HOW TO CHOOSE AND WORK WITH A PR AGENCY
HOW TO CHOOSE AND WORK WITH A PR AGENCY
But even the best agency can do that only when it acts as a business partner--selling the client and the products/services profitably. And that requires confidence in the agency's professionalism.
Building confidence begins early, from the moment the client begins to look for any agency. You can buy news releases, press kits and articles from almost anyone, but finding an agency you can rely on as a partner takes some time.
Choosing just the right agency is not terribly difficult, but it does require a careful, objective appraisal and some give-and-take. Your job is to hire the agency that has the best capabilities to sell your products and services.
You're hiring (or should be hiring) talented professionals ...professionals who know marketing; planning; policy management; research; on-line and mainstream editorial writing and perhaps specialties in such areas as crisis management, government relations and employee relations.
So before you start placing calls to agencies, define your needs.
Be realistic in what you want public relations to accomplish for you. Establish a budget you feel will accomplish those tasks. This will help you decide quickly whether you want a large-, small-, or medium-sized agency.
If the budget is large and the agency is small, your objectives can suffer...if your budget is small and the agency is large, you can get lost.
Now, decide whether agency experience in the field is important or not. Most people find they're more comfortable with people who understand their language, their competition, their customers and marketplace. Others would rather have an agency that deals only in creative solutions, rather than market segments.
If you're impressed with a particular agency's work, don't be overly concerned about industry expertise...you want results.
...more
Occasionally you'll have to consider whether or not you're concerned about having an agency with a competitive account. This is especially true with today's merger fever. If the agency is large enough, you won't be sharing the same account team, and an ethical agency keeps the information separate and confidential. Information isn't shared with other clients or agency personnel who aren't involved with the account's activities.
A plus to such a situation is that there's a distinct possibility you'll be able to draw upon the agency's knowledge, special talents, and experiences; rather than be forced to make the same mistakes others have made.
Where to Look
Walking through the Yellow Pages or surfing the Web won't be a lot of help in finding the right agency.
One way is to decide what companies PR activities impress you, and then contact the firm's management. He or she will probably be flattered and happy to furnish you with the name of their agency.
Another way is to talk to editors or reporters you know. They're a ready source of information regarding good agencies.
Keep your agency discussions down to two or three. Any more and you'll only confuse yourself and waste a lot of valuable time for everyone concerned.
Arrange a preliminary meeting, and tell the agency people what you want them to tell you and show you at that meeting. Brief them on your products, systems, services, market areas, objectives...and budgets. Give them enough information so that they can make some basic determinations of your needs and how they can be accomplished.
Finally, give them a realistic deadline for them to come back to you with their initial thoughts and recommendations.
Next, since PR is a very personal business, involve senior manage-ment. Get a good feel for organization, its character, and personality. Make certain there is good chemistry between management, you and the agency. Then ask yourself some serious questions:
* Does the agency know your market?
* Does it understand and work with media that hits your buyers?
* Are its efforts organized and well-planned?
* Does it create PR materials that are well-written, attention-getting, creative, effective and used?
* Can its people work with your people and you?
* Will it make a profit on you account so it will stay
interested in your account?
...more
Don't expect a full-blown presentation complete with ideas, position statements, editorial lists, editorial calendars, etc. Some agencies may do that, but keep in mind that all they have to sell is talent and ideas. And, if any agency gives you free ideas, you can be sure someone had to pay for them, i.e. other clients. That means that some time in the future you may, directly or indirectly, pay for someone else's presentation. So don't expect a free lunch.
Presenting
Concentrate on the presentations, because they'll be important to your agency selection. Again, ask some tough questions:
* Will the people making the presentation be the people serving you?
* Do they understand your organization, competition and products as well as markets, objectives, channels of distribution and customers?
* Are the proposals reasonable and thorough?
* Can they handle other communications assignments?
If the agency people walk in with a full-blown preliminary presentation, watch out. How could they possibly think out all of your problems and gain an in-depth knowledge of your company and products so quickly?
Instead, determine if they understand your goals and needs. If they don't agree with you, do they have sound rationale for the positions they've developed? After all, you don't have all the answers, and their appraisal may have some substance.
Talk to present and past clients. None of us like to admit we've lost business, but it happens in the best of relationships...and for reasons we often cannot control. Keep in mind that there are many reasons for the deterioration of a client-agency relationship. A new management team often wants nothing to do with the past management's activities/ relationships no matter how effective they were. Or, the client's reluctance to pay bills in a timely manner. In fact, payment can be a persistent problem in the client/agency relationship. The client wants the work yesterday, but is perfectly comfortable stretching out payments for 60, 90, or more days.
