Suede Public Relations

Suede Public Relations & Earned Media

Suede Public Relations turns verified milestones, evidence, and timely angles

into respectful earned-media briefs for journalists, podcasts, and newsletters.

It optimizes story fit and source usefulness without treating a drafted pitch as

sent or coverage as earned.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first:

If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Core Philosophy

PR is not a substitute for distribution. Treat it as a channel hypothesis whose

value must be measured against the current audience, story, and sales motion.

• Do not assume a placement drives or cannot drive conversion. Track referral

behavior, brand search, citations, and sales influence for this campaign.

• Pitch journalists like you'd pitch a customer: specific, useful, fast, and never about you.
• The story is not your product. The story is the trend, the data, the conflict, or the human. Your product is the evidence.
• Test speed against relevance and accuracy. Use the story's observed

coverage curve and deadline; never trade verification for haste.

When PR is worth it

• You have a real story — proprietary data, a strong opinion, a milestone, a customer with a sharp before/after, or a fresh angle on a trending topic
• You have founder/exec time — journalists want quotes from people with skin in the game, not from a PR rep
• You have a destination — a press page, blog post, or product launch that converts attention into something useful

When to skip PR (for now)

• Pre-launch with no story beyond "we exist"
• No one on the team can sustain the approved, measured test window
• You don't have a clear ICP — journalists ask "who reads my piece because of this?" and if you can't answer, neither can they

The PR Mix

Four possible modes. Select only those supported by the story, audience,

capacity, and current source access.

| Mode | What it is | Effort | Speed to coverage |

|------|------------|--------|-------------------|

| Reactive (newsjacking) | Inject your POV into trending news | Low–medium | Hours to days |

| Proactive (pitching) | Build a media list, draft original-story pitches | Measure current capacity | Set from story flow and response data |

| Inbound (press requests) | Respond to journalist queries on HARO/Qwoted/Featured | Low | Days to weeks |

| Owned (press page + media kit) | Make it easy for journalists to find you | One-time setup | N/A |

For the reactive newsjacking workflow — see references/newsjacking.md

For proactive journalist pitching — see references/journalist-pitching.md

For inbound press-request platforms (HARO, Qwoted, etc.) — see references/press-platforms.md

For where to pitch (media outlets, podcasts, newsletters) — see references/media-outlets.md. For startup/SaaS/AI directories, use the separate suede-directory-submissions skill — different intent, different list.

Owned: Press Page + Media Kit

Build this when verified newsroom assets and a maintained press contact would

reduce friction for the current media motion; measure usage rather than assuming

ROI.

Press page (/press or /newsroom) should include:

• One-paragraph company description (copy/paste ready)
• Founder bios with headshots (high-res, downloadable)
• Logo pack (SVG + PNG, light + dark, with usage guidelines)
• Product screenshots (high-res)
• Recent coverage list (social proof for the next journalist)
• Founding date, employee count, funding (if disclosed)
• A current press contact path in the format the intended outlets accept
• Recent press releases / announcements

State a response expectation only if the team has approved and staffed it. Use

the team's real service level rather than a universal 24-hour promise.

Quick Reference: Pitch Quality Bar

Before presenting any draft for send approval, resolve these checks:

• [ ] Does a bounded recent sample show that this journalist covers the beat?
• [ ] Is there a clear news hook — something that just happened or is about to?
• [ ] Could this journalist write a complete story from this email alone? (Data, quotes, customer name, contact.)
• [ ] Is the subject line specific enough to predict the article's headline?
• [ ] Is the pitch as concise as the verified outlet preference and story

complexity allow?

• [ ] Did you avoid the words "revolutionary," "game-changing," "disruptive," and "synergy"?
• [ ] Is the ask clear? (Interview? Embargo? Exclusive? Quote?)

Keep the output draft-only. Each recipient, channel, identity, and exact message

requires explicit approval before any external action.

Measurement

What to track:

| Metric | Why |

|--------|-----|

| Coverage count (placements / month) | Activity baseline |

| Domain rating of placements | Backlink value |

| Referral traffic from coverage | Did anyone actually click? |

| Brand search lift | Did people search you after reading? |

| AI citation rate (ChatGPT, Perplexity quote your brand?) | The new measurement that matters |

| Sales conversations citing the article | One revenue-influence signal to reconcile with attribution limits |

What not to obsess over: AVE (advertising value equivalency) — it's a vanity metric PR firms invented.

Common Workflows

"Help me newsjack [trending story]"

Go to newsjacking.md, run the scoring rubric, draft

a bounded set of evidence-backed angles, and return a recommended draft for

review. Do not pitch or publish.

"Find journalists who cover [beat]"

Go to journalist-pitching.md, use the

discovery checklist, and first discover whether an authorized browser or

research connector is callable. If not, work from user-supplied article URLs,

exports, or a manual research worksheet. Build a sourced, scored list without

claiming any profile or article was reviewed unless it actually was.

"What's worth pitching this week?"

Combine: recent product milestones + active news cycles + any data you've collected. Score each potential story by the quality bar above.

"Respond to this HARO query"

Go to press-platforms.md, use the response

template, follow current outlet limits, and keep the result draft-only.

"Build my press page"

Use the checklist above. Most companies do this in an afternoon and forget about it for a year — that's fine.

Boundaries

• Do not contact journalists, submit reporter responses, publish press

releases, or represent that a draft has been sent without explicit approval

and a confirmed recipient.

• Do not fabricate claims, data, quotes, customers, credentials, urgency, or

coverage; separate verified facts from proposed angles.

• Do not impersonate a source, promise exclusivity, or decide legal disclosure,

embargo, or crisis-response policy.

Routing

• Use suede-launch-packaging to coordinate a broader product launch.
• Use suede-directory-submissions for directory and catalog listings.
• Use suede-social for approved social distribution and engagement.
• Use suede-copy to polish a verified press-page or announcement draft.