Measurable PR and Marketing

How to do a great press interview

How to do a great press interview

Jun 2, 2020 | B2B PR Blog, Communication Strategy, Measurable PR and Marketing

How to do a great press interview

Every B2B technology brand’s PR programme will involve press interviews.  In order to deliver a great press interview you need to feel confident when you speak to the media and, as with most things, preparation is key; indeed the 80:20 rule applies here to preparation and execution.

Ideally, you should ensure your spokespeople have taken part in tailored media training which includes objective setting and role play of realistic scenarios.  A successful interview should follow if you’ve taken the appropriate preparation.

Your PR company should provide you with insights into your interviewer and the publication, or channel, they are writing for in detailed media briefing notes; they should also be called upon to facilitate the briefing itself, to take notes and follow up.

10 Media Training Tips

While you will of course need to know your facts, have an opinion and be able to articulate it in a compelling way, these 10 golden rules will help you to deliver a strong interview and get your point across, while appearing competent, confident and engaging.

Our top 10 media training tips for delivering great press interviews include:

1 . Be passionate – Focus on why your story matters. Be passionate in your delivery and authentic in your beliefs and you will engage your audience which will make your message memorable.

2. Know your media outlet – Watch the show or read the publication first and think about the types of questions the journalist may ask. It’s good manners and good prep.

3. Be current – Think about the breaking news and trends surrounding your subject matter.  You may be asked for your opinions on them or it may form part of your general discussion.

4. Be on message – be clear about what you want people to learn or understand from your interview; have suitable stories, examples, and opinions available at a moment’s notice. Remember you are talking to the end audience not just the reporter.  Think about the audience’s wants and needs.

5. Evidence – Always have a media kit at the ready including company backgrounder, spokesperson backgrounder, one or two current news stories and FAQs that demonstrate and support your key points of communication.

6. Be concise – three clear points is all you need because that’s all people will remember! Practice them aloud. This is for two reasons – you need to be familiar with the sound of your own voice and perhaps more importantly you need to know when to breath.  Breathing will calm any butterflies and provide pauses to let your point resonate.

7. Be approachable – You can hear a smile!  When you talk to the media, you are the only voice they are listening to, so be nice and treat the interviewer with respect. Ask the interviewer if they have everything they need, work with them not against them.

8. Tell the truth – stories that you present to the media should be factually accurate. Lying and deliberately misleading will come back to haunt you.

9. Be discreet – There’s no such thing as ‘off the record’ – never say anything to a reporter that you don’t want repeated, about anyone. It’s a small world. Thoughtless comments can also come back to haunt you.

10. Perception is reality – understand the impact of how you look and sound to the media. With more and more interactions taking place online, don’t wear anything that will distract viewers from what you are saying.  If in doubt look at how the BBC Breakfast presenters dress and emulate them.

The best media training involves role play and scenario planning so that nothing comes as a surprise.  If you still feel uncomfortable about putting spokespeople in front of the media, ask your PR company to source questions from the journalist and respond by email.  Bear in mind that you may be ruling yourselves out of broadcast and podcast opportunities until such a time as your spokespeople have built up confidence.

Always submit any written responses through your PR company who can act as an additional point of quality control, ensuring you are on message and strategically aligned. By doing so, you can guarantee to get the optimum outcome from your media interview.

Follow these 10 golden rules and you’ll always be prepared for any media interview!

Join our #B2BPR tribe:

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Look Look at this infographic Why your business needs a communication strategy

At ec-pr we are passionate about b2b communication. We believe your work is amazing and we want to help you tell the world how extraordinary it is.

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Unforeseen circumstances have hit us all in 2020. Our guide shows you how to manage your PR in a crisis.

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Analyst Relations – where do I begin?

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As a tech start-up or scale-up, you may be wondering how to approach industry analyst relations (AR), a practice of relationship building in the tech industry that is seemingly (but only seemingly) the preserve of large vendors. True, you do need a strategic resource,...

