What Your PR Firm Isn’t Telling You

I don’t know you or your pr firm, so I should be at a safe enough distance to tell you what they won’t tell you.

1)      They aren’t nearly as excited about your product/solution/offering as you are. Healthy pr firms won’t take clients they don’t believe in, but that doesn’t mean they think your product is the greatest thing ever created. Think of it this way:  if you are a founder, your company is your child. No one will ever love your child as much as you do.

2)      No matter how good their media relationships are, they can’t work miracles. If you don’t have something newsworthy, you can’t expect your pr firm to call in favors to get coverage. If your pr firm really does have great connections with members of the media, they didn’t get it from asking friends to publish information that will hurt their credibility. And, please don't ask each week when will you have your TechCrunch hit.

3)      Degrading your internal staff in front of your pr representative doesn’t make you look important, just pathetic.

4)      Just because you’re told someone in the firm is a social media expert doesn’t mean they are. As the requirements for social media have grown, some agencies have hired or developed staff who truly understand how best to leverage this medium. Others have dubbed a senior member of staff as “the expert.” There are also some traditional pr firms who still believe the answer to the request for social media expertise is to assign one of their staff as the person who pitches bloggers. To know what you’re getting, you’ll need to ask about their results or examples of campaigns.

5)      If you don’t tell your pr firm what is motivating your desire for media coverage, they won’t give you the best results. For example, if you want coverage because you are preparing for a new round of funding, outreach should focus primarily on business media, analyst relations, targeted speaking opportunities and media which potential investors will see. If you are seeking to only ramp sales, positioning should be directed to what your customers’ decision-makers care about and media they will see.

The list could go on, but I won’t give away all their secrets.

Comments

[Seattle pr agenices]

I agree. Regardless of the quality of their relationships with the media, they can not work miracles. If you have nothing of interest, you can not expect your public relations firm to call in favors to get coverage. If your public relations firm has really good relationships with members of the media, they do not get to ask friends to publish information which would undermine their credibility. And do not ask every week when you hit your Tech Crunch.

[Kris Bondi]

I've seen the Tech Crunch question come up repeatedly. It's scary that I've even seen companies think it is part of their marketing strategy to drive sales. Something like this:

1) Get Tech Crunch to cover us
2) Others will think we are cool
3) Our sales increase

Of course, I've seen similar "strategies" around IPOs.

1) Go public
2) Our potential customers will now consider us "for real"
3) Our sales will increase to support the ramp rate we talked about in our IPO deck