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.
