Steve Beyatte on Disrupting PR with AI, CRM Integration, and Podcasts

1. With legacy PR platforms often catering to large enterprises, how are emerging solutions addressing the needs of startups and small businesses?

Legacy PR platforms have traditionally catered to and been priced for PR agencies and in-house communications teams. The result of this is that it’s been almost impossible for companies to tell their own story to the press without using a firm or having an in-house team. This has consolidated distribution power in the hands of PR agencies and the software companies as opposed to founders and executive teams. This ‘pay to play’ mentality has soured a lot of people to the PR industry.

Press Ranger is changing all of this by removing the cost and knowledge barriers to running your own PR campaigns. By making PR tools accessible to everyone, Press Ranger levels the playing field and makes it easier for everyone to tell their own story.

Legacy PR software tools have also been slow to adapt to the changing AI landscape and integrate newer technologies. By operating a smaller team and focusing on innovation and solving our customer’s problems, Press Ranger has been able to give the megaphone back to more than 10,000 businesses with a set of new, cutting edge tools in the PR landscape.

2. What benefits do the Integration of CRM systems with PR platforms bring to managing media relationships and tracking engagement?

If it can’t be measured, it’s not worth doing. Tracking outreach, distribution, mentions, and attribution are all critical parts of any digital marketing strategy. PR campaigns are no different but the PR industry is extremely relationship driven. Every founder should be reaching out to the top journalists in their niche, building rapport, and pitching stories at all times. Those relationships are the difference between success and failure when it comes to launching new products and driving news cycles.

CRMs are the glue that holds campaigns and relationships together. Using a CRM for your outreach campaigns is integral to measuring and achieving success.

3. What role do podcasts and audio media play in PR strategies in modern media outreach?

Podcasts and audio media have become essential components of modern PR strategies for several reasons:

They offer exceptional audience engagement. Podcast listeners typically consume content for extended periods (often 30+ minutes) and with high attention levels, creating deeper connection opportunities than many text or video formats. This builds trust and credibility that can transfer to featured brands and spokespersons.

From a practical standpoint, podcasts often present lower barriers to entry than traditional media. Many podcast hosts welcome guest experts and are more accessible than journalists at established publications, making them ideal targets for startups and smaller businesses with limited PR resources.

Podcast appearances generate versatile content that can be repurposed across multiple channels. A single interview can be clipped for social media, transcribed for blog content, quoted in newsletters, and featured in email marketing, extending the impact of a single media placement.

Podcasts can also be extremely helpful for SEO. In the age of AI, the more surface areas your company shows up the better. Press Ranger is one of the only press release distribution services that automatically transcribes your press releases to audio and distributes them to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more. 

4. With the rise of affordable, user-friendly PR tools, what implications does this have for the future role of traditional PR agencies?

While new tools like Press Ranger are changing the PR landscape, PR agencies still play an extremely important role and will continue to for quite some time. Just because a tool is available or more accessible does not mean that everyone has the time, skillset, and desire to dive in. Businesses without PR as a core competency will still benefit from using PR agencies especially in specialized niches, geographies, and contexts where an expert is needed.

No software is “set it and forget it” and while tools like Press Ranger make the campaign process easy, PR agents still can add value via creative ideation, strategic counsel, crisis management, etc.

5. How can companies effectively tailor their messaging for diverse global audiences with access to international journalist databases?

Cultural contextualization is everything. Running PR campaigns in geographies where you’re not familiar with the customs can have disastrous consequences. Companies should research how their industry, products, and messaging concepts are perceived in target markets. This includes understanding local business practices, cultural values, and communication norms that influence how news is covered and consumed.

Localization goes beyond translation. Effective international PR adapts stories to highlight aspects most relevant to each market, references regional trends or challenges, and connects to local events or priorities rather than simply translating standard global messaging.

Relationship building remains essential despite technological access. Companies should invest time in understanding the media landscape in each target market—identifying influential publications, respected journalists, and preferred communication styles before reaching out through databases.

6. How should PR professionals adapt to changes in media consumption and journalist engagement?

First, content formats are evolving beyond traditional press releases. Campaigns should now have content strategies that include visual assets, video, infographics, audio, and social media-ready content that journalists can easily repurpose for digital audiences.

Second, relationship building requires more personalization and value exchange. With journalists receiving hundreds of pitches daily, PR professionals must develop genuine relationships by demonstrating deep understanding of a journalist's beat, providing exclusive insights or data, and helping them create compelling content—not just promoting company news.

Third, storytelling approaches need adaptation for fragmented attention spans. PR professionals should lead with clear, concise impact statements rather than corporate messaging, focusing on authentic human interest angles and unexpected perspectives that capture attention in crowded information environments.

Fourth, measurement focus should shift from quantity to quality and engagement. Rather than counting clips or calculating advertising equivalency, PR effectiveness should be measured through metrics like audience engagement, message pull-through, referral traffic, and contribution to business objectives.

Finally, PR professionals must develop cross-platform competency. Understanding how stories flow across traditional media, social platforms, podcasts, newsletters, and other channels and how to optimize content for each is essential for maximizing reach and impact in today's fragmented media landscape.