Month: September 2003

There is no doubt that choosing a PR firm is one of the single most important decisions a company can make.  Finding and selecting the right firm can make or break a company’s awareness and communication with their target audience and that’s one of the reasons it is so hard to get that decision right.

As a HR Director once put it to me: “How am I supposed to interview a PR guy?” The subtext of course being that if you can’t sell yourself how will you ever “sell” the company.

I’ve worked both sides of the fence.  I’ve put together comprehensive and creative client pitches only to discover after the fact that the client was only going through the motions and they had already made a decision.  I’ve hired, what I considered to be the best agency, only to discover they couldn’t deliver any of what they promised – even though we held up our side of the bargain. Of course I’ve had the corollaries of both of these scenarios as well!

This was prompted by a posting on Capulet’s weblog about a recent webinar on hiring the right PR firm. The seminar was put together by B.L. Ochman of I-PR fame.

From my experience of the process here are some top line thoughts:

 The first step is to make sure your firm is ready to retain an agency in terms of the costs involved and the time you will have to devote.

 Next create a comprehensive brief for all the PR agencies in the process.  The brief should include background on the company and its activities to date, as well as your expectations for the new agency.

 Make it very clear that only the people who will actually be working on the day-to-day account should attend the pitch.  You’d be amazed how often a pitch is loaded with stars you never see again.

 Ensure the agencies you invite have the skills you need for your company.

 The agencies should clearly demonstrate relevant experience in your market (or a closely related one) and working with firms your size.

 Ask for a clear explanation of both consulting and mechanical costs (i.e. courier, telephones etc.)

 Spend time discussing measurement.  How will you measure their success and vice versa.

 Ensure that you are comfortable working with this team.  It may be a clich�ut chemistry between the client and the agency can make or break an account

 Talk with references.  The pitching agency should offer to provide client references.  Ask to talk to previous clients!

 Be realistic.  One of the hardest challenges for agencies is a client with unrealistic expectations. PR takes time, don’t expect everything to happen overnight.

 Ensure you have adequate internal resources to devote to the agency.  There’s a lot of internal work required for a successful PR campaign.  It’s not just about retaining and agency and closing the door.

 If you are nervous about measurement, discuss Service Level Agreements (SLA)

Of course that’s not a definitive list but it’s a start.  Personally I believe creating a successful agency-client relationship is far tougher than any PR discipline.  Great PR partnerships are the result of expertise, hard work, investment and some luck.

Last week I read and finished an interesting business book.

Entitled “Experiment at Work: Explosions and Experiences at the Most Frightening Company on Earth“, the book is written by Andy Law, one of the founders of UK advertising agency St. Lukes [Warning: Horrendous Flash Website – one of the worst!].

Andy challenges the reader to look beyond traditional company culture and approaches to Human Resources, to a braver world where staff are appreciated and recognized as the key business resource.

He uses St. Lukes as a example, where amongst other things all the staff are not staff but co-owners (all with shares in the firm), no one has a dedicated computer, instead each account has a work area, where the company is constantly look and challenging for change.

That last paragraph does no justice to St. Luke’s, their approach is completely and fundamentally different to traditional companies.

It’s an interesting read.  I always think it’s a good thing to challenge your perceptions.  Though I did find the book raising more questions than answers, but maybe that was the point….

Anthony Parcero has posted some in-depth thinking on how PR and blogging can live together in harmony.

He fears that there is a danger that independent blogs will be replaced by a glut of corporate or marketing blogs and that as a result much of the value of blogging might be lost.

I am paraphrasing Anthony here, you should have a read of his posting.

For what’s it’s worth, I don’t think independent blogs will die.  I believe that marketing people have an inherent difficulty in (to lift a phrase from the Cluetrain) speaking with their audience via a conversation.

Just look at the recent attempts of marketers/PR people to influence bulletin boards.  The simple fact is that the most effective blogs are those written by knowledgeable people, who care about the subject.

As a result the most successful “corporate” blogs to date, are those written by experts in those companies, not puff pieces written by their marketing or PR folks.

Consumers will, in most cases, spot fluff.  That’s why blogs are so successful.  It’s self-regulating.  If you are relevant people will read.  If you’re simply pushing product messages with no value you will fail.

The quicker we all recognize this the better for all. 

So another week and another hands-on case study on the do’s and do not’s of blog relations.

While I was swanning around outside the office, a new interesting blog relations initiative hit the HTML.

It seems a PR person acting on behalf of Sun Microsystems targeted a number of bloggers to see if they might be interested in a Sun executive (more about that later) guesting on their blog.

Among the bloggers targeted were: Mitch Kapor (Creator of Lotus 1-2-3 and founder of the OSA Foundation), Dan Gillmor (San Jose Mercury News),  Hiawatha Bray (Boston Globe) and Jon Udell (Infoworld).  There were clearly many more but these are the ones we know at this point.

Well on the upside, Sun’s PR is looking at how blogs can influence, however the downside includes some useful PR lessons.

 First of all well done to Sun on identifying the potential of blogs for communicating with your audience.

 Negative marks however for spamming a wide range of well known media-related bloggers with the same message

 Further negative marks for pitching a “guest column” on the blogs in question when clearly those blogs don’t do “guest columns”

So what are the takeaways? Here’s a few immediate ones that come to mind. (Phil Gomes has covered this very well).

 Know your target. Don’t pitch for a “guest column” on a blog where they clearly don’t have “guest columns”. Read the blog, get an understanding for the author.

 Know your media.  If you pitch bloggers be aware that other bloggers may find out.  Therefore widespread mail merges posing as targeted pitches do not work One-to-One marketing does not necessarily mean an effective mail merge.

 You are in the water.  As soon as you begin to pitch bloggers, there is a definite chance that your pitch (not your client) will be publicized. I was once told not to put anything in an e-mail I wouldn’t be happy to see re-produced in court or sent on a postcard. Your pitches should be similiarly defendable.

 Learn.  Mistakes are fine as long as you learn from them and improve the next time.

 Experiment.  If your client is willing to put the time aside to “guest” on another blog, and if they have good relevant thoughts.  Why not help them get their own blog up and running?  In my experience that’s one of the very best ways to reach A-list bloggers.

 

By the way, I’m not being holier than thou here. I think it’s great Sun’s PR folks are using blogs for PR.  If you are not, you should be thinking about it and learning from the experience of others.

By the way from reading the posts (above) concerning this pitch, the Sun Executive is readily identifiable. You got to love Google.