency: While AI can boost productivity, its recognizable cadence can be a turn off for buyers seeking real connection. Authenticity is the ultimate signal of quality..
• Build the Rapid Response Muscle: Success in 2026 requires a strategic rapid response program that leverages breaking news and data storytelling to maintain a constant, authoritative presence in industry conversations.

For more tips on the latest PR playbooks, subscribe to FiredUp! and check out our monthly newsletter, The Forge.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Go-to PR Strategies for 2026
• 1:47 Why Executive Visibility Is Surging
• 5:14 AI, Ghostwriting, and the Authenticity Problem
• 7:35 Podcasts, TikTok, and Building Executive Confidence
• 12:20 CEO Bylines and Developing a Real Point of View
• 19:50 Press Releases, News Cadence, and AI Search Impact
• 31:45 Data Storytelling: Surveys, Internal Data, and Differentiation
• 39:56 Rapid Response as a PR Muscle & Final Takeaways

Transcript

Morgan McLintic: 0:00

If you want to raise your brand's awareness, public relations is going to be one of the central activities that you undertake. But what are the main tactics that are working for Tech brands in PR in 2026 that's the topic we're going to dive into today. Hello everyone. Welcome to fired up the podcast for marketers working in early and late stage startups. Hello everyone. Welcome to fired up. My name is Morgan mcclintic, today we're going to be talking about the go to tactics in PR and to do that, I am joined by firebrands media lead Chris Albrecht, Hey Chris, how are you? I'm doing great. Great to be here. This is going to be a great topic, but before we get into that, I want to mention our newsletter, which I did love you all to check out and sign up for, which you can find that firebrand dot marketing slash resources. We're always sharing good tips. There loads of blogs, there's videos, there's, of course, all of our podcasts and resources, firebrand dot marketing slash resources for our newsletter. It's called the forge, comes out once a month. So now let's talk about PR. It's more important to do PR than ever before. Now we've had a real surge in it, in part because of its impact on AI search. But within PR, there are some sort of go to playbooks, and I think top of the list here is executive visibility. Almost every brand I talk to today says they want to raise the profile of their CEO and their executive team, and as PR types like to call that executive visibility. It's not just on LinkedIn, though it involves a number of other tactics. Chris, why do you think this is having such a resurgence the moment?

Chris Ulbrich: 1:47

I think it is because we're seeing a trend in PR, just generally, toward modes of communication that are considered more personal and authentic and executive. Visibility fits right into that, into that mold we're finding and our clients are confirming that video and podcasts are driving just as many, if not more, leads than more traditional PR tactics like commentary and press releases and product announcements we have traditionally in PR, I think thought of the brand as the collection of corporate elements that go into a business. Your logo expresses your brand, your website expresses your brand. And all of that is still true, but increasingly audiences, potential customers. They're looking to buy from people, and they want to see when they're you can also see this in the rise of recommendation sites like g2 where as a buyer, you want to see someone's direct experience with a product. And similarly, if you're buying from a company, you want to feel like you have some understanding or connection to the people at the top who are driving the product development and the strategy. And again, this has been true to a greater or lesser extent, but we're seeing the personal aspect of PR become more prominent than it ever has before.

Morgan McLintic: 3:27

Yes, that's borne out by the data from LinkedIn. Executive posts generate five to 10 times more engagement than your corporate posts. I guess that's because people want to engage with with people, and we are seeing execs post a lot more. There's some data here that suggests that 52% over the last year, there's been an increase of 52% in posting volume by CEOs, and, of course, the number of followers that come from there. If you remember back in the day when blogging first started, that was a way of seeing the senior team's sort of thoughts on particular issues, and people would subscribe via RSS to particular blogs. Then those blogs started getting ghost written by other handlers, their PR, their comms teams. I see it being fairly similar now, but with LinkedIn, there are certainly some senior execs who are posting and making comments themselves on a regular basis that they're modest. They're happy doing that, and they enjoy doing it, but we are seeing a rise in the number of brands who want the comms team to take over those channels and make sure that the CEO has three posts every week, a nice, long, thoughtful post, a couple of other ones, maybe some video, just to make sure there's a cadence there. So just in the same way, as in early days in blogs, you thought you were hearing direct from the mind of that CEO, and then we gradually. Understood. Oh, actually, these are being ghost written. Now the same is true. On LinkedIn. There's a rise of ghost writers, agencies, some individuals who are just taking over, running those, those handles on behalf of senior execs.

