By Caroline Shawley, Account Director
You have hired a PR agency, which is a major step in the process of taking control of your brand image, boosting your visibility and refining your communication, to ensure your success reaches the ears of your customers and your wider industry.
This is an investment that you need your company to benefit from in very tangible ways, and there are steps that you can take to ensure you’re making the most of this relationship.
I recently took part in an IABM #BaMLive session where we (and other agencies) provided our five top tips for working efficiently with your PR agency and we wanted to share ours with you here:
1: Teamwork
By hiring a PR agency, you have extended the power of your marketing team and brought on board people whose expertise you can lean on to deep dive into areas of the business you may not have the time or the skill to address in-house. So consider the agency a fully-fledged part of your team! Make sure to include them in your marketing planning and keep them abreast of any strategy changes, and don’t be shy to ask their opinion on any marketing moves you may be unsure of and be open to ideas they suggest. A ‘them and us’ approach limits the service your PR team can provide. Always remember, there is strength in numbers!
2: Trust
Trust your own judgement when it comes to the choice you made, and trust the advice of the agency you hired. You hired your agency because they can provide you with knowledge your company may not have in-house. Your agency has built up a significant amount of experience gleaned from working with a variety of clients in whatever industry they specialise in. Their tight relationships with press, analysts, resellers, customers and other important stakeholders have been cultivated with care over many years. This is invaluable perspective that can inform very sound and strategic advice. For best results, listen and put trust in their strategic counsel.
3: Agility
During the hiring process, it’s important to make sure your agency isn’t too rigid and can respond quickly to your changing business needs. A situation like the recent pandemic will have highlighted very clearly which agencies were a sound choice, and which might have struggled to help their clients adapt to an uncertain business environment. Make sure to review your existing PR relationships in this light and make the switch to a different agency if necessary.
4: Clarity
Define clear expectations together with your PR agency, so you can come up with a productive plan together. Remember to keep your agency informed and, as appropriate, involved in any change of messaging or needs that might occur throughout the year. The sooner this happens, the quicker your agency can work with you to adapt messaging and deliverables. Leaving the agency out of this equation will impact your overall results.
5: Measurement
The existence of mutually satisfactory key performance targets and deliverables helps guide your agency and support a successful collaboration. Your agency should in turn be very transparent about its achievements against deliverables and should provide you with regular progress reports to allow the fine tuning of your joint strategy.
If you’d like to discuss your PR and marketing requirements, please do get in touch with us by emailing caroline@mkm-marcomms.com. We can’t wait to hear from you.
Watch the IABM session
