COMMENT: Eight tips to win your agency great trade PR
One of the most common things I hear from agency bosses is “We’re not very good at doing our own PR, but we really should make the effort”.
It usually follows them complaining about the coverage one of their (of course) far less brilliant rivals has been getting.
So what follows is some of the advice I give them. It’s based mainly on my time as editor of B&T so tends to apply to the marketing trade press. But I suspect that some of it can be more widely applied in other B2B sectors. PR people and my fellow editors, please do feel free to disagree with what follows.
- 1. Start!
The most important thing about getting PR for your agency is starting. It sounds obvious, but even if you do it badly and make mistakes along the way, then it’s far better than not trying. In Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy made clear that getting trade press was his first priority when he set up. Do you really think you know better than him?
Hi
That was a well written piece that can be made into a book, “What agencies don’t know on selling themselves, but are afraid to ask”. Jokes apart, I just moved into Brisbane & I am getting frustrated knocking agency doors for a job offer. I have worked 11 years in Kuwait & can teach a thing or two about media to a few people, but cannot get any doors open. Probably my PR is wrong, but then again without sounding pompous, probably people in Brisbane are afraid of change.
Are you interested to publish a article of how an outsider views the claustrophobic Brisbane ad industry even though I admit I am only a month & half old here?
Let me know so I can put on the thinking cap.
Merwyn
Hi Tim – love the PR article. Thanks. Every point is valid and spot on, of course, given you’re the expert!! And great advice for prs and agencies alike. Sophie.
All ludicrously valid.
Just two points.
1. A good PR agency or consultant will do far more for an agency than simply than getting coverage in the media.
2. Agencies first and foremost need to keep their clients happy. What is the most effective use of their time? Looking after their own PR or looking after their clients business?
Nice piece. I’ll quote bits of this verbatim in forthcoming business development workshops!
Regarding your first point, Tim, maybe the “START” is not as hard as “CONTINUE”. Too often as agencies, we do start. Often just after new year, or winning a pitch. And then we stop as the day-job gets too busy. Pity.
Ta.
J
Great stuff Tim,
Being persistent, keeping it simple and straightforward is fantastic PR advice Tim.
What about asking all the TV stations to move shows like Underbelly back to 9.30pm so mums and dads with kids don’t have to rush their kids off to bed by 8.30. Guess what, kids can hear the “F” word and sexual grunting noises through walls.
Nice summary.
In B2B outside the marketing media, I would extend the Be interesting one to include ‘remember to be outward looking not inward – corporate ‘blah blah’ bores everyone’. Most of the time if you change the company name to a competitor in a corporate blah blah statement no one would know the difference!
Hi Tim,
These are all valid points but I just have one comment to make, your use of ‘PR’ is incorrect. As you’re aware, PR is ‘public relations’, two-way communications between an organisation and its publics.
You are in fact talking about publicity and media relations. This is NOT PR as it is often assumed in Australia, another point to make is that a professional working in PR is a publicist, consultant, PR officer/ Manager/ Executive etc. You cannot make a noun out of PR!
Sorry to be pedantic but if marketing media assume PR is simply publicity,what hope is there for anyone else understanding the industry?
Great post Tim. After doing our own PR sporadically we now treat our own agency as a client with its own account manager who’s responsible for the activity. The time investment is minimal – we’re talking about a quick release, an email or phone call whenever we’ve got something newsworthy. Building this responsibility into the account manager’s deliverables also works really well and creates incentive to keep the activity and results on track.
Another point I’d add to ‘number 2’ in Tim’s post is: ‘understand the rules of an exclusive’.
Among other things, many journalsists get rightly excited when they have a sniff of a story they alone have unearthed… so if they do the right thing and come to you for confirmation, respect that. Do not opt instead to think: ‘oh, we better tell everyone now then’ and send out to all related press a news release you were hoping you’d never have to send.
Bad look.
That’s a fair point, PR. (Are you a noun or a verb in this case?). The intention of this particular piece is focused purely on how to get written about in the trade press. Clearly PR is indeed a much bigger area, of which media relations is but a subset…
And, Dr Who, I couldn’t agree more. There are a couple of people in the industry who I would not go to for a comment about a story involving themselves until the last possible second, because I don’t feel I could trust them to not try to ruin the exclusive by trying to win favour with other outlets.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Great tips and I like everyone else love lists.
thanks for this.
You should also do a tip lists for journos too titled “How to get good stories and not just recycled PR bullshit”
that might help help raise the bar a little there