Chris Ulbrich: 5:14

And as anyone who's on LinkedIn knows, there's also a lot of this content is being driven by AI, and it is noticeable. So there's a bit of an arms race in this space where, you know, maybe a year or two ago, if you were churning out posts via AI, you might have had an advantage just in sheer productivity, but now the voice of AI is so recognizable that you're hearing increasingly that that kind of post is turning people off. It's doing more harm than good, because at the heart of this trend is a desire for authenticity on the part of the buyer. They want to feel a real connection, and AI provided that a convincing illusion for a short time, until everyone got onto its tricks. But now, if you're on LinkedIn for any length of time, you start to recognize, oh, all these people's voices sound alike, and that kind of content has entered a sort of Uncanny Valley, where it's more off putting than something that's obviously robotic and certainly more off putting than something that's clearly personal. It's in some ways, the worst of all worlds, because people are start to feel like you're trying to put one over on them. On some level, they sense that you're not being real with them, and that's ultimately what this is about.

Morgan McLintic: 6:37

Yeah, the stakes are high, though, right? Maybe you feel like, hey, an AI written blog post on a corporate site. I didn't like it, but fine when it's a post on behalf of your CEO that's been written by AI, that's being read by people that they know, that they've met their community, the most important prospects, partners, investors, you just can't risk that, because once that people do recognize it, and then that sort of the trust snaps, and you just can't get that back. So I do think, though, that has led to the sort of rise in demand for podcasts, because you can't fake that, right? You This is a video, or even if it's audio, this is real, and the number of people listening to B to B podcasts is going up, and so there is an audience for this, and people will have them on in the background. They have them on going to work when they're exercising. So I do think this is reaching audiences directly.

Chris Ulbrich: 7:35

I think that's right. There is a spectrum of comfort with this kind of content. Earlier stage companies are doing a lot of this material on Tiktok. They it comes naturally to them, young founders, and they're doing really attention grabbing funny bits that I think a more 40 something, 50 something CEO is going to be less excited, typically, about getting involved in. And you can't get them, you don't can't get their time to prepare for it. But in earlier stage company where everyone's working together in a single room, they're putting together like fast clips, they're funny, they're aggressive, from a marketing point of view, and that fits that style. I feel like LinkedIn is the Tik Tok for more traditional B to B companies. It still feels a little awkward for a lot of executives who aren't accustomed to putting themselves out there and being real LinkedIn, even as conservative as it is, is a bit of a leap for them, and podcasts are in the middle. What I think works so well about podcasts is that there are so many of them that a PR team can sift the opportunities and find ones that are a good fit for the executives comfort level and experience. And in a way, you can structure a podcast program like a theatrical run, and you get your reps in off Broadway at some of the smaller podcasts, and it might even be they might have really few views, right? But the experience gives the executive comfort hitting their talking points in a relatively low risk situation. They get used to the basics of being on a podcast and the mechanics of it, and they lose the nervousness, and it's when they start to get confident in their own abilities that authenticity really comes out. And so if they're getting on podcasts on a semi regular basis, at least, you will see the executive many times, really grow in their capacity to participate in PR and also their eagerness to get in front of reporters, and they're much more effective when they do. And so I think this is an experience. I've been doing this for about 20 years now, that just wasn't an opportunity that executives had when I started out. The closest thing would be speaking opportunities, which were more numerous at the time. Um, but they were much stagier. There was they're typically, they didn't. Often take the form of a Q A a podcast does. So I think the podcast, in a way, it's not just a new form of executive visibility, but it's a new way to develop, like, peer capabilities of your top spokespeople, your top executives.

