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Six Considerations When Evaluating A PR Agency

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So, you want to engage a PR agency to help get the word out about your solutions or services.

Sounds like a plan. Sounds easy.

But the process can be daunting, time-consuming, and expensive. And, most importantly, it may not help you achieve your goals.

If this sounds oddly pessimistic coming from someone in an agency, bear with me. I’m here to share some considerations, observations, and best practices gleaned from over three decades split between agency and corporate marketing gigs. Avoiding the mistakes of others can save you time and money, and result in a productive, positive working relationship with your agency.

Know what you want to accomplish.

Do you need straight-up media relations? Industry analyst engagement? Help with messaging and positioning? Social media strategy and support? Editorial and content development? Speaking opportunities? Is there the potential for crisis management? Will your executives require media training?

Having a grasp of your near- and longer-term objectives can help you narrow the field. Most agencies will claim to provide a full menu of such services, but the quality and scope of the offerings can vary wildly. Be skeptical and do your due diligence.

PR Agency? Full-Time Employee? Freelancer?

There are pros and cons to each of these approaches, and your organization’s budget, timeline, and internal processes will dictate the best approach.

Agencies can be expensive, depending on the retainer structure or the billable rates of your account team, but can actually be more cost-effective than the alternatives. They also bring a wealth of expansive and deep marketing expertise, along with a solid bench. They are often very good at helping determine what you need (see above), are responsive and reliable, and 100% dedicated to your agenda. Agencies also provide access to a host of services––from art/creative direction and design, to web development, digital marketing, and social media strategy and support.

Full-time employees are great because they are invested in your success and are in it for the long haul. But they often require substantial budget outlays, and can take months to identify, recruit, sign, and onboard. Once they are thoroughly steeped in your offerings, they can be outstanding brand ambassadors and stewards, and can also work on other marketing initiatives as needed. But once they leave, you’re back to square one.

Freelancers can be nimble hires––they often have excellent credentials, can start right away, and hit the ground running. But they typically operate with minimal resources, have no back-up, and must dedicate hours to other clients. They also can be brutally hard to integrate into existing systems (HR/accounting, project management, content management). They also are prone to terminating their arrangements abruptly (which can also work in your favor if you only need a limited engagement).

One size does not fit all. 

Yes, big agencies have big resources, but don’t let claims of a national footprint, local presence, global reach, or head count sell you on an ill-matched relationship. Think expertise, applied experience in your market, and skillsets that dovetail with your agenda. Access to creative resources is a plus. Know how many hours are available to your account each week or month.

Who’s on the team? 

This consideration also hinges on knowing what you want to accomplish. If you’re looking for a clip shop to get you mentioned in every low-value round-up article, then seniority matters little. But if you’ll need responsive counsel with expertise in and contacts spanning your market, look for senior-level account team members. Ask the tough questions: What’s the average tenure of your account team? Where have they worked? What companies have they represented? What results have they generated? How many former journalists are on staff? How many accounts do they manage at once?  

Mind the old switch-a-roo.  

Let’s assume you’re down to a few final candidates and are evaluating pitches. For these meetings, most agencies will send out the big guns––often including the person with his/her name on the door. But will you ever see or hear from these folks again? Many times, agencies get a bad rap by orchestrating a senior executive dog-and-pony show, only to later hand the account over to junior staffers (or even interns) who, while eager, often require more direction and a longer ramp-up period. Get firm commitments on your team’s composition, and don’t hesitate to challenge if you aren’t sold on the match. You want them to operate as an extension of your team.

Beware of scope creep.

Will the agencies you are considering be able to accommodate your needs as your marketing strategy evolves? If your program may eventually require social media support, make sure the agency of record has the capabilities––and not just an intern with a huge stable of Instagram followers, but applied expertise in cultivating an online presence with a custom mix of organic and paid content. Ditto for the media training and crisis communications mentioned earlier. Otherwise, you’ll be saddled with the chore of evaluating and enlisting additional vendors.

In the end, it’s entirely up to you, and highly dependent on your organization’s budget, processes, and requirements. And remember, the old adage, “Fast, cheap, or good? You can only pick two” applies here as well. If you want something fast and good, it won’t be cheap; if you want it cheap and good, it won’t be fast; and if you want cheap and fast, it won’t be good. Choose wisely.

How To Plan Communications For Your Next Crisis

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A recent cyberattack on a fuel pipeline has hospital and health system officials rethinking what they need to do better to protect their own networks from breaches and the huge consequences that can result.

For communications professionals at such institutions, rehearsing such crisis scenarios and what should follow can be the difference between saving a reputation or seeing it destroyed.

The ability to respond promptly to disasters or damaging reports can build confidence in constituents that the organization is on top of the crisis and is a leader in its sector. 