A client-agency relationship may also fail if unreasonable demands are made. For example, a client cannot expect an agency to stick to its original quote on a job when the client makes changes throughout project or campaign. Every time those changes are made, the cost goes up. Of course, it's the agency's responsibility to update the quote as the changes are made. But often the agency is caught up in meeting deadlines and getting the best results for the clients. Revising a quote at that point is not top priority.
...more
Trust
Once you've chosen your new agency, trust them. Give their people sufficient information. Consider them part of the team. Remember, you'll have to spend considerable time at the outset getting them up to speed. But in the long run it will be profitable for both of you.
Confidence is the most important part of a client-agency relationship, and your relationship will be reflected in the work produced.
Have good two-way communications and a friendly attitude. In short, the right chemistry. Without it your program is going to fail.
To get the best productivity and creativity from your agency, you have to be receptive. Creativity is essentially the process of growth from the known to the unknown. It must be supported and fed. And just as important, it must be held accountable. That's why you need short- and long-term goals to keep the PR process from being sidetracked.
Make certain that the agency knows you expect certain things from it. New ideas, for instance, or initiative, or a pro-active relationship. You should expect them and their efforts to be integrated into all phases of your business. Make certain your program has a long-range plan of action as well as intermediate deadlines so achievements are measurable.
The best relationships are those where the agency is brought into management's confidence early in the fact-finding and decision making stages. That allows you to evaluate what can and should be done. And by bringing the agency in early, you can accomplish the tasks at hand on time and, generally, at a lower overall cost.
If you use your agency solely to put out a series news releases or articles, you'll be limiting your own potential for success. But when you sit down and plan together, you get maximum results and return on investment.
Encourage members of the agency to circulate throughout your organization. Often they can find areas that deserve to be promoted or exploited. Or, they may find areas where problems are developing that need corrective action.
Either way, you benefit.
About the Purse Strings
Finally, an area of most concern to the agency, and often of least importance to the client, is agency compensation.
Recently, we received a request for proposal from a company that asked if we were ready to make commitments "which may even reduce profits in the short-term"--meaning agency profits, of course. It is doubtful if a company's senior management or investors would be willing for the company to take on business that would deliberately loose money on the hope of recovering ... sometime in the future.
...more
Are members of that company's corporate staff willing to take "short-term" cuts in salary for the long-term gains? Probably not. The agency should make a reasonable profit on every project it does, for every client. Who's going to pay the expenses if the client doesn't? If another client of the agency picks up that loss, then are you willing to pick up the tab for another great company, with a great product, that's "a little short" at the start?
Often, the agency compensation package has to be tailored to the situation. Client management should be more concerned that the client is getting what it wants, rather than worrying about the method of payment.
Once the compensation program is established, make certain there are incentives for the agency built into the plan. And, if the fee is based on a cost-accounting procedure, make certain it is adequate and thoroughly understood by all parties. Very few clients really understand what goes into the creation of an PR program or public relations activities. This is why there is often such a misunderstanding about the money involved
They think they should pay only for the account person, copy they receive and completed projects--period.
They forget that a lot of research goes into the creation of that outstanding (and seemingly simple) idea. They forget the time and costs involved in maintaining research files; analyzing and comparing data, the creative effort behind the publicity, time for copy approvals and proofreading, details and tracking the program and the continual contacts with the media.
Certainly, management doesn't have to understand all of the steps and costs involved in the operation of the agency; but they need to understand that a lot of people are involved in every step of the process--highly qualified and expensive people.
That's what you really want, and that's why the fee system is really the most equitable for all parties.
Dos and Don'ts
In working with your agency here are some basic dos and don'ts to keep in mind:
* Don't demand so many progress reports that there's no progress.
* Don't overload the agency with so many minor demands that major efforts can't be accomplished.
* Don't fail to see that communication is a partner to management.
* Do take the agency into you confidence, discussing goals and problems.
* Do acquaint your entire organization with the agency to get maximum cooperation at all levels.
...more
* Do give the agency the opportunity to report its activities directly to senior management.
* Do survey a situation before acting and running into print.
* Do listen to agency advice when it comes to over- or under-commercialized messages.
* Do require the agency to prove its statements and defend its positions.
* Do let the agency roam throughout the organization without regard to channels and levels.
Remember, good public relations isn't a sometime or part-time activity. Total communication affects everything, from the highest policy decisions down to the way people are greeted at your door.
With the right approach to choosing an agency, and the development of an honest two-way communications effort, you won't have to continually go through the agency selection process again and again. Instead, the partners can work as a team and can focus 100 percent of their efforts on building and expanding the company's image, visibility, sales and profits.
