What are they doing with your hard earned money?? You’re paying them every month for public relations advice and to get you in the papers!!
Here’s five reasons why they deserve to burn in hell!
Calm down and honestly get over yourself. Breathe..
A big part of the work I do with early stage startups is looking at launch strategy and the whole area of how the business will market itself. As such I deal with a few key public relations agencies at home and abroad. Lately I’ve noticed a few similar themes in conversations with the various agencies I work with and how their clients seem to perceive the whole area of public relations.
Despite the fact that during the current downturn, agencies are working twice as hard for their clients, the level of appreciation and more importantly client expectations seem to be completely skewed. Based on these conversations, here’s a few things to think about;
(1). PR Agencies aren’t mind readers
Guess what – you might be completely familiar with everything going on in your company but unless you take time to share this knowledge with your PR agency they’re not going to know it. You have to take the time to communicate whats going on in your company so they, as outsiders, can have the information they need to come up with ideas and promotional opportunities for your business.
(2). PR Agencies are overly polite sometimes.
If there’s one place that your PR company is at fault, its probably that they’re too polite to tell you that your new idea actually sucks. Remember these guys are experts! They have spent years hearing and looking at every idea under the sun. More importantly they know the media – they know what does and doesn’t have a chance at getting printed. Your brilliant idea might be something that they know wont have a chance in hell at publication, listen to them, that’s what you’re paying them for.
(3). PR Agencies aren’t newspaper editors
No matter what you think, nothing in life is guaranteed! You might think that your news is worthy of a Sunday Business Post front cover and you might even get a hint that you have a shot at that but guess what – things change. In a world that moves at breakneck speed, news editors and journalists priorities change and that story that you were expecting on the front page gets moves or vanishes outright – well sucks to be you but get over it.
Contrary to what you might think your PR company doesn’t lay out or have editorial control over every publication in the country. All they can do is submit the story, have a chat with the magazine or paper and then its a roll of the dice. Their longstanding relationships with the media give you a better shot at coverage but
(4). PR Agencies are not charities.
Do you work for free? No? Neither does anyone else. Let me make this exceptionally clear for those who might think otherwise – PR is not something that you pay based on performance! The large majority of work goes into the effort involved in shaping your story and preparing it for publication. If your news doesn’t get published thats called bad luck. Unless there’s obvious reasons why, non-publication does not mean non-payment.
(5). PR Agencies are good at what they do.
“Write your own press release” – its cheaper, its easier. Yes of course, what a great idea. You’re in the middle of launching a new business and of course you have the time to brainstorm, write and distribute a press release to a couple of hundred media outlets and then follow up. <remove sarcasm helmet>.
Get real! You’re launching a business! Probably one of the single most important aspects of your business is how it will be perceived by the public and you want to do it yourself during possibly the most stressful period you’ll ever go through? I know money is an issue but you’d be surprised at how accommodating PR agencies are with it comes to new startups. Most of them are delighted to work on something exciting and new and will often give you a very reasonable price for an initial campaign. Whats the harm in asking.
Pick up the phone
One of the single best resources that you will ever find will be a good PR agency. They’ll help you shape your story, help you communicate with the public and give you an honest opinion about how you company is really being perceived.
Like everything else, its a business decision. You find out what your PR agency will offer, how much they’ll charge and then make up your mind. But don’t automatically assume that every PR practitioner is Samantha Jones from “Sex in the City” or that they somehow have no value on your hard earned money.
PR is all about reputation and most agencies care a lot about theirs.
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