Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Is your company considering hiring on a public relations agency? In all likelihood, this means you will be doing an agency search. This can entail requesting proposals and quotes from a range of agencies found through word of mouth, previous use, or online research. However, once you find a few agencies you think might work for your company, you still have to make a selection.
For someone who is unfamiliar with PR, or who has not worked within an agency setting, it can be difficult to understand what factors might be relevant when selecting an agency. We were very impressed recently when a potential client approached us with an outlined questionnaire. This inspired us to craft a list of five questions you should ask when deciding on a PR agency.
1. Does the agency specialize in a particular area?
If you have a product that is especially complex, it can be helpful to work with an agency that has expertise in your industry. Even if an agency doesn’t necessary specialize, asking this question can ellicit the industries with which an agency has experience and knowledge. It’s not essential that an firm has a great deal of experience in your company’s industry, but it can be helpful, and should be considered in an agency search.
2. Who will be working on your account?
All agencies use a different method of staffing accounts, and it can be helpful to understand how many people will be delivering information to you, and meet the specific person who will be your main contact. Gaining insight into who will be working your account will help you understand what your day to day relationship with the agency will be like.
3. What information does the agency need from you to begin work?
To make your relationship as efficient as possible, it is helpful to send over any materials that might be relevant to your PR agency. Although your PR firm will likely do its due diligence and research your past coverage and other pertinent information about your company, it can be a time saver to cover these bases before you even begin work.
4. How often will the agency update you on their progress?
It’s something you might not think about, but establishing an official rapport and expectations with your agency is important. It’s never too early to set expectations, and it will help the firm’s account team develop a more accurate read on the hours it will spend servicing your account.
5. Can the agency list recent examples of how its team secured results for other clients?
You should be specific about the type of results you are looking for depending on your business objectives. For example, ask for a list or recent articles the agency has placed for clients, recent awards it has helped clients win, or recent speaking nominations the agency has been able to secure for clients.
Your relationship with your PR agency should be mutually beneficial, and this relationship starts when you select an agency. Asking the questions listed above will help create shared expectations for you and your agency, and give you a better idea of which firm will be the right fit for you.
For more on selecting an agency from Communiqué’s blog, see:
When Should a Start-up Business Hire a PR Firm?
Best Practices: Five Things to Consider When Selecting a PR Partner
Client Service and Boutique Agencies
Internal vs. External PR Roles
For more external resources on selecting an agency, look to:
Being Great, Not Just Good (The Council of PR Firms)
Hiring a Public Relations Firm (The Council of PR Firms)
The Counselors Academy’s Guide to Selecting a Public Relations Firm or Consultant (PRSA)
How to Choose a Public Relations (PR) Agency (WikiHow)
10 things to ask before … Choosing a PR firm (Washington Business Journal)
Choosing a Public Relations Firm (allBusiness)
Heather Campbell
Congrats! We made it another year navigating the ever-changing and fast-evolving PR and news landscape. But, before we dive head first into 2013 with PR-related resolutions such as increasing your social media following, finding new ways to measure results, or building deeper relationships with reporters, it would be good to look back at 2012 to relive the biggest news makers that captivated us all.
Channeling the fond memories captured in a high school yearbook, Version 2.0 Communications developed an infographic featuring the biggest news stories of the year and the faces behind them.
Happy New Year from the Communiqué PR team!
“I don’t set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.” — Dick Clark
Predicting the news is like predicting the weather. It you don’t like what you see, wait a moment and it will change. That said, a large part of public relations strategy is researching what editors and reporters will focus on in the coming months and developing stories that support their editorial themes. At Communiqué PR we’ve been researching story trends, gathering business predictions and looking at editorial calendars to prepare for the 2013 news cycles. Here’s a round-up of trending news stories we, and other industry experts, expect to see as we begin 2013:
- SaaS and IT security will continue to be strong themes in technology business stories in the upcoming year, according to Thomson Reuters. The company analyzed more than 300,000 media editorial calendars in their MyEdCals database and found that editors at business magazines will be publishing articles that help businesses become more efficient while reducing costs in the coming year. They also predict that editors will dedicate a large amount of space to stories about innovative tools in healthcare technology and educational technology in 2013.
- The workspace of the future is an interesting trend that will gain momentum in the coming year as well. This encompassing topic asks questions like “What will our offices look like in the future,” or “Will we have an office at all?” Many of these articles will be tied to mobile and cloud computing, as well as collaboration tools which enhance our ability to work from home, coffee shops, and kids’ soccer games. Both business-to-business and consumer-focused companies that demonstrate innovation and productivity tools to keep the workforce engaged while away from a traditional office space will have a strong voice this year.