No time to think about PR?

No time to think about PR?

May 25, 2020 | B2B PR Blog, Communication Strategy, Measurable PR and Marketing

No time to think about PR?

Time and money are in short supply. These are the two things marketers universally agree upon and, as a result, you need to be sure that anything you invest in is going to pay returns.  So, what can PR do for you that is worth investing your precious time and slender resources? In short, what’s the business case for B2B PR?

As you’re reading this, you no doubt agree that your reputation exists, so really, the decision you must make is whether you choose to nurture your reputation or not.  Shaping what people say about you and influencing their perceptions of your brand in order to build awareness, fill the top of the funnel and provide thought leadership – this is B2B PR.

8 reasons to find time for B2B PR

The fact is that effective PR makes you visible, valued and understood amongst the people who matter to your brand – both the decision makers and the influencers – it builds trust by harnessing third party media recognition and endorsement.

BE VISIBLE:

You know that having a visible brand is essential and commanding share of voice is powerful but being independently endorsed is invaluable.

  • Brand Awareness: It’s impossible to buy something you haven’t heard of.  Press coverage puts your brand in front of potential customers so that when they enter the market, they can consider your offering. Seeing your brand regularly in the media creates familiarity and trust – the critical components of an enduring relationship.
  • Share of Voice: You operate in a highly competitive and potentially complex market. PR will ensure your offering stands out from the ‘noise’ your competitors are making.  Using tools like C3 from Cision enables you to track how your share of voice is performing against key competitors to ensure that you are dominant on the core messages that matter to you.
  • Reputation: PR enables you to deliberately shape your reputation rather than leave it to chance.  How you’re perceived by your target audience will directly impact your ability to generate leads, close sales, and secure customer loyalty. Within your business, your reputation determines your ability to recruit the right people, keep your best staff and motivate your teams.

BE VALUED:

You want to build enduring relationships with your target audience and to do this you need to be trusted and respected. PR underpins and accelerates this process.

  • Credibility: Credibility influences people’s behaviours and thoughts.  If your brand is not credible, your target audience is less likely to believe what you are saying. By working with specialist editors and reporters to secure press coverage for your achievements and opinions, your messages are invested with greater credibility and authority.
  • Clarity of message: PR enables you to put your customer at the heart of everything you say, do and develop by creating compelling messaging to inspire and engage.  By putting the customers’ wants, needs, aspirations and fears front and centre, you engage their hearts and minds with compelling and engaging PR – presented through authoritative third parties.

“You cannot put a value on third party endorsement in terms of credibility”.

  • Crisis mitigation: A strong brand; one with clear values, with which your target audience is familiar, and which enjoys high trust, can weather storms more easily in times of crises. A business which relies solely on commercial transactions will, by default, be less robust and enduring – because it relies entirely on its ability to close the next sale rather than building relationships.
Valued caption

BE UNDERSTOOD:

To stand out from the crowd and tell your brand story in a way that excites and inspires a sophisticated audience, you need a specific set of communication and writing skills.

  • Differentiation: Brands that operate in highly competitive or complex markets may find it hard to differentiate themselves. PR can help you to develop, evidence and communicate a unique and compelling proposition which will engage and intrigue your target audience.
  • Unique & Complex: Companies rooted in engineering, science and technology often have remarkable knowledge and expertise which sits outside communication and marketing.  Specialist PR can be used to translate achievements into articles and news that their target audiences can both understand and embrace.

So, when you ask yourself: ‘Should I be doing PR’?  Know this, B2B PR is not a vanity exercise. Not taking the time to invest in your PR now will mean that your brand will find it unnecessarily difficult to achieve its potential and it will be more expensive in the long run.

And, when colleagues ask you: Is PR important?  The answer is obvious: there’s a compelling business case for finding the time to think about PR at every stage of your company’s development.  Failure to manage your PR could cost you a great deal more than just a few missed column inches; it can leave you invisible, vulnerable, and misunderstood.

