After my post yesterday on how Canadian start-ups should get more attention, David Crow wrote a spirited rebuttal on StartupNorth taking issue with parts of my argument.

This included that fact that “…as an entrepreneur you need to learn how to rise above the noise and tell stories that the media want to share with their readers.”

I wanted to highlight “tell stories” because it a crucial element many startups fail to embrace. They build interesting or valuable services or products only to discover what they’re doing doesn’t resonate with consumers, reporters or bloggers.

In many cases, it’s not the product or service but that consumers, reporters and bloggers don’t understand what it does, the benefits and why they should be interested in it. In a competitive marketplace, a failure to communicate is a startup killer. If your target audiences don’t quickly “get” what you’re pitching, they move on to the next thing.

The challenges for startups is they tend to not be good storytellings. They’re good developers, product visionaries and entrepreneurs but they may not have the skills and insight to create compelling stories.

A good story does a couple of things: It tells people what the product or service does and the benefits of using (aka Why should I, the consumer, care about what you do?/What’s in it for me?). This is table stakes. The next step is taking is taking the story and putting it into context or part of a bigger story.

Too many startups attempt to attraction attention for what they’re doing. It the: “Hey, look at us, we’ve built something new and cool with some neat bells and whistles that no one else has so you should pay attention”. Unless you’ve got the luck of the Irish, it’s highly unlikely this approach will work.

Instead, startups have to think big picture. They need to look at what they have built, the benefits of their product/service, and the points of pain they’re addressing, and insert themselves into a larger story they are a part of rather than trying to be the focus.

For example, a startup may have created a service to have conversations with other people while watching TV. In and of itself, that may be interesting but it’s likely not terribly compelling or attention-worthy.

If, however, you create a story on how the couch potato is being killed off because people want TV-watching to be engaging and interactive, and include examples of this new phenomena, it may be a story that could resonate with the media and reporters.

The other important thing about the media and bloggers is getting coverage can be a crapshoot. Even with well-crafted stories, there are no guarantees a reporter or blogger will decide to write about what you. They are inundated with pitches, and there is only so much time and space to write stories or posts. Sometimes, they just have to choose among one of many interesting ideas.

Given this landscape, there’s another key ingredient to remember: relationship building. It’s easier to get coverage if you know a reporter or blogger. Truth be told, reporters and bloggers will write stories or include companies within stories if they like the people involved.

As David mentioned in his post, one of the reasons Sprouter has attracted so much coverage is Sarah Prevette and Erin Bury have done a terrific job of building relationships with reporters and bloggers. This got the company coverage even though Sprouter was struggling as a business.

The bottom line is you’re a startup that wants coverage, create compelling stories – and get some external help if that’s what it takes to get it done – and reach out to bloggers and the media. It doesn’t ensure coverage but it’s a step in the right direction.