Weave: IPO Amidst Competitive Landscape

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Introduction

Program pivot to timely company narrative for IPO

Weave is an all-in-one customer communication and engagement platform for small and medium-sized businesses. Shortly after the engagement began, PAN’s strategy shifted as Weave marched toward an IPO on Veteran’s Day. The program pivot required us to help craft a timely company narrative that spoke to both the business success and passion areas of the CEO, while demonstrating momentum heading into this corporate milestone with strategic news announcements.

Fall 2021 experienced the highest number of financial exits and IPOs than any other quarter in recent history. In the week that Weave went public, there were 26 IPOs alone, with 12 of them happening the same day. Our challenge, therefore, was two-fold: Weave needed to break through the crowded conversation from a financial standpoint and differentiate a brand with relatively lower recognition inside macro market trends playing to its favor.

IPO Unique Articles

700M

impressions

IPO media interviews

Solution

Brand differentiation in a crowded market

Our overarching program strategy was to elevate and amplify Weave’s position as the leading communications platform across all channels including earned media coverage, original content (press announcements, bylines), and executive thought leadership. Our campaigns were designed to help Weave reach its core audiences in refreshing ways, as well as expand to a broader SMB audience.

Strategic Media Relations

Building momentum heading into Weave’s IPO in the fall, the company issued a strong pipeline of announcements signaling its success, growth, and market momentum

Executive Thought Leadership

Upon his appointment as Weave’s CEO in 2020, Roy Banks became the only Black CEO of a Utah-based tech unicorn and now, one of the only Black CEOs to take a company public in 2021. As a proud Veteran of the United States Navy, the significance of Roy taking Weave public on Veteran’s Day was not lost on him. Both angles became an important part of our outreach strategy as we aligned business success with Roy’s personal passions. We did so by highlighting Roy’s commitment to diversity and veterans through media interviews, bylines and Q&As leading up to, during and after the IPO.

IPO Announcement Strategy

Leading up to Weave’s IPO, PAN worked with Weave to craft overall messaging in support of a master FAQ and formulate a media outreach plan targeting national, financial, local, and technology and small business trade press. We focused outreach on both the immediate news surrounding the IPO, as well as the longer-term positive outcomes that Weave brings for small and local businesses: strengthening the connection between small businesses and the people they serve by unifying, modernizing, and personalizing all customer interactions.

result

64 earned media articles—and new financial media relationships

Despite the limited runway from beginning to working with Weave through listing day, PAN built a steady cadence of earned media coverage in key business, broadcast and vertical outlets with a combination of Weave’s news and product pipeline, IPO, thought leadership and macroeconomic trends. In 2H 2021, Weave saw 64 earned media articles with 17 interview/commentary opportunities.

On IPO listing day, through proactive media outreach and day-of pitching, the PAN team scheduled 8 media interviews with top-tier outlets including CNBC, Business Insider, Bloomberg, and Forbes, resulting in 46 unique articles for a total of nearly 700M impressions. We also introduced Weave to top business outlets such as Barron’s, Reuters, and CNN who we can now engage as part of our program’s ongoing media strategy for quarterly earnings, company news, and trends.

PAN helped us hone our Main Street message for Wall Street, making key journalist introductions we now get to nurture and grow for ongoing coverage of Weave’s business and successes.

Kali Geldis, Director of Communications at Weave