Can This Brooklyn Entrepreneur Reinvent Public Relations?

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Can This Brooklyn Entrepreneur Reinvent Public Relations?

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Working in the startup scene in the San Francisco Bay area, Dmitry Dragilev landed an exciting job. As head of marketing for fledgling applications developer Input Marketing, he helped the company grow its web presence for two years until it was acquired by Google.

While others on his team gladly joined Google as employees, Dragilev, 35, who immigrated from what is now Russia in 1993, was looking for something different.

“I realized this was not the American Dream I wanted,” says Dragilev. “I wanted to have my own company.”

He had soon applied the skills he’d learned in public relations, marketing and search engine optimization to his own business, Criminally Prolific, which he launched in April 2012 while traveling around the world. Dragilev started out doing consulting in public relations and search engine optimization. “My first client was in Bangkok,” he recalls. “We stayed in Thailand for a month.”

JustReachOut.io caters to businesses that want to do their own PR. Credit: Shutterstock

Based on Brooklyn, the startup has evolved to offer a software Dragilev, who studied computer science at University of New Hampshire, developed called JustReachOut.io, which helps clients do their own PR.

The software as a service allows users to find the right people to pitch by searching for keywords, competitors, niches, and publications. It also helps them find reporters who are looking for stories by combing through services such as Profnet and HelpAReporter, as well as Twitter queries, each day and points out opportunities to contribute to relevant discussions on Reddit and Quora.

In addition to serving big companies that find the technology useful, Dragilev also works with many smaller firms who can’t afford to put a PR firm on retainer or don't want to. Currently, the company has about 4,000 subscribers.

JustReachOut.io enables users to send out 250 emails to influencers such as journalists and bloggers a month for $497, including six calls with its support team. Those who want a PR strategy can purchase that as an add-on for a one-time fee of $1,297. Typically, he says it takes about six months to get a PR strategy off the ground.

Business

via Forbes - Entrepreneurs http://ift.tt/dTEDZf

December 31, 2017 at 03:34PM