Morgan McLintic: 10:19

Yeah, I like that analogy. Work the circuit of the lower tier podcasts a little bit. And the challenge there is that some of these are side projects by individuals. Some of them are more professionally run than others. Some of them suddenly spring a fee on you, which is some of them just suddenly go quite like it's a bit of a wild west out there. There are some that you can then start to rely on once you've the agency's worked with a few of the podcast hosts a few times, so then you can trust that, and I agree with you. It does take a while for maybe your founders. They come from an engineering background. They're happy to be the spokesperson for the company, but it's not their natural inclination. This is a good way to build that confidence. And even if the podcasts don't have huge reach, they can be very targeted to your audience, and you can amplify them, of course, in your own newsletter, on your social et cetera, directly to prospects, just as you can with any other type of coverage. So you can really work these things up a little bit.

Chris Ulbrich: 11:19

Yeah, and I have to say, podcast production has come a long way in a short time, when I was starting out in PR, that podcasts existed. They were literally podcasts, like things you put on your iPhone, and I remember that they were the technical quality was poor, but it doesn't take that much anymore. It's some investment, it's some care, it's some intentionality. But a podcast that only gets maybe two 300 views an episode can still come off as really professional and can look good on your socials. It communicates a sort of professionalism that I don't think was available at those sort of off Broadway style outlets in the past. So as you say, it can be a great tool for social amplification and for furthering that cadence of continuing activity, communicating simply through action and visibility.

Morgan McLintic: 12:20

What do you think about byline programs for CEOs? For example, it's very easy to join the Forbes tech Council. Get access to the imprimatur of Forbes. You can post as many as you want. I think it's limited by their review cadence, but you could post every month, you could have up to 1000 words there of thought, which, for most CEOs, is a lot, right? That level of cadence is hard to keep up with, plus there's plenty of editorial byline opportunities. I'm just choosing this one as an easy one that a lot of people start with. Where does this fit? I think it's a thing that people want to do, but the actual sort of thought leadership, this is a little bit deeper than rocking up to a podcast and giving your stump speech.

Chris Ulbrich: 13:09

It is and the executive byline is perhaps the best known tactic in executive visibility. This is an episode about go to strategies. It's still a go to strategy. However, what I would say is, because of the rise of AI, there's been a sort of evening out of the corporate voice. And let's be real, the corporate voice has never been incredibly distinctive in trade bylines to begin with, but now it is so easy to generate a byline and the struggle with a byline program has always been getting the executive's time and attention. And any marketing experts listening to this will, I'm sure I've had the experience of just going through this agonizing process of trying to get the executives attention, trying to get them to review what you've written, trying to get feedback on the edits that they had demanded. And it just takes forever. And a lot of times the whole program just dies because the executive isn't involved. The great and perhaps insidious promise of AI here is that the executive says, Oh, brilliant. I can just rattle off a few bullet points and have chatgpt turn them into a coherent argument and done. Yeah, that looks good to me. Fine. Let's just get on with running the business. But I think that that practice, again, as attractive as it is from a time management point of view, is flooding the industry with so much, frankly, Slob that it diminishes the value of the exercise in the first place there. I do feel, and this is just, I don't have data to support. This is just gut instinct after 20 years, but I do feel like there is a base level of quality and voice. That matters for a byline to be effective. And I think that the challenge right now with byline programs is hanging on to that because the lure of AI is so strong, and I get it any PR professional feels that pull, because they always have 10 pieces to write, or 10 things that they need to do, especially if they're an agency for different clients, the ability to get things done fast is attractive, but I think now that content itself is a commodity. And even in a world where you are trying, you know there is some value in just keeping up a cadence. And well, as with press releases, for instance, there's a PR value in just showing up long form content requires an investment from the reader, and if you don't pay off that investment again, I think that it's going to do you more harm than good if you just show up in someone's social feed, they've invested very little in seeing you. And I think the message I'm here, the pulse of communication they get from you, is effectively delivered, even if it's done in a sort of half baked way, maybe even your social post is written by AI. It's not great, but if people aren't digging into it, it's not disastrous. But the more you're asking of someone in a world where content is commoditized, I think the more you have to show up. So in a weird way, voice is even more important now than it was five years ago.

