Getting Ready for PR: How SMBs Can Prepare to Save Time and Get Most Value
You’ve been reviewing proposals, scheduling meetings, and may be a couple days away from onboarding with a public relations agency. In this blog post, our goal is to help you understand what you need and how to prepare in this phase and save time while getting the most value from your investment.
What PR does (and how it supports marketing)
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details, one core principle to keep in mind is that public relations is a subset of marketing. Meaning, it doesn’t replace your marketing efforts but rather supports it in a specific domain. That is, visibility crossing media, community groups, investors, and any other audience group that has a relationship or engagement with your business directly or indirectly.
Public relations requires alignment around a “newsworthy” element (a story or impact) that resonates with media outlets and their audiences, and your business message. It creates visibility through third party validation.
Types of PR agencies: services vs. industry focus.
With that out of the way, there’s many agencies that specialize in (typically) two types of domains - services and industries. Services are straightforward. Some PR agencies overlap with marketing and help develop assets such as websites, and social media while others focus solely on media relations and securing coverage with your existing assets. On the other hand, some PR agencies specialize in specific industries like financial services or healthcare and they bring deep industry knowledge and specific niche media contacts.
When deciding when to work with a PR agency, it’s important to have at least a general idea of which communications channels you want to utilize. For example, a PR campaign launched by an agency may not include social media or email marketing. But having an understanding of which channels you want to leverage or not, helps the agency guide strategy.
How to know if you’re ready to work with a PR agency
An important question to ask yourself is, where do you stand with your assets and communications channels? Do you have all communications materials ready, need revisions, or require a new perspective? This is an important decision-making factor when deciding on the size and type of PR agency you’d need to work with. Here are some common situations you may find yourself in:
You have some assets ready, but not all.
Great! You have a foundation to work with. And assets should be revisited for updates anyways. Don’t hesitate to share this with your agency and communicate what you have ready or not.
For your existing assets and communications channels, make sure:
Your assets (for e.g. websites and its links) are working properly
Company facts, statistics and historical information is correct
Core messages reflect what you really want to say
Don’t worry about the language being perfect or in sync at this stage, accuracy and alignment matters most right now. The PR agency will take it from here.
You don’t have assets ready yet.
You may be starting from scratch and if so, start by dividing what’s feasible to develop internally versus what you would like support in or fully task away.
For time purposes, when deciding what asset or communications channels to leverage or develop, think about short term and long term business goals. For example, if you’re launching an event this month and need high attendance, what assets and channels would be required to support your goal? A PR agency would align its strategy with this goal.
Key preparation tips
During early one-on-one calls with a PR agency, be prepared to explain your business in depth. Not just product or service, but recent certifications, association, proprietary technology, and answer the two golden questions: What makes your business different? What impact does your business create for communities through its products and services? The more context an agency has, the more opportunities they can find and create for your business.
No matter where you are in the preparation process, the best tips for saving time and maximizing value from your investment in a PR agency are:
Having accurate and organized factual information about your business
Clear sense of business goals you are looking to achieve right now
Maintaining open and clear communication with your agency about what’s going on in your business.
The PR agency’s role is to connect what’s happening in your business with what’s happening in the media and present it in a relevant and timely way. And a little preparation beforehand goes a long way and paves the path for a smooth and valuable engagement.