Working With PR Companies

This section of advice is about the working with PR companies. In this section we take you through how to achieve value from PR and working out if and why you would need to use a public relations agency.

We also take you through the pitching process, give you crib sheets for useful questions to ask the agencies throughout that process, and how to take up references with the agencies.

Read the individual advice articles below for more information...

Achieving Value From PR

With companies spending on average ten per cent of their marketing budget on public relations, ensuring value for money and measuring return on investment is understandably at the top of the marketing manager’s agenda. But evaluating the success of a PR campaign should be a two-way street and not just the responsibility of your agency. Chris Hewitt, CEO at Berkeley PR, challenges companies to become more involved in achieving and measuring the success of PR.

Why use a PR agency? What's the Need?

Assessing why you need PR - how to work out what your public relations requirements really are. It’s best to begin by looking at your business and sales requirements. For instance, how are you planning to achieve your sales objectives over the next 3-6 months?

Briefing a PR Agency

It’s always a good idea to brief the pr companies you are considering. This may seem obvious, but it is very common for businesses to provide the mere bare bones of a brief via a quick conversation or email.

The Pitching Process

This article is designed to help you organise and run the PR pitch process, which will play the key role in deciding which PR agency you will appoint. What is a PR pitch? How many agencies should you see? What should you ask the agencies to develop for the pitch? What are the best ways to organise the pitching process? How long will the process take from start to finish?

Measuring the Value of PR

Measuring the value of PR for your organisation can be a difficult challenge, with an array of options to suit most requirements (and budgets). This article is designed to give you an idea of what to ask pr companies in order to understand what options they offer, and to help you make sure you get the type of measurement you’ll need.

International Public Relations

When it comes to running a PR programme in more than one country, the options usually boil down to one key factor – budget. Central to this is how the PR campaign is carried out in each country you need covered. Ultimately, if you have someone ‘on the ground’ in each place, with local knowledge and local contacts, that’s going to add significantly to the cost.