Day: March 16, 2004

Choosing a PR firm is as difficult as ever…

Choosing the best PR firm for your needs is one of the most difficult and demanding marketing tasks you can undertake.

It’s simply not easy.  As a HR person once said to me: “How am I supposed to interview a PR person?”.  After all if the PR people in question can’t effectively pitch their services there’s not much chance of them pitching your wares  –  and the vast majority of PR professionals are great communicators.

In looking for an agency ask yourself a couple of questions:

– Do we need an agency?
– Can we afford an agency?
– Can we provide the chosen agency with the level of support they will need to succeed?
– Where can we find a shortlist?

One of the major points of failure in the client-agency relationship is that the client simply doesn’t understand the nature of their investment in PR. It’s not just a fee or retainer, agencies need the client to invest time in the relationship and provide access to decision makers, information etc. It’s a big investment – and a worthwhile one.

The next point is to clearly understand what you want PR to achieve.  What business goals will PR support? Draft a PR brief that provides all the agencies with a clear picture of what PR you have done to date, how the market conditions are affecting your business, where you believe PR can make a difference, what you are looking for in an agency. The brief provides a single point of reference for your prospective agencies and should include some idea of the potential budget.

You can finding a shortlist of agencies in a number of ways, here’s a few of the more obvious ones:

– Personal Reference
– Internet Search
– Agencies for companies you admire
– Agency listings from your national PR body
– Referrals from journalists or business colleagues

When you’ve identified a shortlist of agencies, contact them and measure their interest then submit your brief to those agencies who have shown interest. They should organize follow up calls to clarify the brief. At this point insist that ONLY those practitioners who will work on the account should attend the pitch meeting.  There are fantastic consultants out there, but if the only time you see them is at the pitch then they are of little use. Successful client-agency relationships are built from good personal relationships or that awful intangible quality: Chemistry.

Each agency’s pitch should be tightly focused on the brief.  If you’re reviewing a number of agencies it can be useful to prepare a scoring card to compare each agency following your meetings. There’s a huge variety of potential measures such as:

– Quality of the proposed account team
– Chemistry (urghhh!)
– Media Relationships (if applicable)
– Measurement?
– International capabilities (if required)
– Responsiveness during the pitch process
– Enthusiasm
– Understanding of your market
– Quality of preparation
– Quality of ideas
– Quality of proposal
– Ability to meet the needs of your business
– Discussion of client conflict and resolutions
– References (past and present clients)

This isn’t exhaustive, but it does provide a framework for measurement. There’s probably a more relevant list for your business.

Once you have made your decision let all the agencies know in a timely manner and then throw yourself into your new agency relationship.  Make the agency part of your internal team and work closely with them.

Is this a failsafe system? Nope. Does it work all the time? Nope. What this will do is try and find the most appropriate agency for your business – whether it works is down to you and the quality of your agency. There are no guarantees.

The UK Times has an article on agency selection that’s worth a read.