Public Relations is an art. Those who do it either got it, or they really really don’t. The challenge is, good or bad, if you decide to use an external agency, you will have to manage them. If you don’t have experience doing this, you will more than likely not get the results you want.
Here’s the trick to managing external agencies: know what they are capable of and what they offer (information gather!), know what you want and what is expected (and agreed upon within your business), and communicate really really well and often.
It’s all too often that all three of those are absolutely ignored. I began my career in start-ups doing PR and Communications.
And I was absolutely awful at it.
Ok, I wasn’t awful as much as it was not an art for me. I didn’t have the skills to do well, but lucky me, we had an external agency who had that skillset and when it came to me as the in-house manager, I just had to learn to properly balance communicating the asks from the business to the agency who could execute on those needs.
Now, that I’ve given you the secret sauce, what are we missing here?
Don’t hire an agency that won’t be able to execute on your asks – know what their capabilities are.
Often times you may hire an agency because of their brand name. While there is talent at those agencies, if you aren’t a major account, you are not going to get the attention you want. Most agencies put their top talent where it’s needed – big accounts.
They also allocate their resources hourly – so they are playing their own game of chess internally to ensure their operations are run well. When you are working with an agency – get to know who will be assigned to your account and understand their skills and how they complement your needs.
Also, it is helpful to hire an agency that has experience in your industry or something adjacent. Having reporter relationships or inside knowledge is important – so they should have a strong rolodex and/(or) be knowledgable about your space.
Be realistic about your asks
If you are an emerging business with little awareness and share of voice, you will not be featured on the front page of the NYTimes, WSJ, or any equivalent top tier publication unless you are doing something absolutely sensational (note: what you may think is sensational may not be what a reporter, publication, or even audience thinks is sensational – so get your head out of your ass).
If you do have some crazy pie in the sky goal, that’s ok. You will have to build up to it and be realistic about the time and work it will take to get there. If you haven’t built relationships with reporters and have little credibility through published articles – it will be time to tier your publications and journalists, build your angle for attack, and work your way in by building genuine relationships. Listen to your agency on how you can do this. A good agency will be able to offer a path to the success you seek.
Communicate often and clearly.
PR is fast moving. Once you hit a certain point, you may realize that you need someone full time to manage this. You’ll notice that you’re receiving a ton of inquiries if you’ve begun to establish yourself as experts in a specific space.
Have a channel to directly contact key people and a back-up plan in case someone is off the grid (you can often leverage the group used in your crisis comms plan). I’ve often used Slack and a group email alias. Have a protocol for how to respond – a key person who takes inquiries internally OR multiple people who have a process to say when something is actively being handled so you don’t duplicate work.
Be fast. News moves fast – especially these days – so make sure you respond to inquiries quickly and ask for a timeline needed for response. Agencies will often tell you this without asking (the age old “Sorry but the reporter wants this info back by COB” request).
Pro-tip: Not EVERY inquiry needs a response. You should decline those where you don’t find value to your long term goals.
Don’t use vanity metrics
Share of voice, press hits, etc are ok for temperature taking, but not great for measuring success. PR is notoriously difficult to measure. My recommendation is to measure off of goals and progress. If you set-up a few long term goals (e.g.: Become the experts in XYZ amongst reporters/publications) and work your way up in how often you are contacts about XYZ, or quoted, etc, then you can measure program success.
Header Photo by Elijah O’Donnell on Unsplash