It’s necessary to put in a lot of effort and even more money to create a personal brand. There is a need to encourage the media to talk about your business if you want it to work for you. What does it give? First of all, spreading information about the product or services, involvement of potential clients etc. Globally – it forms the reputation and recognition of the brand.
Very often companies think that communication, for instance, in social media is enough for recognition. But no. It’s possible to achieve success only using a correct individually created strategy of communication. Collaboration with a PR-agency helps with that. So what should you know for a high-quality partnership with a PR-agency? There are some tips.
Goals of collaboration – in advance
At the beginning of collaboration, before contacting a PR-agency, you should think what exactly you need. “Make PR for us” or “we want to be promoted” are very general and unclear requests. Additionally to it, everyone understands PR and its goals in his own way.
The company needs to form a goal of collaboration with the agency to understand who your target audience is. Having this data, a PR-agency will be able to create an individual offer exactly for your business that will work in future for sure. Of course, PR-specialists will help you to formulate communicational goals clearly because they have experience in that field. But it’s necessary to understand at the beginning what exactly you want to achieve through collaboration with an agency.
An effective communication needs enough time and financial investments. KPIs joinly defined at the beginning of collaboration will show that invested resources were used qualitatively and brought the desired result.
100% involvement in the process
Building a reputation is a difficult and troublesome process that requires efforts not only from the agency. The client must be 100% involved in the process to get a result. It’s always better to show daily company’s life, to highlight CEO`s thoughts or position about important topics than to use “dry” theoretical information. You should give input information to the agency on time and regularly, stay open to collaboration and be involved in different stages of work to have more “alive” and interesting communication.
Cheap PR doesn‘t exist
Be ready for high budgets. As all companies, PR-agencies appreciate their job and, of course, evaluate their services objectively. Activity of agencies includes many inner processes which are invisible for the client at first sight. For instance, market research, studying the information space, analyzing the client’s current communication etc. In general, agencies create a high-quality final product for which they seek to receive appropriate funds.
Openness is the main circumstance of collaboration
Communicate with a PR-agency openly. Especially in the first stages of your partnership. It’s important for an agency to have a clear understanding of the current state of affairs of the company, disadvantages, problems, opportunities and your expectations. Only in that case specialists will be able to analyze your brand comprehensively and work with an individual plan of PR-mentoring. Work with PR-specialists is always about trust. That’s why constant collaboration will be successful if it is based on honesty and respect.
Listen to the advices and respect the agency
Be certain: nobody knows your company better than you and of course you are an expert in your industry. But you should listen to the advice if you contact a PR-agency. PR-specialists shape the offer so that it meets your needs. Of course, you may not like all recommendations but you should listen to them. PR-agencies spend a lot of time working with a client: analytics, development of ideas, work on their implementation etc. Such agencies have a huge experience in their field just like, for instance, you have in your field. It’s important to respect the whole team of PR-agency in this collaboration.
Mariia Kitsula
Copywriter, Perfect PR