- Data, data, everywhere. In 2012 we spent a lot of time producing it, gathering it and analyzing it. Now what will we do with it? In 2013 look for stories about how the ability to capture and analyze data flows are improving lives by improving healthcare, warning about destructive weather disasters and linking people together to build stronger communities.
- In terms of general news, the economy, Medicare reform, environment and climate change, immigration, globalization, and veteran’s issues will continue to dominate political coverage. In fact, the Poynter Institute’s News University is highlighting courses on these topics to train journalists and provide background and tips for covering these issues.
Of course, this is far from a comprehensive list. What are your predictions for the business news trends in 2013? Please let us know and we may feature them in a future blog.
Sources:
Trends 2013: The Biggest Trends in Business for 2013, Entrepreneur Magazine, Dec. 3, 2012
Report Tags Top Consumer Trends for 2013, CNET, Dec. 13, 2012
20 Tech Trends That Will Define 2013, Fast Company, Dec. 20, 2012
2013 Editorial Calendar Trends in Technology, Healthcare and Education, My Media Info Blog, Dec. 7, 2012
2012 was certainly an exciting and interesting year in the United States and around the world (see Google’s year-end wrap up video here).
At Communiqué, 2012 saw our clients’ businesses continue to grow – and we were excited to drive awareness around their stories. We added new clients to our roster, achieved significant results for new and existing clients, added to our team, and blogged. It was a busy year. For more details on the year’s highlights see below:
Client work
- Communiqué PR added seven companies to its client roster in 2012: BlueBin, Inc., CENTRI Technology, Kymeta, Medio, Smartsheet, Sprig Health, and SR Education Group.
- Attachmate increased its industry thought leadership with the placement of two bylined articles: 1) Data Center Journal, “BYOD and the Impact on IT,” August 2012, and 2) Enterprise Systems Journal, “Going Mobile: Introducing Your Mainframe to Modern Tools,” July 30, 2012. Get more information here. Additionally, ZDNet referenced one of the company’s blog posts in a recent article, “BPM’s uncertain role in modernizing legacy applications,” November 5, 2012.
- A highlight of 2012 for The Omni Group was another great year at MacWorld 2012. For the event, we secured 17 onsite briefings with both tech trade and Apple-focused publications such as Ars Technica, Macworld, GigaOm, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), Technologizer and The Register, among others. Executives with the Omni Group shared their 2012 vision and the product roadmap in these meetings; see here for more.
- Medio, a 2012 addition to our client roster, hit the road for an analyst and press tour in November . CPR secured 12 meetings with press and analysts on Medio’s behalf. There is significant interest in the work that Medio is doing around predictive analytics and the feedback from analysts surrounding the value Medio is offering was overwhelmingly positive.
- Communiqué PR helped Smartsheet, with its funding announcement. On December 3, the company announced $26 million in funding. Through targeted outreach, and in partnership with Smartsheet’s savvy internal team, we were able to secure 15 articles in print publications, as well as a mention in an interview with Dierdre Bolton on Bloomberg TV.
- We worked with RPI to garner industry recognition for its personalization storefront. Additionally, RPI partnered with well-renowned Cheezburger and the Madison Park Group to create a truly LOL-worthy line of holiday cards. We helped share the news, securing six articles across several industries.
- Mobidia Technology, Inc. gave journalists the inside scoop on mobile usage this past August—and they reciprocated with seven stories mentioning the company.
- We helped The Shops at The Bravern leverage PR so effectively that we essentially worked ourselves out of a job—the right way.
Agency achievements
- This year, Communiqué updated its internal office space. We added new, stand-up desks, new chairs, and painted a wall orange to match our branding. The new space looks fantastic!
- Communiqué added some amazing PR professionals with diverse and deep experiences to our growing team in 2012, a marker of our continued expansion as a firm.
- Our book, Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR, had another successful year on Amazon.
- We posted 130 blog posts during the past year; the top four by viewers were:
- Think Before You Tweet: Twitter Don’ts That Can Damage Your Brand
- Fun Tools to Create An Infographic
- Building a Trusted Brand: Five Values from the Pros
- Doing Well By Doing Good – Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
- Brand Awareness & Adoption: How Much Time Does it Take? Renee Gastineau, an account director at Communiqué PR, addressed entrepreneurial marketing as part of a panel at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. Renee joined GeekWire’s John Cook and PR consultant Margo Meyers in speaking with an MBA class about the value of PR for start-up businesses.
This was a fantastic year at Communiqué PR. We continued to work toward our mission of helping clients move product, sell services and grow brands through high-quality strategic communications programs. Helping clients reach their business objectives is why we do what we do, and we are proud of the results our team and our clients were able to achieve in 2012.
