Halloran
Media Relations
Energy & Climate Tech
A grid-storage company needed reporters to understand a category that didn’t exist yet.
How targeted briefings turned a technical launch into 14 placements and a seat at the industry’s main conference.
Client
Grid-storage hardware company at commercial launch, ~150 employees
Engagement
Retainer
Duration
6 months (ongoing)
The situation
The company had built a new kind of long-duration storage system and signed its first utility customers, but its technology didn’t fit any category reporters already covered. Its early attempts at press had produced either nothing or confused coverage that compared it to consumer batteries. Sales cycles with utilities were long, and procurement teams wanted third-party validation before taking meetings.
The founders were engineers who, understandably, wanted to explain everything. Their first launch release ran to four pages and used eleven technical terms in the opening paragraph. The job was to keep the substance and lose the barrier to entry.
Our response
Marcus Voss and Daniel Okafor started by finding the reporters who could actually explain the technology: eight specialist energy and infrastructure journalists, plus the analysts whose notes utility buyers read. Instead of a launch release, we offered each of them a technical briefing with the CTO and a site visit.
We wrote a plain-language explainer the company could send to any reporter, built a data story from the first customer’s performance figures, and prepared the CEO for broader business interviews once the specialist coverage had established the category. Every month we reported what ran, what didn’t, and which conversations were in progress.
We also turned down opportunities. Two consumer outlets wanted a “future of batteries” story that would have repeated the old confusion. Declining them kept the coverage accurate, and accuracy was what the utility buyers were checking for.
How it unfolded
Month 1: category narrative and plain-language explainer written; target lists built
Month 1: CEO and CTO media training
Month 2: technical briefings with eight specialist reporters; first site visit
Month 3: first specialist features publish; customer data story approved by the utility
Month 4: national business coverage begins
Month 5: conference abstract accepted as a keynote
Month 6: fourteenth placement; focus shifts to the next funding round
What we delivered
Category narrative and plain-language technical explainer
Target list of 8 specialist reporters, 12 national reporters and 6 analysts
Technical briefings and two site visits
Customer data story, co-approved with the utility
CEO and CTO media training
Conference speaking strategy and abstract drafting
Monthly coverage and pipeline report
Results
Fourteen placements in six months. The specialist coverage came first and set the terms, so when national business press followed, five national pieces described the technology accurately. Three utility prospects referenced the coverage in first sales meetings. The CEO was invited to keynote the sector’s leading annual conference. The retainer continues, now with a focus on the company’s next funding round.
Just as important, the coverage is accurate. The sales team now sends the specialist features to prospects in place of the company’s own brochure, because an independent explanation carries more weight with a utility procurement team than anything the company could write about itself.
The takeaway
If reporters don’t have a category for what you do, don’t start with the biggest outlets. Brief the handful of specialists who can explain it properly, let their coverage set the terms, and only then go broad. Accurate coverage in fewer places beats confused coverage everywhere.
“Marcus found the eight reporters who could explain what we do, and made sure they heard it from us first.”
— Chief Executive, Kestrel Grid
