By Danny Sullivan
Proactivity is something that all clients desire of their PR firms – an ability to move the program forward without having to check in and report at every stage. It’s certainly not an unreasonable expectation, and one that any agency worth its salt should be capable of meeting.
But proceed with caution. Agency proactivity, while a stated desire of the client, can be a double-edged sword for an agency. There are a couple of pitfalls to watch out for.
First, don’t be so proactive that you overstep the mark and make strategic changes or decisions without some form of approval from the client. It’s all very well to change a strategy for the right reasons, but these reasons usually need to be raised before the change occurs. It is important to establish at the outset of the program what kinds of decisions need to be made in conjunction with the client.
Second, proactivity can lead to periods of radio silence. If the program is one where the results will not be immediately apparent, then the client will be wondering what their agency is doing. An invisible agency won’t be around for long.
The key to avoiding such pitfalls is in effective communication with the client. There is no need to appraise them of every step that you take, but regular updates on progress that don’t require any input from them will go a long way to ensuring that you continue to be both proactive and visible.
By Danny Sullivan
I recently had a reporter come back to me to get a client’s comment for an article he was writing – a direct result of a previous conversation we had had about another story. It’s great when that happens, but all too uncommon.
Dealing with the media can be a frustrating experience. Perhaps you’ve developed a good story pitch and have managed to get a key reporter on the phone, but you get a response along the lines of, “Sounds interesting, but I’ve got too much on my plate just now. Keep in touch though.”
Sounds like a brush off, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. If you have done your research well, then you know that this reporter should be interested in your story and his request to stay in touch is genuine. The key point is not to give up on things after such a call.
It can be a challenge to maintain the motivation to keep checking back with reporters, but doing so is often the difference between success and failure. The media are a busy bunch, but if they’ve indicated interest, you just need to try and catch them at the right time. Don’t give up on a lead until you are sure the opportunity is gone.
Danny Sullivan
For companies looking to establish a PR program, there is a burning question that rises above all others: how much should I invest in PR to achieve the best return? Every company is different, and simply throwing more money at a program is not necessarily going to improve results.
Is it reasonable to expect a PR firm to be able to determine the optimum workload that a new client will require, without having truly tested the opportunity that exists to tell the story? I think not.
Sure, doing some initial analysis of the relevant media landscape, editorial calendars, and so on, will help give you an idea of the potential that exists, but you can never be confident of this without a comprehensive exercise that truly tests the story among its target media.
Here at inmedia, we insist on conducting an initial “ramp up and roll out” exercise on behalf of almost every new client, even if they have executed a PR program prior to our engagement with them.
While immediate media coverage is invariably a valuable byproduct of this exercise, its real purpose is to allow us to assemble the detailed level of understanding required to be able to confidently describe the optimal PR program for the road ahead. The feedback garnered from conversations with the top media targets provides us with insight into the kinds of opportunities that can reasonably be expected over the course of an extended program, and thus gives us the ability to recommend a level of investment that will allow our clients to take advantage of those opportunities.
By Danny Sullivan
Nobody in PR really likes to talk about managing expectations (we’d all like to believe that we can get any story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal) but it is a vital component of a successful program, whether you’re client-side or with an agency.
The fact is that every story has a natural news value and, while it’s important for PR people to understand what this value is, it’s even more important that the client understands it too. Without mutual agreement about what level of media traction can be expected, you’re flying blind and all too likely to crash.
Determining the level of expectation to set can be tricky. An experienced PR practitioner should have a good idea of what constitutes a successful story, but it can sometimes be challenging to cut through the marketing rhetoric that is assembled and wholeheartedly believed by technology companies. Terms like “world’s first,” “fastest” and “smallest” are great to put alongside a new product, but are they accurate? It’s always beneficial to do some digging and ask the difficult questions early on, rather than finding out the hard way later.
Of course, even after careful analysis, it’s still possible that a story will not make the kind of impact you had hoped for. This happens, but if you’ve done the research and asked the questions, and been transparent with the client at all times, then you have given yourself the best possible chance of avoiding a painful post-mortem.
By Danny Sullivan
I read with interest Neville Hobson’s recent comments on PR spam and thought it would be worth raising on this blog too.
Simply using a list building tool to create a media list of over 500 contacts and then sending out every news release to the entire list is not going to yield the kind of results you or your client wants to see. And it’ll probably ensure you end up on a spam blacklist.
In addition to spending the time to actually research each media outlet and contact on your list for its relevance to your clients’ stories, you must also segment your media into the relevant subsets of interest that they represent. And the more granular the better.
While a major product launch announcement might have broad appeal across the majority of your media, it’s unlikely that a vertically focused piece of news is relevant to everyone. By segmenting your list down to focused groups of media with specific interests, you can ensure that you only target the media that will have an interest in your news du jour.