Morgan McLintic: 16:36

The reason I like bylines is that they do force you to do that work, that thinking work, and to sort of like, really, what is my argument? And if you are working with a CEO and you're writing the Bible, you'll be challenging them to push them to, you know, get to the extreme of their argument, that conclusion of their argument, and you'll be pressure testing that argument and asking them to back it up so that it sort of stands up on its own and is engaging. And I think the process of doing that helps executives go actually, this is the natural conclusion of what I think, and I would be willing to go there and in doing that, and then writing it and putting your name on the bottom of it, then you've got a stance, and you can play that into social and you can say that on the podcasts. And so it is the sort of Pinnacle, in some ways, of this executive visibility you might even talk use it at a conference that you're talking about. So I do think it fuels a lot of the rest of the executive visibility program, where on social they might be quick takes. These are not hot takes. These are considered in the cold light of day takes, and they need to stand up. And I think if you do that, it's great, because maybe you haven't got one a month, maybe you've only got one a quarter, but you can use that theme for a lot of the rest of the program, because you've done that work to stand that up, right?

Chris Ulbrich: 18:09

I mean, for those who haven't written an essay since high school college, but you probably remember in your literature class discovering what you thought about a book in the course of writing an essay about it. And you thought you knew you thought you did, but it was really only getting to grips with the language and the direct quotes that you were trying to use that you formed your point of view. And so to your point, the value of a byline program is partly in the content you produce, but again, in a world where content is a commodity, in some ways, it's the process of developing the byline that can be the most valuable, because that is the process that generates new ideas. And we have had the experience of working with executives, and they do a byline and it turns into their keynote for their conference, because the CEO, or the CTO is used to thinking about their product as a product. They're used to thinking about the speeds and the feeds and the features, right? And they have a vague sense for what it means with a capital M, but it's only when they have to write about it that they can really get their mind around the big idea as a big idea, along with catchy sound bites for framing the idea that would be suitable for catching the attention of a readership, also an audience. So as with many aspects of PR, there is a value to the exercise that goes beyond the the immediate end product.

Morgan McLintic: 19:50

So executive visibility is our number one go to strategy. Think beyond posts on LinkedIn, be thinking about podcasts. Be thinking about events, be thinking about bylines, just to have that sort of surround sound, and not just for your CEO, for multiple execs. The second go to strategy is news, issuing press releases. Now this is a bit controversial, because the press release is much maligned. But why do we think that this is a go to strategy for 2026

Chris Ulbrich: 20:26

Well, in some ways, it goes back to what we were just saying about executive visibility, that the value of a news announcement goes beyond the content of a news announcement, and there's a paradox in you in the role of news in a PR program, which is that, as many reporters, if not all reporters, would tell you the starting point for any piece of business to business technology, news is that nobody cares. Nobody cares about the news. Reporters will tell you, I think it is possible to take that on board and believe it, and also believe that news announcements are an absolutely vital part of your PR campaign. It's the motor of your PR campaign, and the reasons for that are many. Number one to say nobody cares. That's hyperbole. That's a rhetorical stance. Clearly somebody cares, because news does get published. There are fewer places to pick up your news than there used to be, but they do exist, and it is valuable to have your news relayed in the trades at minimum and possibly to level up to a more prestigious publication. But it's important to bear in mind that news will be the trigger for the story that you want most, in all likelihood, the story that you're trying to get with that dream publication, even if, when it eggs, 95% of it say it's that dream corporate profile. It's not me. 95% of it isn't about the news, but the reporter needs the news as a time hook to make it relevant to a news readership. It's just the way news works. It's the way journalism works. Yeah, so at minimum, it's important because it's the trigger for the big hit. But I think there's another important but less tangible value, which is the value of showing up. If there's one thing that I find myself communicating to clients that these days, it's that PR is an investment. PR is largely about relationships and relationships in every other aspect of your life. It wouldn't be surprising for some to acknowledge that relationships take time to build, to grow, to nurture, right and there. And still, there is this expectation that you can start a PR program and results will just start rolling in. And sometimes that's true, but it's usually because you are playing on pre established relationships. Maybe your CEO has done it before, and is well known in the industry, and people have either an actual relationship or a sort of parasocial relationship with the CEO or the company, and they feel like they know them, even if they don't know them. But you're not just showing up out of nowhere and expecting the reporter to act like you have any kind of ongoing conversation or relationship happening, but it's in so many other aspects of business. That's the way it works. You lay down your money and you get your value that's in. You could even argue that's one of the biggest differences between PR and marketing, right and with and one of the one of the things you get out of news is touches with the reporters that you're trying to reach, and also now in this eight in the age of social of social media, it you are showing up in the algorithm with your announcements on a regular basis, and you are communicating with both those audience reporters and your social audience just by showing up the presence that you're making yourself felt. You're making yourself seen on a regular basis. That has value. You have to be careful about how you do it. You, as I was saying earlier, you can't impose too much on people's patients, but there's value in just showing up. And the other thing I would just note is that this is a moment where a lot of reporters are moving around. There many reporters are piling into the AI beat from other beats because there's such a demand for reporting in that space. And course. Respondingly diminished demand in other spaces. A lot of reporters, increasingly, you're seeing them, go off on their own, found their own sub stacks, their own subscription companies. This is a moment when reporters are getting out there on their own. And I can't you it might not be true of every one of these reporters. Everyone's different, but often, I've found that in a moment where people are out there doing something new, maybe taking a chance on themselves, they're more open to hearing from sources and hearing about companies that they haven't heard of before, because they're trying to find their footing in their new role, and everything is is a potential avenue for them. And so I think that news in this moment can be helpful in establishing relationships with reporters that are on the move right now. I think that's always been true, but this is a moment where there is so much movement that the value of news right now, just overall, on a program is higher than it typically is. The industry goes through these sort of ebbs and flows where the value of news as a signaling device varies, but I think that it's it's higher if you do it right than it normally is.