Join our #B2BPR tribe:

If you’ve found this article valuable, you can get more useful insight here:

DownloadHow to become a Thought Leader 

Read Check out this awesome Tech PR case study: Concirrus

Watch Watch this short video Why your business needs a communication strategy

At ec-pr we are passionate about b2b communication. We believe your work is amazing and we want to help you tell the world how extraordinary it is.

Your Ultimate Guide to Crisis PR Management

The Ultimate Guide to Crisis PR

Unforeseen circumstances have hit us all in 2020. Our guide shows you how to manage your PR in a crisis.

Download

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Analyst Relations – where do I begin?

,

As a tech start-up or scale-up, you may be wondering how to approach industry analyst relations (AR), a practice of relationship building in the tech industry that is seemingly (but only seemingly) the preserve of large vendors. True, you do need a strategic resource,...

What is B2B PR?

What is B2B PR?

May 19, 2020 | B2B PR Blog, Measurable PR and Marketing

What is B2B PR?

In this article, Lorraine Emmett addresses the most commonly asked questions about B2B PR; what it is, what it’s for, how PR adds value and how to evaluate whether it’s doing a good job.

What is PR and where does B2B PR fit in?

What should you expect from your Public Relations company?

What should your PR company deliver and how do you know if it’s doing a good job?

How can you tell if your PR partnership is on a road of continuous improvement or on a path of terminal decline?

What is Public Relations (PR)?

PR is the pro-active management of your reputation.  It’s the management of your communication process, intended to create positive perceptions amongst your target audience and customers. This is so that people think and speak positively about your business. Familiarity is not enough – PR puts your brand front of mind.

PR delivers brands with independent validation; you cannot put a value on third party endorsement in terms of credibility.

Why does your company need PR?

Your reputation is the sum of everything you say and everything you do, added to everything that is said or written about you – by anyone. Your reputation exists but it’s up to you whether you choose to nurture it or not. PR Companies help you manage your company’s reputation and build a positive relationship with your internal and external stakeholders.

What does a PR Company do?

PR consultancies use their media network and writing skills to build understanding and interest in your brand through storytelling and thought leadership.  Organisations that recognise their reputation has currency will proactively manage it.  They understand a positive perception will pay dividends in terms of goodwill, loyal customers, committed workforce etc.  Reputation management will be done through public relations initiatives designed to influence and persuade people on the merit of their brand. This is PR. This is what a PR company can do for you.

The Public Relations trade body, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations can provide you with further insight.

What can a PR company help you achieve?

Boy dressed as pilot with wings

A good B2B PR agency will deliver commercial outcomes enabling your business growth to take off.

There are three main ways a PR company can help your business all of which underpin

  1. Visibility – a strong content and editorial plan will ensure that your brand is visible in the right media and can be easily found with high digital currency
  2. Value – by serving the most compelling messaging to the appropriate audiences your PR consultancy will help you to build familiarity and trust amongst your target audience
  3. Understanding – your PR company will show you how to present your brand message in a relevant and compelling way to stimulate demand.

Where does B2B PR fit in? B2B PR versus B2C PR

B2B PR is a specialism within PR which helps organisations to sell their products and services to other organisations, not the general public. Practitioners of B2B PR work with B2B marketers to manage their reputations to make their organisations visible, valued and understood.

B2C PR is the practice of managing the reputations of brands which sell their products and services to the general public.

What other PR specialisms are there?

There are a number of different specialties within the PR profession including B2B PR (business-to-business); corporate communications, consumer PR, public affairs & lobbying, financial PR, technology PR, social media and internal communications, to name a few.

ec-pr specialises in technology B2B PR and corporate communications. We are experienced in delivering public affairs projects and internal communications programmes, with a deep market knowledge of the technology sectors: cybersecurity, defence, science, energy, maritime, and transport.

People who work in B2B PR consultancies need to be able to understand the prevailing issues, empathise with the impact of those issues and communicate clearly and with commitment with interested parties, both verbally and in writing.