# # #
HOW TO CHOOSE AND WORK WITH A PR AGENCY - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
A good public relations agency can make a company's communications dollars work harder and, quite often, can actually save them money over the long-term.
But even the best agency can do that only when it acts as a business partner--selling the client and the products/services profitably. And that requires confidence in the agency's professionalism.
Building confidence begins early, from the moment the client begins to look for any agency. You can buy news releases, press kits and articles from almost anyone, but finding an agency you can rely on as a partner takes some time.
Choosing just the right agency is not terribly difficult, but it does require a careful, objective appraisal and some give-and-take. Your job is to hire the agency that has the best capabilities to sell your products and services.
You're hiring (or should be hiring) talented professionals ...professionals who know marketing; planning; policy management; research; on-line and mainstream editorial writing and perhaps specialties in such areas as crisis management, government relations and employee relations.
So before you start placing calls to agencies, define your needs.
Be realistic in what you want public relations to accomplish for you. Establish a budget you feel will accomplish those tasks. This will help you decide quickly whether you want a large-, small-, or medium-sized agency.
If the budget is large and the agency is small, your objectives can suffer...if your budget is small and the agency is large, you can get lost.
Now, decide whether agency experience in the field is important or not. Most people find they're more comfortable with people who understand their language, their competition, their customers and marketplace. Others would rather have an agency that deals only in creative solutions, rather than market segments.
If you're impressed with a particular agency's work, don't be overly concerned about industry expertise...you want results.
...more
Occasionally you'll have to consider whether or not you're concerned about having an agency with a competitive account. This is especially true with today's merger fever. If the agency is large enough, you won't be sharing the same account team, and an ethical agency keeps the information separate and confidential. Information isn't shared with other clients or agency personnel who aren't involved with the account's activities.
A plus to such a situation is that there's a distinct possibility you'll be able to draw upon the agency's knowledge, special talents, and experiences; rather than be forced to make the same mistakes others have made.
Where to Look
Walking through the Yellow Pages or surfing the Web won't be a lot of help in finding the right agency.
One way is to decide what companies PR activities impress you, and then contact the firm's management. He or she will probably be flattered and happy to furnish you with the name of their agency.
Another way is to talk to editors or reporters you know. They're a ready source of information regarding good agencies.
Keep your agency discussions down to two or three. Any more and you'll only confuse yourself and waste a lot of valuable time for everyone concerned.
Arrange a preliminary meeting, and tell the agency people what you want them to tell you and show you at that meeting. Brief them on your products, systems, services, market areas, objectives...and budgets. Give them enough information so that they can make some basic determinations of your needs and how they can be accomplished.
Finally, give them a realistic deadline for them to come back to you with their initial thoughts and recommendations.
Next, since PR is a very personal business, involve senior manage-ment. Get a good feel for organization, its character, and personality. Make certain there is good chemistry between management, you and the agency. Then ask yourself some serious questions:
* Does the agency know your market?
* Does it understand and work with media that hits your buyers?
* Are its efforts organized and well-planned?
* Does it create PR materials that are well-written, attention-getting, creative, effective and used?
* Can its people work with your people and you?
* Will it make a profit on you account so it will stay
interested in your account?
...more
Don't expect a full-blown presentation complete with ideas, position statements, editorial lists, editorial calendars, etc. Some agencies may do that, but keep in mind that all they have to sell is talent and ideas. And, if any agency gives you free ideas, you can be sure someone had to pay for them, i.e. other clients. That means that some time in the future you may, directly or indirectly, pay for someone else's presentation. So don't expect a free lunch.
Presenting
Concentrate on the presentations, because they'll be important to your agency selection. Again, ask some tough questions:
* Will the people making the presentation be the people serving you?
* Do they understand your organization, competition and products as well as markets, objectives, channels of distribution and customers?
* Are the proposals reasonable and thorough?
* Can they handle other communications assignments?
If the agency people walk in with a full-blown preliminary presentation, watch out. How could they possibly think out all of your problems and gain an in-depth knowledge of your company and products so quickly?
Instead, determine if they understand your goals and needs. If they don't agree with you, do they have sound rationale for the positions they've developed? After all, you don't have all the answers, and their appraisal may have some substance.
Talk to present and past clients. None of us like to admit we've lost business, but it happens in the best of relationships...and for reasons we often cannot control. Keep in mind that there are many reasons for the deterioration of a client-agency relationship. A new management team often wants nothing to do with the past management's activities/ relationships no matter how effective they were. Or, the client's reluctance to pay bills in a timely manner. In fact, payment can be a persistent problem in the client/agency relationship. The client wants the work yesterday, but is perfectly comfortable stretching out payments for 60, 90, or more days.