Morgan McLintic: 26:16

That's right. There was a time where I would be advising clients issue less news. You would have these companies where the CEO wants to make sure we've got an announcement every week, and the poor comms team would be scratching around and grinding out these press releases. And we were like, This is wasted effort because the report is your they can't write all these stories. They're not going to get coverage for this. The returns are zero. But so it seems a bit odd for me now to be saying actually you should issue more news. You know, I think here's a stat that PR news wise says that most comms teams issue between one and 10 press releases per year. I think many startups struggle to get to 10 monthly news, but giving yourselves that opportunity to start those relationships, get pick up the few pieces of coverage that you're going to get for each one. It does show the discipline. It shows the momentum of the company. Not every announcement needs to necessarily be a press release, although I do think the formality of that gives it some sort of structure. You don't have to put it over a wire. I don't know that drives much extra coverage. So it's not a cost thing there, but there was, it used to be, look, just do a blog post or just do a tweet, and people will pick it up. They're not going to do that unless you're one of a small handful of companies that are being closely tracked. You need to get out there and show the momentum, because your competitors are going to do this. So I think looking in the company to have as many announcements as possible, as long as they meet that credibility critical edge, like there has to be some meat there. But turning that engine up more than before is something that I think is important for 2026 right?

Chris Ulbrich: 28:02

And I just want to sort of circle back with that in mind again. I think of the word paradox here, because if you ask reporters, I think most of them would say, oh, god no, please no. Because, not more. Because what they'll all say is that their inboxes are just flooded with announcements right now, be or whatever, just approaches pitches whatever, because of ai, ai is generating so much slop that it they feel like they're overwhelmed. I have definitely noticed that the level of response that you get on a typical pitch done a typical way has declined. It doesn't mean necessarily the reporter doesn't see it, but they are so like, I feel like in all my career, I've been saying reporters are increasingly underwater because they're doing more with less, but AI has just taken that up exponentially. How can it be true everything we've said before about this, about how necessary news is, and at the same time report. This is where it comes back to the intelligent approach. News can be valuable with reporters, I think, if correctly deployed by an experienced team who are using it in a sort of thoughtful way to build a relationship with reporters. Sometimes I'm increasingly finding I'm asking for, I'm asking for permission to send news, right? And instead of just assuming that that a reporter is going to be interested, I think part of the value of that is, is that it just, it gets, it establishes a sort of humanity in the relationship, and you're showing some sort of respect for the reporters time. But I also think that just having a civil exchange on that topic will make your future communication stand out, because they know you're not pitching them mechanically. You're you're pitching them thoughtfully. They whatever you're pitching them may or may not be of interest. Is, but you're treating them like a human being, yeah? And that is, is and has always been, the fundamental tenet of PR relationships. Every reporter will say, just treat me like a person, right? You hear that over and over, when they when reporters say, what they hate about PR, what they wish they saw more in PR, they're like, this is also mechanical. Just treat me like think about who I am, what I cover, and approach me like a person. And this is a world where so much content, whether it's bylines or pitches, is being generated by machines, that the existence of content is not is not distinctive the way you deploy it is there's value in showing up, but you have to show up the right way. So that's the balancing act. That's the art of PR. Presence has value, but presence is also a commodity, and so it really needs to be presence properly deployed, thoughtfully deployed.