What services are in the B2B PR Toolkit?

The tools PR companies use to manage their reputations are extensive and include:

  1. Analyst relations
  2. Blogging
  3. Crisis Comms
  4. Infographics
  5. News releases
  6. Media relations
  7. Media training
  8. Press interviews & events
  9. Social engagement
  10. Thought Leadership
  11. White papers

You can find more definitions of PR below.

What should you expect from your B2B Public Relations company?

  1. A clear plan: it’s important to know what your agency is doing to help you achieve your requirements. A clearly structured methodology which gets you from where you are now to where you want to go is essential to ensure time and money is not wasted.
  2. Proactive engagement: the success of the relationships will depend on your ability to flex together and respond promptly to opportunities.
  3. Ideation: your PR agency should have a proven approach for generating strategically aligned ideas for articles, campaigns and thought leadership. Creativity is at the heart of effective PR.
  4. Impeccable writing and communication skills: PR is all about managing perceptions to further your brand.
  5. Inquisitive and engaging attitude: your relationship will only succeed if there is mutual respect and enthusiasm for the personalities and tasks involved.

 

What should your B2B PR company deliver and how do you know if it’s doing a good job?

  1. Process: Your PR agency should be regularly reporting and updating you on their achievements against the agreed PR objectives.
  2. Goals: Meeting and or exceeding the objectives set and highlighting key learnings or how to improve the campaign activities should be an ongoing B2B PR activity.
  3. Ideation: Your PR team will be habitually developing new ideas, themes, and initiatives to progress the brand awareness and achievements of your B2B PR goals.
  4. Starstruck: Delivering outstanding pieces of coverage in a pinnacle target publication at regular intervals will be something your PR counsel does consistently.
  5. Impact: quantity of coverage is not an indicator of effort or activity, but your B2B PR agency should be securing press coverage in target press regularly.
  6. Thought leadership: quality of coverage is as important as quantity, authored articles in pinnacle press is invaluable and something your PR advisors will be expert at achieving.
  7. Expert engagement: Your PR delivery team should be experienced and engaged so that you benefit from their wisdom and experience, not the other way round.
  8. Media network: your B2B PR agency should have a strong network and in depth knowledge of the way the media work in your sector and how to secure press coverage to be able to regularly design, pitch and secure placement on your behalf.

 

How can you tell if your PR partnership is on a road of continuous improvement or on a path of terminal decline?

Press coverage issues can be resolved with an engaged and well-led team, however indicators of a relationship in decline will revolve around passion and professionalism: they don’t appear to love you anymore and their behaviour shows it:

  1. Reporting becomes haphazard and inconsistent
  2. Ideas are uninspired and uninspiring
  3. Communication is infrequent and rarely proactive.

How is PR different from Advertising?

The key difference between PR and advertising, whether B2B PR or B2C PR, is that advertising space is paid for while editorial space is not. While you pay for the PR Agency’s time, there is no guarantee that coverage will appear – it is down to the editor to decide whether the material is likely to add value to the media channel (magazine, programme or blog) or not.

On the flip side, readers will appreciate that editorial content may have a greater value having been vetted by a professional journalist, rather than a paid-for advertisement.

You can read about this in more detail in this blog,  7 ways PR differs from advertising

What are the benefits of outsourcing your PR?

To work out if your business would benefit from an outsourced PR partner we’ve listed several benefits below, and a useful blog: Nine Questions Every Marketing Manager Should Ask Before Hiring A PR Agency

No recruitment fees – the PR team is already in place

Speed to excellence – no interviewing, inducting, learning the ropes

Value for money – access to a team of senior PR people that you couldn’t afford to employ on a full-time basis

24/7 availability – no holiday down time

Perspective – PR firms can see the wood from the trees and can provide impartial, objective advice

All the writing expertise plus implementation and delivery skills readily accessible

PR Agencies have an established and powerful network of press contacts which they can open up to you, why start the process from scratch

What other definitions of PR are there?