A client-agency relationship may also fail if unreasonable demands are made. For example, a client cannot expect an agency to stick to its original quote on a job when the client makes changes throughout project or campaign. Every time those changes are made, the cost goes up. Of course, it's the agency's responsibility to update the quote as the changes are made. But often the agency is caught up in meeting deadlines and getting the best results for the clients. Revising a quote at that point is not top priority.
...more
Trust
Once you've chosen your new agency, trust them. Give their people sufficient information. Consider them part of the team. Remember, you'll have to spend considerable time at the outset getting them up to speed. But in the long run it will be profitable for both of you.
Confidence is the most important part of a client-agency relationship, and your relationship will be reflected in the work produced.
Have good two-way communications and a friendly attitude. In short, the right chemistry. Without it your program is going to fail.
To get the best productivity and creativity from your agency, you have to be receptive. Creativity is essentially the process of growth from the known to the unknown. It must be supported and fed. And just as important, it must be held accountable. That's why you need short- and long-term goals to keep the PR process from being sidetracked.
Make certain that the agency knows you expect certain things from it. New ideas, for instance, or initiative, or a pro-active relationship. You should expect them and their efforts to be integrated into all phases of your business. Make certain your program has a long-range plan of action as well as intermediate deadlines so achievements are measurable.
The best relationships are those where the agency is brought into management's confidence early in the fact-finding and decision making stages. That allows you to evaluate what can and should be done. And by bringing the agency in early, you can accomplish the tasks at hand on time and, generally, at a lower overall cost.
If you use your agency solely to put out a series news releases or articles, you'll be limiting your own potential for success. But when you sit down and plan together, you get maximum results and return on investment.
Encourage members of the agency to circulate throughout your organization. Often they can find areas that deserve to be promoted or exploited. Or, they may find areas where problems are developing that need corrective action.
Either way, you benefit.
About the Purse Strings
Finally, an area of most concern to the agency, and often of least importance to the client, is agency compensation.
Recently, we received a request for proposal from a company that asked if we were ready to make commitments "which may even reduce profits in the short-term"--meaning agency profits, of course. It is doubtful if a company's senior management or investors would be willing for the company to take on business that would deliberately loose money on the hope of recovering ... sometime in the future.
...more
Are members of that company's corporate staff willing to take "short-term" cuts in salary for the long-term gains? Probably not. The agency should make a reasonable profit on every project it does, for every client. Who's going to pay the expenses if the client doesn't? If another client of the agency picks up that loss, then are you willing to pick up the tab for another great company, with a great product, that's "a little short" at the start?
Often, the agency compensation package has to be tailored to the situation. Client management should be more concerned that the client is getting what it wants, rather than worrying about the method of payment.
Once the compensation program is established, make certain there are incentives for the agency built into the plan. And, if the fee is based on a cost-accounting procedure, make certain it is adequate and thoroughly understood by all parties. Very few clients really understand what goes into the creation of an PR program or public relations activities. This is why there is often such a misunderstanding about the money involved
They think they should pay only for the account person, copy they receive and completed projects--period.
They forget that a lot of research goes into the creation of that outstanding (and seemingly simple) idea. They forget the time and costs involved in maintaining research files; analyzing and comparing data, the creative effort behind the publicity, time for copy approvals and proofreading, details and tracking the program and the continual contacts with the media.
Certainly, management doesn't have to understand all of the steps and costs involved in the operation of the agency; but they need to understand that a lot of people are involved in every step of the process--highly qualified and expensive people.
That's what you really want, and that's why the fee system is really the most equitable for all parties.
Dos and Don'ts
In working with your agency here are some basic dos and don'ts to keep in mind:
* Don't demand so many progress reports that there's no progress.
* Don't overload the agency with so many minor demands that major efforts can't be accomplished.
* Don't fail to see that communication is a partner to management.
* Do take the agency into you confidence, discussing goals and problems.
* Do acquaint your entire organization with the agency to get maximum cooperation at all levels.
...more
* Do give the agency the opportunity to report its activities directly to senior management.
* Do survey a situation before acting and running into print.
* Do listen to agency advice when it comes to over- or under-commercialized messages.
* Do require the agency to prove its statements and defend its positions.
* Do let the agency roam throughout the organization without regard to channels and levels.
Remember, good public relations isn't a sometime or part-time activity. Total communication affects everything, from the highest policy decisions down to the way people are greeted at your door.
With the right approach to choosing an agency, and the development of an honest two-way communications effort, you won't have to continually go through the agency selection process again and again. Instead, the partners can work as a team and can focus 100 percent of their efforts on building and expanding the company's image, visibility, sales and profits.
# # #
HOW TO CHOOSE AND WORK WITH A PR AGENCY - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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