Morgan McLintic: 30:58

One final point on press releases is that they do have a geo impact for AI search, I think we had seen some data from macroac saying in the first half of 2025, 2% of LLM citations were press releases. So that's pretty good, but it went up to 5% in their latest iteration of their generative pulse research. If you're going to do this, then you should optimize them for for geo as best you can, because they are going to get picked up like any content like this is fresh content and it does new content. And I'm talking about this on your website again. You don't have to put this over and use one, all right. So number one, executive visibility. Number two, news. Number three is data storytelling.

Chris Ulbrich: 31:45

Chris, it was a go to five years ago. It's a go to now. The listeners in this podcast will probably have heard me say this before, but typically, speaking as a startup, you are interesting for one of two things, what you do and what you know, or another way of looking at it, who you are and what you know. And typically, you're not really interesting to most reporters about based on who you are, until you achieve a certain level of visibility and cloud and significance in the industry and at seed at Series A, at Series B, chances are that, in and of itself, you do not demand attention. So most of the time, what you have to offer reporters is insight about the area they cover their beat, and the most powerful way to develop distinctive Insights is to get your hands on your own data. So there are two main ways to do this. One is to survey professionals in the area that is relevant to the reporter you're trying to reach. So for their beat, that would be, you might survey on trends in their usage of particular technology, their difficulty adopting a technology, those are typical approaches to an industry survey. The other way, the ideal way, is to generate data based on your internal metrics, or the internal data that you're tracking from your customers, anonymized. Of course, that's the dream, because that is data that you and only you have, and nobody else can generate the same insights that you are. The either of these is better than just going off half cocked with data, with opinions that aren't backed up with anything substantial, right? The external survey is good. If properly planned, you will get coverage out of it, and it's great for ongoing pitches, right? There is a certain wariness in the industry, and amongst reporters of industry generated data, they know that you're probably not going to share data that puts your own product in a bad light or is off message for you in some way. So they're aware that in some ways, this is a marketing tool that said data serves the need of so many reporters, and it serves it so well that that objection is not fatal in most cases. Now, internal data is even better, because it's not about opinion, it's about behavior that you are tracking. So it's more credible, and we find that it is more effective when you can do it. Most of our campaigns start out with a conversation. What data do you have? Can we deploy it? The truth is, most of the time, it's a heavy lift. For most companies, it's a dream when they have their own data team, or it's easy for them, or they're committed to pulling their own data, but often we find we need to work up to it by proving the value of research through surveys. Good news is that I would. Say that most of our most successful, longest running campaigns have a strong data component. The reason for that is that data works, and this is a go to PR strategy in 2026 not particularly because of anything new about 2026 but because it's just as valuable now as it was 510, 15 years ago,

Morgan McLintic: 35:22

surveys had a real peak. 10 years ago, everyone was doing them. The bar for surveys, little survey of 200 PR professionals thinks this. So the bar was low. People were just serving their own team to come up with the data. Now, you have to have a third party validate it, and that's going to have a cost, and the first one's not going to get as much coverage because you're a new data source. I would just say the ones that do the best don't go out to just look at proving what we all know that's a real problem, like you went out and found opinions within the market, and it proved what we probably could all have guessed. And okay, that's not great. Have a view before you go out, to think about what the stories are and when you're forming the questions. Think about if they answer this the opposite way. Have you still got a story like you've obviously you're skewed to I want to prove this, but what if it's different? Because again, you could these fail when they go out and you prove what everybody already knows. Okay, data proves the sky's blue. Okay, great. That's very exciting. Also, oh, my work out if it doesn't work in your favor. Have you still got something here? Because otherwise you're like, Okay, I can't use most of this data because it's either obvious or it doesn't work for me.