PR or Public Relations means different things to different people. You might find it interesting to consider these definitions of PR, from respected organisations and institutions:

1. PRCA – The PRCA is the world’s largest PR professional body:
“Public Relations, or ‘PR’, is all about the way organisations communicate with the public, promote themselves, and build a positive reputation and public image. The way an organisation is represented in the media has a huge impact on how people perceive it. PR professionals try to influence the media to represent their organisation positively and communicate key messages.”
https://www.prca.org.uk/careers/what-is-pr

2. BBC – The British public service broadcaster:
“Public Relations (PR) is a promotional technique used to gain media coverage. It is free and is generated through:

● Events
● Activities
● news-worthy stories”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zj4c7nb/revision/4

3. Hubspot – the inbound marketing platform:
“Public Relations professionals help a business or individual cultivate a positive reputation with the public through various unpaid or earned communications, including traditional media, social media and in-person engagements. They also help clients defend their reputation during a crisis that threatens their credibility.”
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/public-relations-definition

4. Wikipedia – the online encyclopaedia:
“Public relations (PR) is the practice of deliberately managing the release and spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a non-profit organization) and the public.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations

5. CIPR – the Chartered Institute of Public Relations:
“Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.”
https://cipr.co.uk/

At ec-pr we are passionate about b2b communication. We believe your work is amazing and we want to help you tell the world how extraordinary it is.

Join our #B2BPR tribe:

If you’ve found this article valuable, you can get more useful insight here:

DownloadDownload our guide on: How to maximize the impact of your news release

CASE STUDY Check out this awesome Tech PR case study: LMA

ARTICLE Read this article: How to write a PR Brief

Your Ultimate Guide to Crisis PR Management

The Ultimate Guide to Crisis PR

Unforeseen circumstances have hit us all in 2020. Our guide shows you how to manage your PR in a crisis.

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Analyst Relations – where do I begin?

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As a tech start-up or scale-up, you may be wondering how to approach industry analyst relations (AR), a practice of relationship building in the tech industry that is seemingly (but only seemingly) the preserve of large vendors. True, you do need a strategic resource,...

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10 Reasons your brand needs PR

10 Reasons your brand needs PR

May 5, 2020 | B2B PR Blog, Measurable PR and Marketing, Messaging development

10 Reasons your brand needs PR

Depending on what stage of maturity your business is at, you will have different challenges, priorities, and drivers.  PR can amplify your marketing effort, protect and nurture your reputation, and extend the reach and impact of your investment. It can be used to help you address a wide range of specific objectives. Always aligned to your company’s vision, mission and goals, PR is ever present and supremely agile.

Here are 10 key reasons why your company should do PR as part of your customer engagement plan.

1. Enhanced lead generation:

PR complements your marketing initiatives by showcasing your successes in editorial case studies.  It keeps you visible as prospects move through the buying cycle and into the sales funnel. And, PR provides the added benefit of providing independent third-party endorsement.

2. Improved stakeholder insight:

The process of developing your communication strategy and PR outreach brings you closer to your customers.  Engaging with customers to understand their buying methodology and rationale to develop articles provides valuable, actionable insight into customer behaviour.

3. Compelling messaging:

Effective PR requires relevant messaging at each stage of the buying cycle.  The strength of the messaging is evaluated against the quality of the supporting evidence and relevance to your target audience.

4. Re-energised staff:

Targeted PR which is integrated with change programmes can mobilise workforces by giving them a sense of purpose, community, and boost in morale.

5. Clarity of purpose:

In order to be effective, PR needs clearly defined SMART goals.  The process of developing and executing these goals results in clarity of vision, purpose, and communications.

6. Invigorated sales team:

B2BPR will help build the morale of sales teams.  Seeing your brand receiving recognition in the media through press coverage for new business wins etc., instils pride and purpose.

