Hiring a PR Company
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Choosing the right PR company to work with your business can be critical, not only for ensuring that your message is heard by your target audience – whether customers, shareholders, employees, industry bodies or government – but also that you are in control of that message.
Preliminary research of companies should have left you with a shortlist of appropriate candidates to invite to pitch. In this article we provide some useful pointers in dealing with this process - what to focus on and how to choose between different firms.
Pre-Interview
You’ve already investigated the potential PR agencies before inviting them to pitch but now they’re properly in the running there’s a lot more material you can request from them.
- Client list. Look at each company’s list of existing clients carefully. How many clients do they have compared to their competitors? Would you receive better attention from a firm with a smaller list? Is their list populated with a lot of big companies who are likely to take up most of their time? A company with a lot of big brands as clients may be impressive but you could run the risk of being neglected among those big spenders.
- The firm should have case-studies and press clippings to prove their experience and expertise. Examine press releases for errors and to check if they make compelling reading. The real talent in writing press releases lies in the ability to write the kind of story that will appeal to a specific journalist or editor. Therefore check that the press releases are not all slightly varied copies of one another, but rather are each written in styles specific to the subject matter and target media. Also take note of the media from which the clippings come; general media publications e.g. newspapers are more difficult to reach than trade publications.
- Ask for a list of references and contact them to gain insight into the PR companies’ service delivery and expertise.
Interviewing PR Companies
Looking at a PR company’s website and talking to others who’ve dealt with them are vital steps in the vetting process but will only get you so far. Eventually you’ll want to meet the representatives of the company in order to better assess their suitability.
When inviting companies to pitch, you may wish to consider the following:
- The location of the meeting(s). If you’re hiring a company for a small job you may not be too interested in their premises. However, for long term assignments you may find that you need to have regular meetings at the PR firms offices as well as your own. Also, seeing where a company is based and how their office is set up and decorated can provide valuable insight into their ethos.
- Number of interviews. Remember that the interviews are not only for you decide between PR companies but they’ll also be of huge instructional value to the company you eventually hire. It may therefore be of benefit to split up the interviews so that your initial meeting can feed into the companies’ pitches. This can also provide you with an insight into how responsive and adaptive the candidate companies are.
- Will your eventual account manager be at the interview? If not, why not? The account manager will be the person at the PR firm with whom you have most contact. It may sound superficial, but it is vital that you get along with your PR firm and account manager. You should feel comfortable to trust and confide in them and convinced that they share your vision and passion for your business. Be sure that the person who will manage your campaign is part of the team that pitches for your business.
Once the meetings are arranged you’ll need to prepare a list of questions to ask the PR companies. Here are some suggestions:
- What is your experience? Companies with at least five years experience in PR should be stable and be confident in their own skills and abilities. An agency should demonstrate relevant experience and provide evidence that they have worked with firms of your size.
- What is your experience in our industry? Experience of working in the same industry will not only mean that the company has less to learn about your business but also that they may already have a list of valuable contacts in relevant sections of the media.
- How do you measure your performance? Spend time discussing how their results will be measured. By discussing and agreeing on a set criterion for benchmarking performance you will also get a good idea of how at ease the company is with their capabilities. Very few PR companies actually conduct research in to customer perceptions before and after PR campaigns.
- Can I talk to previous clients? A company should provide contact details of businesses who have experienced the services being offered to you.
- Do you have any conflicts of interest? You’ll want to look for potential conflicts before getting to the interview stage. These might include clients in the same industry as yours, clients who are regulators or trade bodies for your industry, clients who are competitors or subsidiaries of competitors. If you suspect a conflict now’s the time to ask about it.
Evaluate written proposals
After conducting interviews, request written proposals and quotations, in order to scrutinize the services offered, the relative cost, and legalities around results guarantees.
Remember that cost will generally vary according to the level of experience of the consultants, so expect to pay more for an experienced firm that should ideally provide you with a more effective campaign.
Make your final selection based on an evaluation of both the written proposal and the interview. If there is more than one suitable contender, trust your gut responses to the personal interviews: probably the single most important factor in choosing a PR firm is the interpersonal relationships between your two companies. If they’re speaking for you, you need to be on the same wavelength.
Beyond Hiring a PR Company
As campaign success relies heavily on a process of building relationships and integrity with the media and the public, do not expect instant gratification. It will normally take at least a few months to see results.
Review the campaign at least annually to evaluate success, check relevance and refresh creativity. If you are experiencing unfavourable results or a general lack thereof, or other difficulties with your PR firm, re-evaluate the campaign to pin-point any problems, double-check the clarity of your outlined objectives, and ensure clear and constant communication between your business and the PR Company. If difficulties still persist, it may be time to replace the firm.