From all of us at Communiqué PR, Happy New Year!
If you are passionate about writing, you understand the importance of word choice to convey the right meaning or evoke emotion. Recently, a friend introduced me to Visual Thesaurus, a wonderful subscription tool developed by Thinkmap, Inc., which I now find indispensable. The Visual Thesaurus is an online dictionary and thesaurus that displays the word you are looking up at the center of a branch chart linking to related words.
Image Credit: Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
For instance, if you look up “write” on the Visual Thesaurus site, you’ll see a branch chart with all the associated words – compose, spell, pen, publish, drop a line, communicate, describe, etc. – clustered around it. The tool makes it easy to discover new words and provides a way to consider the semantics of a particular word. Another key benefit of the Visual Thesaurus is that you can roll over the word to see the definition as well as use-case examples of the word in a sentence. In addition, you can hear the words pronounced correctly, which was very helpful for me when I recently got into a debate with my husband about the correct pronunciation of “filet mingon.”This is only the tip of iceberg. Visual Thesaurus offers much more – you can share maps with friends, create personal word lists, and sign up for the word of the day. Beyond its functional benefits, I find Visual Thesaurus fun to use, intuitive and it makes me feel smart. For just $19.95 per year, I think it’s nifty (or as Visual Thesaurus suggested: bang-up, swell, peachy or groovy!).
If you have not had a chance to try it, I would encourage you to subscribe. The company offers a 14-day, risk-free trial. I applaud Thinkmap for coming up with such a clever and practical tool for writers and word lovers everywhere.
It is a new year and a time to look at what the future holds. Public Relations is constantly changing and evolving and this upcoming year is no different.
At Communiqué PR we are constantly monitoring and keeping on top of the latest trends and predictions. While looking at PR predictions for 2013, I came across two interesting articles that suggest what is in store for the new year. A Ragan.com article written by Sandra Fathi outlines “6 PR and Social Media Predictions for 2013,” and another post from Business News Daily looks at, “25 Big Ideas, Trends, and Predictions for 2013.” Both articles offer some insightful predictions and I’ve selected some of my favorites below:
- LinkedIn is the new Facebook. In 2013 more companies, particularly B2B, will leverage LinkedIn to connect with current and potential customers and influencers in their particular space. We helped one of our clients, Attachmate, leverage LinkedIn and have seen great results and a steady number of followers. We’ve noticed that particularly for B2B, this is one of the fastest growing social media outlets. It is a ripe platform for businesses to connect and share information. The new features that allow people to “endorse” is great for businesses and employees. Fathi says that “As adoption and activity on LinkedIn surge, journalists will spend more time using the platform for research, identifying sources and breaking stories.”
- Social media spreads to government. Social media is not just for consumers and businesses. More and more government agencies are leveraging social media platforms to communicate messages and connect with citizens. Fathi uses the example of the Israel Defense Force and Hamas military using Twitter to communicate to international government officials and the general public about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Additionally, the 2012 United States presidential election set records for Twitter activity. Twitter is already seen as a news source for citizens searching for information from media, but in 2013 government will have an increased voice.
- Traditional journalists are restored. Journalism has seen a dramatic change with the birth of blogging and social media. The public demands information that is fast and easy to access. Traditional journalists have been fighting this battle and trying to adapt ever since. However, with the amount of factually inaccurate information circulating through social media and blogs in an attempt to be speedy, viewers are eager to revert back to a reliable news source. When Twitter first became hot, I was working as a reporter and always frightened to provide too many details on Twitter or Facebook until I’d confirmed. Now, it is not uncommon for news organizations to report scanner traffic via social media or report information and note it has not been confirmed. This can lead to rumors.
- PR goes mobile. More and more consumers and journalists are using their phones as their primary news source and primary means of communications. In 2013 PR professionals not only need to craft pitches that are concise and easily readable via social media or on a mobile device, PR pros also need to think about news content that is mobile-friendly.
- Pictures are a must. We’ve written in the past about how powerful infographics are, but in 2013, PR pros will continue to see the importance of images to tell a story. Fathi writes, “All Things D reported that in August, smartphone users spent more time on Instagram than on Twitter for the first time since Instagram launched in 2010.” This is another indicator that pictures are taking over. When you are developing content, keep in mind what visual content you have to help tell the story.
- Brands will become publishers. Many organizations have already realized the benefits of having a blog, but in 2013, more brands will create additional content to help build thought leadership and credibility. Tips and how-to guides will start to crop up in company newsletters, blogs, etc. This also helps organizations with search.
Here at Communiqué PR we are looking forward to this new year and everything that 2013 will bring. What are you predictions for 2013? We’d love to hear from you!