7. Crisis mitigation:

A strong brand promotes loyalty which can help a brand survive a challenging trading environment. Crisis planning conducted during ‘business as usual’, will help you to identify potential areas of weakness which you can redress before any crisis hits.

8. Thought leadership:

Every business has something unique about it or it would never have been brought into existence.  Someone somewhere thought there was a gap in the market your company could fill. PR will help you harness your thought leadership with insight that informs, inspires, challenges, and engages your target audience.

9. Brand awareness:

PR builds a compelling relationship between your brand and your target audience – before your audience even enters the buying cycle. The key principles of any good PR strategy are to make you visible, valued and understood; delivered as part of a comprehensive communication strategy to drive consistency and impact. The outcome of which will provide you with a densely populated top of funnel.

10. Increased Impact:

By integrating your PR across all your marketing communications, you leverage your investment and increase impact. Every message delivered becomes a building block, creating layer upon layer of customer engagement, making the whole worth much more than the sum of its parts, in one cohesive, compelling brand.

So, you can see that the reasons to do PR are powerful – especially when you consider:

Whether you act or not, your reputation still exists out there in the market. You need to decide if you want to nourish and cultivate it, or leave it to chance.

As a result when you ask yourself: ‘why do I need PR’ or ‘Is PR important’ follow it up with the question:

‘Does my company reputation matter?’

Your answer will tell you all you need to know.

At ec-pr we are passionate about b2b communication. We believe your work is amazing and we want to help you tell the world how extraordinary it is. Get in touch.

Join our #B2BPR tribe:

If you’ve found this article valuable, you can get more useful insight here:

Download our guide on how to make your PR work harder: How to Optimise your News Release

READ this awesome PR case study: Lloyds Maritime Academy

look at this Infographic: “How PR differs from advertising”

to receive regular insights on how to make your PR work harder.

At ec-pr we are passionate about b2b communication. We believe your work is amazing and we want to help you tell the world how extraordinary it is.

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How much does PR cost?

Our transparent guide to B2B PR pricing for tech brands.

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Our insights

Analyst Relations – where do I begin?

,

As a tech start-up or scale-up, you may be wondering how to approach industry analyst relations (AR), a practice of relationship building in the tech industry that is seemingly (but only seemingly) the preserve of large vendors. True, you do need a strategic resource,...

B2B PR – 9 Questions Every Marketing Manager Should Ask Before Hiring A PR Agency

B2B PR – 9 Questions Every Marketing Manager Should Ask Before Hiring A PR Agency

Nov 15, 2019 | B2B PR Blog, Measurable PR and Marketing, Our PR approach

B2B PR – 9 Questions Every Marketing Manager Should Ask Before Hiring A PR Agency

Hiring a PR agency? Questions to ask before you sign up

Before you sign a contract with any PR agency we highly recommend that you ask these questions first.  Ask up front and you are more likely to hire the right PR agency for your business, your relationship will last longer, and it will be a lot more rewarding. Asking these questions can also help you evaluate whether you’re a good fit for each other.  If they can answer them to your satisfaction, snap them up!

 

1. How are we going to measure success?

Your PR agency should be keen to know what success looks like and be interested in your business – therefore, they should be asking lots of questions.  Understanding what success looks like is critical as you need to demonstrate the return on your investment.

Clear objectives and goals should be set for every campaign and you should be clear on how you’re going to measure success, but also what stretch goals you have.  Let’s say for example you want coverage, all coverage is not equal, so be clear on whether you want opinion pieces, editorial or just simply, company mentions, and in which publications.

 

2. Who is going to manage our account?

Often when you meet large PR agencies, they’ll wheel out their most impressive Account Directors, and perhaps even their CEO, depending on the size of your account.  You’ll receive a fancy pitch and feel like a million dollars.  But then…when you actually start working together, those people are nowhere to be seen, you get a junior managing the day to day business, and every call with your Account Director costs.  You may then regret your decision.

So, always ask these types of questions to understand who will be managing your account, and make sure you meet them all before you decide.

