How to get the best out of your PR agency
You might be forgiven for thinking that once you’ve read proposals, interviewed the best candidates and settled on your PR agency of choice, your work is done and that you can relax and enjoy the benefits that professional PR will bring to your brand.
Of course, that is an option, but you taking an active approach to engaging with your PR firm can reap big rewards, as Charlotte Ashton, Founder of property PR agency AB Property Marketing, explains,
“In PR, as in life, you get out what you put in. Companies who are proactive in working with their PR agency will definitely benefit from an enhanced service. PRs can only work with what they have, so a company that feeds their agency things like fresh statistics, information on new projects, research findings and exclusive insights will certainly reap the benefits of doing so.”
In the spirit of supporting every company to maximize its PR potential, AB Property Marketing has these 5 top tips to follow:
AB Property Marketing’s 5 top tips for getting the best out of your PR agency
1. Keep in touch
A quick regular call with your PR agency can do wonders. Be it weekly, fortnightly or monthly, all you need to do is pick up the phone and run through the highlights of what the company has been up to. A trained PR professional will focus in on the golden nuggets of information that will be a hit with the media and can then take them away and turn them into fabulous coverage while you’re getting on with the rest of your working week.
2. Be aware
Keep up to date with media coverage about your sector. You probably do so anyway, so simply consider the stories you’re reading from a media point of view: how is the journalist approaching the topic? What is their angle? What kind of comment has made it into the article from business leaders? Being aware of such considerations will help you to identify what to pass on to your PR agency, particularly when they come to you asking for commentary that has to be produced to a very tight deadline!
3. Be flexible
Think flexibly about how you can help the media. Journalists rely on accurate, timely information to write their features. Your PR agency may ask you to comment on a sector-wide issue rather than one specific to your company. Be flexible in your approach and consider how your knowledge is representative of your industry. Apply the lessons your business has learned to the wider sector, against the backdrop of your industry knowledge, and you are on the right path to becoming seen as an expert spokesperson.
4. Understand what PR is!
PR is not the same as advertising. If a journalist is looking for a comment, it’s usually about issues impacting on your sector. They’re not looking for one brief sentence on their chosen topic, followed by two lengthy paragraphs about your products. Give your expert opinion on the matter in question and leave it to your PR to work in a mention of your product or a link to your website!
5. Be responsive
When it comes to PR, the early bird really does get the worm. Journalists work to very tight deadlines and the faster they can be provided with reliable, insightful information, the better. With so many businesses competing in every sector these days, you will need to be fast and responsive in order to get the coverage you deserve. If you delay for a couple of days before providing comment in response to a request from your PR agency, it’s likely that a competitor will have pipped you to the post or that the article will already have been published.
Find out more at http://www.abpropertymarketing.co.uk/who-are-we/ or call 0845 054 7524.