Chris Ulbrich: 36:38

Yeah. And on a related note, as you are conceiving your survey, you want to check to see what similar research has been done, especially by the big consultancies. So the analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester Sure, but also the big consultancies like PWC, Ernst and Young a lot of the time, they will have done research, that is, and they'll have a they'll have a regular annual publication, sometimes even biannual, on the bright idea that you had because, surprise, they already had it. That's not always a fatal objection. It doesn't mean you can't do anything in that area, but it probably means that you need to make your research more pointed. It can't be just the state of x in 2026 because Ernst and Young just did the state of x or they're going to do the state of x in 2026 and reporters, especially at places like the Wall Street Journal Bloomberg, they're used to getting these reports from these consultancies, and if they have PwC report, and they have your report, surprise, they're going to go with PwC because PwC is a bigger name. They've surveyed more people. There's more apparatus in the report. The nightmare scenario is you sunk$20,000 into a survey and it comes out seven days after a Price Waterhouse report on the exact same subject. That's the worst case scenario. You want to avoid that, and chances are you're going to do that by narrowing in on a topic that you know better, rather than trying to do this sort of macro economic analysis and try to get the grand slam home run the first time out.

Morgan McLintic: 38:15

Going too broad is absolutely a flaw. And then once you're in the market, getting this thing out quickly. Also really important, because A, the data gets old, but B, as you just said, you've got your good idea. So have some others. If you found a little niche, I bet your competitors are too, and if they come out with it before you like a product, they've stolen your window. So I think that's a great point. Okay, so those are three executive visibility, news, data storytelling also ran here, and one we wanted to include, but I just don't think it comes in the top. Top Three is rapid response, and by that we mean responding to inquiries that journalists have about looking for a source about a particular question or topic. And there are some PR people use these tools I quoted, which is like a marketplace matching journalists to sources. And this is just a very core PR tactic. Hey, you know, I'm looking for someone the latest trends on database technology. Okay, here's what we think, and it doesn't include this, because I think conversion rates are low and effort can be high. I have spoken to companies who are looking for a new agency because their current agency is just going after so many of these and increasingly peripheral taking the time of their senior execs to write their opinions, and then nothing happens. And so it can be a lot of sort of short term frantic energy with a poor conversion rate, but not always,

Chris Ulbrich: 39:56

but not always. Yeah, this is a tough one, and I. Think similar to some of the other tactics we've discussed so much of it is in how you do it, and the imposition on the executive's time under pressure has always been an obstacle to rapid response. And in a properly run program, you try to minimize that by putting together points of view at the start of the campaign, as part of the onboarding process when you're having conversations with the top executives. And yet, I think there is something to be said for continued for investment in this area, even beyond what I just described. Like you minimize the imposition as much as you can, but it's like the byline process. I do find that companies that are open to this kind of engagement reap the benefits in more effective pitches down the road, as like in what we said about bylines, where you find out what you think about a topic by writing the byline. A lot of times, businesses figure out what their point of view is on topics of the day, which is what rapid response is commentary on like, deadline oriented commentary on something that's timely in the news. And they might not really know what their point of view is, but it but in the process of answering one of these opportunities, these calls for sources, or just a classic sort of what sometimes called news jacking, though I've said before I don't like that term, but be that, as I may however, you're doing rapid response, the act of putting together the the approved copy, whether that's with an SME or with some kind of a senior marketing executive who has implicit sign off from the SME to put things out under their name. It is valuable over the long term, beyond the value of whether or not you get into this particular opportunity, it gives the PR team a better and richer sense of your point of view on on timely topics. And at minimum, it means the next time you see a similar opportunity like this, the PR team can just go out and try to go after it with approved copy or with copy that needs just minimal tweaking so that you don't say the exact same thing twice. So there's a value just in the efficiency of the campaign, but it also just builds the muscle that I think is important for pitching a lot of the times there were some, at least sometimes, the reporters that you're approaching with rapid response are ones you're trying to build a relationship with. So it's another chance to show up with them, or publications that you're trying to that you're going to be pitching for, set piece pitches like a funding announcement, like a big product launch. So it's a way to show up, but it's also just a muscle building exercise. I compare it to training for a big race. Rapid Response is your daily run, and the big set piece announcement is like the race you're training for? Yeah, in theory, you could just show up for the big race without having done the training and do well, but it's not likely. Rapid Response is one of the activities that keeps a proactive pitching program in tone. I'm really on the fence about whether this is go to or it's essential, because it's not go to in the sense that it doesn't have the same sort of splashy payoff as some of these other tactics. So it's not a go to in that way. But I would say that the most successful PR campaigns, just like they tend to have a strong data component, they also somehow get themselves, they work themselves around to a strong rapid response component. It's a muscle that you need to build over time, but I think the best campaigns will develop it.