  • How many people will be working on my account?
  • What is the experience of the account team?
  • When will they be available to me?
  • Who will I be spending the most time with?
  • Who will be executing the work?

Now, size isn’t everything, in fact with a smaller account team you’ll be able to develop a much closer relationship with mutual understanding. The agency will get to know how you like to work best, and vice versa. That’s why the people who turn up when we pitch are the people you will be spending most of your time with! Find out more about our people here.

 

3. What is your speciality?

The purpose of this question is to establish the relevant experience of the PR agency to your specific industry or requirements.

How connected are they? You want to be certain that when you hire the agency they already have established relationships with the key journalists and editors in your specific sector. If they do, it means they clearly have experience of working with them, and know what specific content publications will and won’t accept. They will have intimate knowledge of the journalists likes and dislikes, and will be able to successfully pitch story ideas first time, every time.

Ultimately, the more specialised and experienced the agency is in your sector, the more successful they will be in delivering phenomenal results for your brand.

 

4. What do you need to know about my business before you can get started?

Here’s the thing. Your PR agency aren’t telepathic. Yes, you can choose an agency with specialised knowledge in your industry, but remember they need to get to know you, your business and your people. So, ask them what they need to know to get started.

Firstly, you’ll need to sign a non-disclosure agreement so that you can confidently share your company secrets – perhaps new product releases, changes of senior management or a merger/acquisition. If you want your PR agency to be proactive, you need to give them as much information as you would any new employee. This will take time. So, be prepared to answer lots of questions, and be prepared to be challenged. Great PR agencies challenge the status quo.

The investment you make in PR is not just financial, it requires your time to brief the PR agency and engage in planning and strategy sessions so that they can hit the ground running and the relationship is successful from the outset. This is why we have a three pronged approach to marketing, starting with research and planning.

 

5. Where do we fall in your client roster?

Knowing where you stand in terms of agency spend and production requirements compared to other clients is critical.

Do you want to be the top dog and be their most important client? Perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t.

What’s critical to understand is how important you are to the agency.  If you’re their smallest client, the reality is that you’ll probably get the most junior account team.  Remember, you want to ensure that the PR agency has time for your business. So, think carefully about the type of agency you want to work with, and where your business will fall into their priority list.

Hopefully, before you’ve even started the agency selection process, you’ve checked out their website for their client roster, and you’ve researched what’s happening in the news with their clients so you have a good understanding of their capability already. We’ve made it super easy for you to find our client roster, check out our case studies here.

 

6. Who are your references?

The hiring process is like hiring an employee. You wouldn’t hire anyone without asking for references. So, ask for them and make the time to call or email those references.  Also, ask for a reference of a client that no longer works with the PR agency.  You need to find out why they don’t work together anymore. Remember, you want to choose an agency with a proven track record of success and many other satisfied past clients. Also ask the questions that are important to you.

 

7. How often will I hear from you?

This may sound like a daft question. It’s not. You need to understand how the PR agency manages client communication and collaboration.

The reason is you want 90% of your budget being spent on real work, not project management or administration.  Not only that, as editorial placements can take months, you want to know what exactly your agency is working on.

What should you expect?

It’s normal to hear from your agency at least once a week, with a monthly report on placements secured and plans for the following month.  Not only that, do expect to hear from your agency when they’ve secured a new opportunity, or they’ve developed an innovative idea to move your brand forward. Not only that, you need to ensure that you’re still on track for success.

 

8. How much budget do I need to allocate to achieve my goals?

If you’ve never added PR to your marketing mix, we highly recommend starting with a six-month pilot project. This will ensure that your new PR agency can gain momentum and measure ROI effectively. Our experience is that a PR campaign needs to run for at least six months to gain any traction.

If you already have an existing PR budget, but you’re not happy with the results, then it’s a different conversation.  Let’s be honest, if you were happy with your PR results, you wouldn’t be reading this!  In this scenario we recommend full disclosure, be clear during the agency recruitment process your budget and more importantly, your expectations of what success looks like. Then, expect the PR agency to deliver a pitch and proposal based on your budget. If you want us to pitch our services, click here.

