6 things I would do if I set up a PR company

I had a dream last night that I set up a PR company called 'Relevant PR'.

Bizarrely, I can remember the note I wrote (in the dream) to a colleague on how it would succeed as a company. Here it is...

MEMO ON PR FIRM SET-UP: RULES ON MAXIMISING EFFECT ON MEDIA

1. To be staffed by good organisers and ex-journalists.

2. Website to become essential resource for media. To contain:
(a) concise, up-to-date backgrounders on client companies in easily understandable English
(b) easy, digestible facts and figures
(c) case studies on client companies
(d) up-to-date, high resolution pictures of clients and their companies [This is crucial to boost client's chances of profile in newspapers, magazines and websites as picture editors budgets continue to be cut.]

3. PR execs to know exactly what clients do and what service/technology is about. That includes ability to answer questions about how it all works, without referring to client executives.

4. Golden rule: no media query to go unanswered for more than 30 minutes; no exceptions. This 30 also applies to resolving issues. If media request depends on client response, and client is not available, ring journalist to give full update.

5. Firm to regularly court media with simple, pressure-free events on behalf of clients; easy to build relationships that way.

6. Press releases to be written in clear, easily understandable English; facts and figures to be prioritised.

Comments

[orlaith]

You probably should set up a PR Company as you're always keen to demonstrate how it should be done correctly. The fact that you're dreaming about it now too is possibly a sign that you should grasp the nettle!

[Emma K]

You really remembered that note from a dream?! My dreams are much less lucid and usually involve a couple of superpowers or running in treacle.

Am also a tad suspicious now. If all of your advice and helpful hints suddenly disappear from this blog, we'll know you've taken a new career direction...!

[Padraig McKeon]

Adrian,

Lot of good and fair points. I would make two observations from the 'other side' if you like.

The proportion of their time time that PR companies actually spend on media relations and media relations work is lesser than one might think and ex-journalists in my experience don't always gel with the wider role. The ideal mix may include a greater portion of 'non' journalists. I'm saying having watched really good guys working hard and with the proper mindset still finding that it was not the place for them.

The blockage to the website as a resource - and few agencies anywhere do it well - is as often as not the client; some won't even give permission to have reference to them or click through on the site!. That's mad I know but there you go. In an Irish context too, I have found that the scale of the market limits the resource that we can allocate to an exercise along the lines you've outlined. It is exactly where I would want to go - with a log in for clients within which to collaborate etc... but an early assessment of the costs was prohibitive. Mind you that was pre correction.

All good points well made though. The debate is healthy, keep them coming.

[Adrian]

Padraig,

There's no getting away from the fact that all of my comments come from one side of the fence: a journalist's.

And I've been to enough pubs with enough PR folk to know the horrors of difficult clients. And fair enough -- ultimately they call the shots.

But in my experience (12+ years), Irish company executives are conservative/reluctant/shy because:
a) they don't understand media processes
b) they aren't informed/educated enough to realise their own long term best interests.

Of course, you might say that it's easy for me to say this, not having to pitch to red-faced, 58-year old farmer-turned-SME-bosses, who see the world in a certain light.

But this is genuinely in their best interests. They will get more profile, and better quality profile, from this approach. (In my view.)

Your first point about journalists is well taken. However, the main point I sought to make was about understanding clients' services.

It is rare to find a public relations executive that is comfortably au fait with a client's services.

Okay, perhaps that is harder to achieve in the sector I cover, technology. Or perhaps it is a simple economic fact of life that PR firms' staff have multiple clients and find it difficult to master all briefs.

But look at what journalists have to do. Take my general sector. I'd say I have to cover 20 different areas of business and technology. By definition, much of the stuff I write about is new and not previously known. I have to get on top of that brief and explain what it is, in simple English. I have to be able to answer questions about it. I have to be able to go on radio or television and talk about it there, too. Sometimes for up to 30 minutes.

This necessity means I have to get on top of the brief, quickly.

The payoff for PR would be in reputation and media relationships. It would be marvellous for a journalist on deadline to be able to ring up a PR person and get a quality briefing without having to go to the primary source.

And surely, surely the client would also be impressed at the interest shown and the knowledge displayed.

So it really would be worth that extra discipline, in my view.

[Neil O'Gorman]

Hi Adrian.

First, love these posts. They're healthy and I feel your pain through your regular PR-related posts born out of frustration, I guess.

Particularly interested in your comments on how your role requires you to get your head around all sorts of product and break it down clear and simple. And I have to say that there is a step change required from PR people which will only come from the top of organisations whereby execs need to be allowed to spend time researching, trialing and understanding all sorts of things from social networking tools to tech products. This is time that cannot be charged on to clients, but will serve the individual and the agency well. This does not happen often enough and PR agencies are often too rigidly structured around billable time so as not to permit exects to get their head around challenging issues and content on agency time.

The other thing is that, where clients are up to the task and not anxious about it, I believe agencies should be happy to facilitate direct client-jounalist contact. So, while PR execs should be up to speed on client products, they may not be qualified to give the detail or the perspective you need at a given time, so the client's view may be required. I also think that with certain clients we need to encourage them to engage directly with the media and consumers. There should be nothing to fear from our end and many journo's go directly to clients anyway. That's OK at times, as long as the client is contactable and we keep ourselves in the loop. So, we need to know when to step aside and when to be involved, so not being a barrier to effective communication, but being a facilitator.

Lots more to say on this. But great food for thought here. Oh, and should you not follow your dreams. Maybe it's a sign!

[Padraig McKeon]

Adrian,

I agree with the point that engagement with the media is not as terrifying or potentially catastrophic as clients tend to think.

In saying that there can also times when the media might have an interest in something but that interest genuinely serves no purpose of value to the objective of the client. In such cases the demands of the media serve to build discomfort.

The right place to be - and I think this is the point of common ground - is for clients to have a working relationship with media which serves for a more positive outcome even in cases where one side (either side) is keen and the other is not.

Of course that is where your main point kicks in which is that even of the client isn't investing consciously and deliberately in that, if the PR is 'ahead' then the cause is served, on both sides.

In truth the PR's challenge is not entirely different to the journalists. Domain knowledge is at a premium and clients don't tend to invest overly in the time of an agancy to build it up. Internally - and Neil alludes to this also - there is a commercial pressure to keep people 'productive'.

While acknowledging that I am concievably a person in a position to influence this, it is a constant tightrope. Generally we don't even have the luxury of working in one domain - particularly in this small market where there are few specialists agencies.

All in I can't diasgree though with your bottom line and we still strive to get there even if the effect of that effort isn't always evident and the more the point is made - be it by you or others - then at least there is a chance.

I could go on about how I believe that the day of the business person / politician / any leader / manager that 'hides' behind PR reps or the aggregated processes of the traditional media are over and that society will demand more transparent and authentic communication in all realms in the future but I will leave that for another day - suffice it to say that our industry is set for major change.

Thanks - keep them coming

[Adrian]

Neil, Padraig,

Thanks for the comments guys. Really good insights there. Fair play for opening up about it.

Adrian