Morgan McLintic: 43:51

Yeah, I agree with you. It puts the company under pressure to think about what its opinion is within a tight timeframe, and to give some individual authority to make that commentary. And now some companies, they're just culturally they find that a real struggle, right? Because there's a small number of people who have the authority, or what have you, and so they have to just build that up the it's a confidence thing. So I really agree with you on that. In some sectors, if you're in cyber security, honestly, this is going to be a lot of the activity of your PR program, because there are so many incidents that need commentary. And why has this happened? And they're used to doing this, and they probably have someone who is their evangelist, dedicated time at senior exec to do it, because it's so critical for others, if you're a FinTech company, you might need to find that person.

Chris Ulbrich: 44:44

Yeah, I something that occurs to me about what you said earlier, about talking to companies who say, Oh, our previous agency, they were just wasting our time with these rapid response ops. That's the other again, like so many of these other texts we talked about, so much of it is in. The doing and the proper approach and the proper choice of opportunities. I think, yes, what they're complaining about, on some level, is we didn't see coverage, and some executives just won't get past that. That's their prerogative, like the only thing that matters to them is whether this got coverage. And sometimes you'll put in a you'll do a rapid response with an executive, and they'll say, When is the news coming out? It might not come out at all. The reporter might take your quote. They might not, but, but it is the responsibility of the PR team to recommend opportunities that are in some way strategic that further the company's PR goals. And I think what a lot of startups get frustrated with is when PR teams just seem to be coming to them with irrelevant rapid response ops that just don't seem to have any strategic value. And it's a case by case basis. But sometimes a marketing team might look at an OP that the PR is brought to them and say, even if it's inked. What does this get us? Yeah, this isn't a publication that doesn't even reach our audience. Why would we spend the time on this? So I think part of it is just the investment required. And some startups don't see the value, fine, but I think a lot of the time it's what they're reacting to. Are rapid response programs that aren't run strategically, right? I call

Morgan McLintic: 46:22

those the favorite color pitch. What's your favorite color? Okay, everyone's got one. It's blue. Does that matter? And how does that move me forward? And the competition on there is high, and it doesn't really even if you win, it doesn't matter. Yeah, you've got it's got to pass the favorite color test on.

Chris Ulbrich: 46:38

But, and like, even a favorite color pitch can be can be useful. What's your favorite? What's your favorite productivity app? CEOs, you know, opine on what? What's the one AI tool they can't live without? On the face of it, that's not strategic. But if it's with a publication or a reporter that you're trying to reach, then that's a relationship building exercise.

Morgan McLintic: 46:58

Yeah, that's fair. Okay, so those are our go to tactics for 2026 executive visibility, issuing lots of news, data, storytelling, and then close run, building the muscle for rapid response, because it fuels the rest of your program. And if you do these things, you'll have a successful PR program, which will increase visibility and also pay off in AI search. So Chris, thanks for your time today. Enjoyed talking about this with you, and thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed that, please drop us a comment or subscribe, and we will see you all again this time next week. You.