 

9. What if it all goes wrong?

Negative news happens. Everyone makes mistakes. A crisis is usually rooted in an act of god (rare); deliberate criminal act (uncommon); or human error (most usual) and has resulted in danger or financial damage to third parties and your brand.

How the crisis is handled will directly impact your customers, staff and bottom line.  You want an agency to be confident in crisis management so, ask for examples of what they’ve done and for whom.  They should be telling you how they can set up an emergency reactive press office and the strategies they would deploy to prevent, mitigate and manage negative news, should it occur.

If you’re facing a crisis, you need your PR agency to support you. Ask us how we’ve helped clients in these situations and what we could do for you.

 

Conclusion:

We hope the tips above help you as you decide which B2B PR agency to work with. Ultimately, you must:

  • feel comfortable that you’re in safe hands
  • like the team that’ll be representing you
  • feel confident that they’ll work with you to achieve the positive coverage you deserve

Next Steps

If you want our help to make your remarkable brand visible, valued and understood contact us here.  We love pitching our services to people like you.

ec-pr is a B2B PR Agency specialising in technology, science and engineering firms. We are tech savvy and confident communicators who deliver real results and have a money-back performance guarantee. Find out more about how we measure PR Results here.

Yes, PR is measurable… and this is how we track RESULTS

Yes, PR is measurable… and this is how we track RESULTS

Apr 5, 2018 | B2B PR Blog, Measurable PR and Marketing

The world of marketing lives by the mantra “if you can’t measure it, don’t do it”. There are plenty of models in place to measure digital and direct marketing activity but what about other ‘top-of-the-funnel’ activities? How do you measure PR success and prove the effectiveness on the bottom line? Here’s how, at EC-PR, we use RESULTS to evaluate and quantify our clients’ PR campaigns.

R is for Retrieve those clippings

The easiest way to evaluate successful exposure is to track the volume and quality of ‘press clippings’ (and in a digital world we don’t just mean paper). At EC-PR, we track the what and where on a monthly basis and provide our clients with monthly, quarterly and annual comparisons.

E is for Extract impressions

Once we know where your brand is being represented we can calculate your reach. We simply multiply the number of clippings by the total circulation of the publication. It’s not an exact science – not everyone who views the content will actually read it – so this is where great content is required.

S is for Social interactions

Who’s talking about you across social media, what conversations are happening, are they positive/negative or neutral? We measure engagement, review it, and watch for changes. If positive social mentions of your brand increase after a PR campaign, you know you’ve got it right.

U is for Unique content

Press clippings and impressions are not enough – it is not a case of ‘spray & pray’.

You want quality in-depth coverage in the hero publications for your industry. We pride ourselves on developing topical, thought provoking ideas that interest the media, translate to the consumer and align with our clients’ communication strategy.

L is for Love those leads

The sales team can become your best allies in measuring PR effectiveness – by using their direct contact to ask prospects how they heard about your brand and services. They want PR to provide brand awareness and lead generation, so incentivise them to provide the insight that improves your ability to do just that.

T is for Traffic

Align your PR campaigns with digital marketing messaging (right down to those infamous ‘keywords’) to optimise your natural and paid search. It can be difficult to directly relate what traffic resulted from which action but measuring the volume of web traffic you get pre- and post-campaign is critical.

S is for Surveys

Ideally, you should do a pre- and post-campaign survey to measure a campaign’s effectiveness. But when budgets are tight, a dose of common sense is required. If you can’t afford to do it for every campaign, could you run an annual survey? We’ll also find other benchmarks (like the Interbrand index) to measure long-term effectiveness.

The purpose of PR campaigns is to get you visible, valued and understood. But we do more than drive audience behaviour and invoke their curiosity in your brand. We also provide insights on how to improve, which is only possible when you measure RESULTS.