Tweet

HOW TO CHOOSE AND WORK WITH A PR AGENCY

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: Guidelines for a successful relationship

HOW TO CHOOSE AND WORK WITH A PR AGENCY

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.

# # #

Related Articles
  Agency
  Get the best out of your PR agency
  Recourse and Non-Recourse Nurse Staffing Accounts Receivable Factoring: What’s the Difference?
  Start contracting: Steps to becoming a freelance contractor
  Selecting the Top Advertising Agency for your Business Depends on the Metrics you Measure

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Re: What exactly do you need to start a business - Starting a business takes many things. Like guts and brains. But what I find pays off the most in online busines is HARD WORK. There is no better alternative. The more energy you use to make your business successful, the better your chances of it being successful
The secret to happiness - These statistics aren't hard to believe, although my personal experience finds that self determined happiness seems higher than 40%. My clients also talk about their lives being dramatically changed as we focus on them creating their ideal life and business. I honestly believe happiness is something we CHOOSE. It has a lot to do with our thoughts and actually allowing ourselves to do things which we really enjoy. This is especially true when we develop a business that is based on our personal desires and the talents that match them. You could also call it finding a way to get paid to play. It is incredibly freeing when we recognize that we are the ones who create the life and business that will make us happy. Yes, it is often a process, but life is a journey and we will enjoy it more when we choose to enjoy all the precious moments along the way.
Re: How long can you stay away from your Computer? - I was away from my computer all day today! I teach on a university campus on Fridays and have a six hour break between classes. When I am not rushing off campus to cover another job, I spend my time in the library... Last term I was on one of the library computers emailing and blogging. Today, I went back to my old routine of researching for another one of my projects, my "write-and-publish-one-Shakespeare-paper-a-year" project, which has really been on the back burner this year. It does feel good to know that there is an Internet connection available which I am able to CHOOSE not to use!! It's certainly not that my online business is in great shape, either! One look at my website and I see tons of stuff that I need to improve or update, or just plain get around to DOING! Talk about mobile phones... The other day one guy was stood on the tram kicking up a racket with his phone, watching the baseball on it. I use my phone for mailing, as a calculator, countdown timer for reading exercises in some of my classes, for snapshots, occasionally to send notes to myself, oh, and also as a telephone sometimes! But like the rest of the posters on this thread, I use my computer much more and it would be no competition if I had to choose which one to get rid of!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How do I finance a franchise?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.