Tag: onboarding

5 Tips For First-Time PR Agency Clients

Posted on by Veronica Amenta

As 2022 planning continues, teams are seeing the value of aligning PR tactics with their marketing strategies. In fact, 60% of marketing executives believe that PR and digital marketing teams will work together more closely in the near future. The role of a PR agency in this alignment, and in building an organization’s reputation among customers, employees, and stakeholders, is central. So how do you get the most out of the PR firm relationship?

After selecting an agency partner, it’s imperative to lay out expectations, deliverables and success metrics for both sides. A PR relationship may be challenging for brands to manage if they expect to take a hands-off approach and still be successful. Here are five tips for first-time PR clients to achieve success.

Set Clear Objectives And KPIs 

PR objectives should be clear to both parties, and they should typically reflect the organization’s business goals. Clear goals will help define the PR strategy your agency will adopt. These goals should be both measurable and prioritized so that there is no misunderstanding.  They might include a change in brand perception, increased brand visibility, enhanced reputation, or engagement of a new target audience, for example. Each is supported by tactics designed to achieve them. 

The PR function contributes to business goals through the awareness generated by earned and owned media, among other tactics. But how to measure outcomes? Most teams track key performance indicators (KPIs) to quantify, measure, and optimize their programs. For example, a campaign might be evaluated based on a set number of brand mentions; social media engagement; positive sentiment analysis; or sheer reach. 

Be Open With The PR Team

It’s important to be transparent with the PR agency about the good and bad. On the positive side, something the client has overlooked or takes for granted could be useful information for media relations or storytelling. On the other hand, if there’s an internal problem, the agency needs to know about it and to prepare for any negative impact. PR firms are pros at handling negative news, and advance preparation is important if bad news is anticipated.

Make Onboarding Work Hard

Onboarding is where a PR firm really gets to know a business and its objectives and mission. A thorough onboarding can make the difference between a successful start and a mediocre one. During this process a PR team benefits from a full business overview (messaging, differentiators, competitors, etc.). It’s also an opportunity to meet brand spokespersons and the leadership team; learn their points of view about key issues; and review the marketing calendar, including product roadmap, upcoming announcements, content, and targeted conferences and awards. This is the time to go over everything in detail so both sides are set up for success. From this point the PR agency will build out their strategy and come back to the next meeting with a full plan in place.

Encourage Honest Feedback

To get the most out of any outside agency or consultant, it’s best to encourage counsel and feedback that challenges the status-quo. Let your team know you’re not afraid of ideas that fall outside the usual boundaries. They are bringing a fresh set of eyes and ears to the situation, and objectivity brings value. Their advice and judgment is informed by experience, and PR thrives on a blend of experience and fresh ideas. 

Be Responsive

In media relations, timing is everything. Journalists have deadlines and PR teams need to work quickly and efficiently to meet them. If a PR firm can’t reach a client about a fast-breaking opportunity, it may be lost, potentially affecting future ones. In addition to journalists’ deadlines, brands need to be available to participate in strategy discussions, review press releases and other types of copy, provide/approve reactions to news ideas, and more.  

By following these tips and using common sense, any organization can have a successful partnership with a PR agency. Be sure to stay engaged and foster open communication for the best results. At the end of the day, you want to hire an agency team you trust. Don’t be afraid to give your firm the space it needs to make moves on your behalf once you provide all the assets they need. Ultimately this is a partnership where both parties grow together.

 

How To Get A Fast Start On Your PR Program

Posted on by Michael Stolyar

For PR agencies, winning new business is an imperative for growth, but it’s only half the battle. For those of us who work with entrepreneurial businesses, or really any results-oriented company, the next pressure point is a strong start. We never want a client to be asking, “what’s next?” so we need to get a jump on their expectations, and that means moving fast.

A quick start for a PR campaign can raise confidence among external (or internal) clients and lay the groundwork for a successful long-term program.
Here are five things that PR people should know and do to get things moving quickly, without sacrificing quality.

Immersion is key to great PR

Paradoxically, it takes time to go fast. A great deal rests on the quality of the PR team’s immersion. Understanding a client’s business is fundamental, and a good agency will know what makes it tick, setting the pace for the planning and execution. When good recon is traded for a ‘learn as you go’ approach, the entire campaign could falter — especially if a PR team must service multiple business units at once. A recent example here at Crenshaw involved a program where B2C, B2B and B2B2C initiatives were designed to complement each other and generate simultaneous awareness for a security brand. Each segment had different distribution channels and end users, so a working knowledge of their business was needed to create the proper strategies. What that usually means is an in-person visit to the client, or at minimum a half-day skype session where we interact with all key officers. One high-quality discussion is worth a thousand powerpoint decks.

Set a communications cadence early

Whether inside a corporation or at a PR agency, the typical campaign isn’t easily quantified early in the campaign. That makes establishing a clear communications protocol and rhythm with a new client important from the start. Doing so communicates that the PR team is proactive, transparent, and ready to lead. Once a PR program gets going, teams should decide on a weekly day and time for client calls, determine who the daily point-of-contact will be and be sure to interact with a client at least 2 – 3 times per day to make them feel the value of their investment.

Be aggressive in getting all assets

Even after the initial immersion, PR teams must often push for key startup assets from a new client — things like past coverage, executive speeches, marketing calendars, customer stories, and more. Beyond archived and published content and plans, there’s also likely to be “thought capital” in the minds of C-level executives and marketing leadership. It always pays to include leadership in the onboarding process, of course, but one-on-one follow-ups may also be necessary. This isn’t a time to be shy; our fuel is information and insight, and even if it takes a few days to go through historical assets and arrange phone calls, there’s no better way to maximize the first month of outreach.

Get your PR plan together

The PR plan is a principal piece for getting a strong start, naturally. A good plan will marry client assets with a PR team’s story-mining acumen to create a roadmap detailing upcoming client news, proactive pitch angles and plenty of flexibility to respond to trending news for reactive commentary opportunities. Presenting a well-designed PR plan to a client within the first week or two of the campaign demonstrates initiative and gives the client confidence that their agency is eager to drive results on their behalf. See this earlier post for tips on writing a rock-solid PR plan.

Identify quick wins

Earned media often builds upon itself. That’s why it can pay to identify some “quick wins” – media who are predisposed to covering a client’s story; internal data that can be repurposed into a news item; or the nugget of a blog post that can be expanded into a bylined article for timely publication. Most of these opportunities won’t be huge ones, but they’ll inspire confidence and build momentum for bigger wins down the road.

Monitor and know your media

Often, the first month of a new campaign consists of onboarding and finalizing planning collateral before diving into proactive outreach and generating results. During these initial stages, PR teams should be proactive in understanding who their media targets will ultimately be and what sort of stories might include the client to raise thought leadership capital down the line. For example, PR people working with cybersecurity companies will know that the vertical has a finite pool of contacts who have a very in-depth understanding of the space. These media aren’t vulnerable to being fooled or falling for ‘spin’. Knowing the media from the get-go helps PR teams snag the attention of key contacts faster, react to trending news more efficiently and targeting pitches for optimal results.

Preparation, foresight and planning are all vital pieces of the puzzle when it comes to getting a quick start for a new PR campaign. If done well, a new program can run like a well-oiled machine from out of the gate.