PR After Agency Engagement: How to Maintain Momentum
Businesses and organizations engage with PR agencies in different ways and across varying timelines, milestones, and scopes of work. And once the PR engagement is over, it’s important to not lose the visibility and credibility that was built or strengthened during that time.
Depending on your business, post-engagement doesn’t necessarily mean continue operating at the same pace, scale or cost as a retained PR agency. It does mean being intentional about which communications, and visibility activities you continue, pause or engage with at a later time for brand awareness.
In this blog post, we’re going to focus on the PR post-engagement phase and cover:
The main activities that need to continue after a PR engagement ends
How to recognize if you need another PR boost
How to decide what to do in-house, task off to team members, or hire a PR agency again
Key activities of maintaining visibility
What are we up to?
From the key business activities and milestones you have planned for the year, you’ll need to identify which ones represent visibility opportunities with external stakeholders. For example, these opportunities may be company expansion or new market entries, product or service launches, research reports or white paper releases, speaking engagements, and partnerships. These are natural opportunities where you need to amplify your participation and role through your communications channels, PR being one of them
What’s happening around us?
As a business leader, you may already be keeping an eye on industry news, regulations and awards. A PR agency also tracks and contextualizes these updates for you and your business. Post-engagement, this responsibility needs to continue. Focus on monitoring industry events and conferences, award cycles and recognitions, regulations and policy changes, and speaking or thought leadership opportunities.
Typically, this requires a blend of systems such as Google alerts, email newsletters, and industry publications and internal conversations to prioritize which opportunities are worth pursuing at the time. Rather than focusing on quantity, prioritize opportunities that align with your business’ long-term goals, key messages, and how you want stakeholders to perceive your brand. And you don’t need to take on every opportunity but consistent participation will help build credibility over time. And don’t forget competitors. Tracking your competitors is equally important and it goes beyond social media. Keep an eye on pricing and promotions, new or updated products and services, and what kind of media coverage they are receiving..
Tracking the media landscape
The most main valuable function of a PR agency is media tracking and this includes tracking outlets and ownership structures, audience behavior and content consumption trends and journalists, editors, and independent writers. You may glance over industry news and having a dedicated team or support system to track aspects of media is important because they can align your business activities and milestones to the correct media outlets.
Media outlets are being bought in one corner of the world, while others are being launched rapidly in another. Audience content consumption patterns are changing and journalists are launching their own newsletters for their niche audiences and shifting beats. This is a lot of tracking but it’s essential to secure coverage.
How to know if you need a PR boost
Typically, you may work with a PR agency around the time of a launch or market expansion but there are other signals to look out for to see if you need another PR engagement. And later on, we’ll get into some of the activities that you can engage in yourself, task off to team members, or work with a PR agency to get this boost:
Signals to look out for:
Are you reading reviews from customers or other stakeholders’ feedback and noticing false or negative perceptions of your brand? PR is about influencing perceptions
You're noticing more of your competitors dominating industry news, publications and press in general. It’s important to not let your business fall into the background.
Your marketing activities aren’t generating strong results like leads, sales, or inquiries. There may be a brand awareness gap.
You or your team simply don’t have the time or capacity to pursue any visibility opportunities consistently.
Decisions, Decisions. Tasking things off, hiring an agency, vs, doing it yourself
Now that you know or at least have some idea on whether you need a PR boost, you can move to the next step. To stay organized and cost-effective, it helps to separate which PR activities you can manage yourself, task to internal teams, or hire a PR agency for again. And you’ll want to act on opportunities in a timely manner.
Tasking things off
Monitoring industry news, awards, and regulations
Reviewing and updating any external-facing communications (website, social media, and messaging)
Here, consistency and depth matter; you’ll want to have a general idea of the vast array of industry updates and creativity will kick in on how you’ll bring in your key messages, narratives, and provide value.
Hiring an agency
PR agencies add the most value when it comes to:
Media strategy and editorial planning
Coming up with story angles and campaign ideas
Understanding and tracking which media outlets and journalists are covering specific topics
Providing new or fresh perspective on your brand perception
This does require niche expertise, media relations, and consistent media monitoring.
Doing it yourself
If you have a small team or are an early-stage business, you can take on some of these activities:
Submitting award applications
Applying for speaking opportunities
Attending industry events and conferences
PR doesn’t have to end when an agency engagement does. And maintaining momentum will require awareness, planning, and an understanding of when to act and who should lead these efforts. With the right balance, you can maintain visibility and re-engage with PR when it matters most.