You are enjoying great success with your business and you are looking to grow but you’re not sure of how to get the word out. The logical thing to do is to hire a PR agency to manage your communications and drive more business. With so much riding on this, you need to make sure that you hire the best PR agency for your business.
Hiring a new agency is both exciting and a big responsibility, you need to make sure that you have the right team handling your companies reputation and that they can achieve both short and long-term goals. Here are 5 tips for making sure that you hire the best PR agency.
1. Do they understand what you’re all about?
Demonstrating that they have worked with companies in the same sector or industry as you is important, but you also need them to understand what your company stands for. During your discussions with them have they demonstrated that they get the image that you want to present to the world and do they seem motivated to go the extra mile. Experience with a wide variety of companies and industries can give you access to some truly creative ideas that will elevate your brand above the competition.
2. How big are they?
When shopping around for a new PR agency it is all too common to see people choose larger agencies over smaller ones. In actual fact, it can be the smaller agencies that give you the attention that you deserve. Larger agencies will often pitch you with their best talent, then once you are on board they will delegate you account to junior team members. No matter the size of the agency, make sure that you get some assurances of who will be taking the reins.
3. Do they have the skills
Many agencies will boast that they have the ability to provide everything from PR to social media, experiential, out of home, digital planning and much more. It is always advised that you see some evidence of ability when it comes to these claims. It is better to not only see what the agency has done but also the individual team members. Are they skilled and knowledgeable enough to deliver what they promise?
4. They know how to use your budget
Does the amount that you are able to spend on PR align with their other clients. If they are used to smaller budgets you may find that they are somewhat inexperienced with larger buys. The same can be true of PR agencies that only handle large clients. They will not have had to worry about squeezing every last dollar out of the available spend to achieve a goal.
What you’re hoping for here is a nice mix of large and small clients so that you can be sure that the PR agency you’re dealing with knows how to use any size of budget effectively and responsibly.
5. They are digital experts
Traditional PR went out of the window when the internet became a part of our everyday lives. To make sure that you have a PR agency that you can trust to take your company to where you want it to be you need them to be digital savvy. Not only do they need to know their way around an Instagram account, then need to have specialists that are able to handle budgets effectively and have good relationships with the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other big players.
