Getting the Best from your PR Agency

Ten tips from a local public relations pro to help businesses build a strong and beneficial partnership with their agency

Your goal is to grow your business and you’ve engaged a PR agency to help tell your stories. Here are the top 10 must-dos to ensure your spend is worth it and you get the best from your communicators:

Keep your agency close. Job No. 1 is to meet frequently with your PR agency to ensure a flow of information and ideas. Like the baker, PR people need good ingredients to get results.

Keep your agency looped in. Updating your PR team on new projects and initiatives helps us to identify potential news stories to pitch media and bloggers. Nothing is too small to share and you might be surprised what angles we can develop, based on what’s happening in the news.
For example, if media come to us looking for a source and we know what you’re doing, we could suggest you for an interview or profile—but we can’t if we’re not looped in.

Keep talking. Most PR consultants are keen to understand your business strategy and goals. The more we know, the more we can help.

Keep asking questions. Like everyone else, PR people love to talk about what they know. By asking questions, you’ll learn what makes a media story, and you’ll soon understand what potential stories may exist within your organization.

Keep it coming. It takes energy and creativity to keep the stories flowing. Often this is best achieved in brainstorming sessions. Also, consistency is key; a stop-and-start approach isn’t an effective way to build long-term profile.

Keep active and involved in your social media strategy. We can advise and help implement, but it’s important that your company’s principals are involved if you want to be seen as authentic, and offer quality content to your online communities.

Keep it real. News is based on what’s new, relevant and interesting, and your PR consultant can help frame your stories to make them suitable for media and bloggers. Pushing out a stale story or an advertising message doesn’t help enhance your coverage or credibility. Rely on your consultant’s expertise here.

Keep on track. The best profile arrives from a well-crafted communications strategy, well executed. Involve your PR agency in crafting the strategy, as we may think of profile opportunities that haven’t occurred to your advertising or marketing agency. What may be a creative marketing campaign doesn’t always translate to news.

Keep the faith. Straight-ahead advertising will buy you guaranteed space—for a price. Not all your company’s stories will stick, so don’t give up on your PR agency if pitch ideas don’t earn you immediate coverage (and remember tip No. 2).

Keep the spirit. Remember, effective agency-client relationships are always strong partnerships. I encourage you to see the PR agency as an extension of your team. Collaborate with them early and often to achieve the best possible results.