One thing to consider is that crisis plans should make very clear who is responsible for what. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind:

Prepare in advance with inputs from the organization’s functional areas. The time to plan for a crisis is long before it hits. A well- thought-out crisis plan is designed to help an organization communicate internally and externally with clear, succinct, and timely direction.

The goal is to minimize confusion and maintain confidence amidst whatever crisis may occur. Opinions vary and emotions are strong when the stakes are high, the book Crucial Conversations tells us. The time for addressing conflicting perspectives is in the preparation phase of a crisis plan, not during the crisis itself.  While there will undoubtedly be differences of opinion in one’s approach depending on the circumstances, a detailed plan rehearsed with key players and influencers can minimize disruption when things get tense. Still, even if things get heated, the book’s authors tell us to leverage the power of dialogue with absolute candor and deep respect for others’ viewpoints to realize the desired goals.

Identify stakeholders. Designing an effective crisis management plan also requires an understanding of stakeholders and their roles. Stakeholders are all those who have an interest in the outcome. For a health system, the list is generally long and can include patients, governments, administrators, board members, and clinicians. Each might need slightly different things during a crisis, which is why each stakeholder should be considered a separate audience.

Identify a communications chain of command. Crisis plans should – in advance – identify all of those who will be involved with managing a crisis, what areas they are responsible for and who is ultimately responsible for making decisions. Then, all of those involved should receive the training they need to be effective in their roles. For example, specialists from all functional areas of the organization should be available to lend their expertise should the need arise, and executive spokespeople should receive media training.

Create real-world tools that can be modified later. One of the most valuable things to have in a crisis is a head start. Messaging, scripts, and spokespeople should be prepared in advance. The communications team or the company’s PR firm can later assist in adapting standard scripts to specific situations based on the event and fallout.

Ensure that crisis management messaging addresses various aspects of the crisis. When communicating bad news or another type of crisis, it is imperative that the organization’s spokespersons do the following:

Elaborate with the “what” – explain what happened with concise language, together with the organization’s position on the issue

Educate with the “how” – explain how audiences should respond to the situation and how the organization is responding

Engage with the “why” – explain the impact the situation has on operations so that impacts are not blown out of proportion

By giving thoughtful consideration to the development of a crisis management plan, organizations are more likely to be able to recover from bad news. In some cases, they might even exit the crisis with stronger brand relationships.

[Your Business Name] – Powered by Communication

Crisis Management Why Your Plan Should Include More Than Just Managing the Crisis Itself

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Turn on the news today and you realize that crises come in multiple forms. Scandals, data breaches, natural disasters and public health concerns are just the tip of the iceberg.

The importance of having an actionable, tested plan with holding statements is well documented and understood. C-suite, IT, marketing, human resources and other departments all talk about it and recognize the ramifications of not having a plan.

While the need for a plan is not questioned, it is critical to assess where the charter for this plan starts and stops. If it is robust and forward-thinking, it should include an analysis of your current communications status, including evaluating your current brand reputation and acknowledging that your stakeholders’ perception of you now will impact you during moments of crisis.

If your company’s reputation is solid and you have built a brand that is trusted and transparent, customers and stakeholders will typically show you more goodwill during crisis periods. However, if your company is perceived as less than transparent, a crisis will only further deteriorate the brand. It is critical that your brand establish a solid reputation now so that in the long run so that you have more cachet with brand evangelists.

Another consideration of the plan is how far it should extend. After you have put out the immediate fire, should you go back to the status quo of how you were doing things before?

Absolutely not. Crisis management must extend well beyond the crisis itself and transform into a robust reputation management campaign. While having a good reputation to start with helps minimize damage, a crisis will undoubtedly impact your credibility with customers, prospects and stakeholders so you MUST have an initial plan ready for how to rebuild that trust.

Similar to the actual in-moment crisis management work, reputation rebuilding will be different in every scenario. However, you should think about how each type of crisis will impact audiences and plan potential tactics around it. For example, let’s take the case of a product recall impacting medicine that is administered to children. A few potential ways to rebuild trust include:

  1. A webpage that stays up for at least 6 months with all of the information about what was done to correct the issue, how customers should dispose of the product and all other essential information consumers should know.
  2. Public media engagements to talk about how you will prevent the issue going forward.
  3. Events including local townhalls and Twitter chats with consumers about the situation.
  4. If possible, a review by the FDA to formally show what was changed.
  5. Internal company townhalls to discuss the issue so that employees can be heard.

These are just five tactics; there are so many more that can take place. But as you can see the goal is to rebuild trust with ALL audiences once a crisis occurs.

For a crisis plan to be truly effective, you need to rebuild trust in the long-term, not just mitigate the issue in the moment.