As someone who has lived and breathed PR for many moons, I hadn’t realised how difficult it can be to find the right PR fit for your business needs.
Fabulous PR people come in all shapes and sizes, with a variety of skills and expertise, and operate across a huge number of sectors, markets and geographies.
Where, then, do you start in your search for the right PR support?
Here are my top five tips for finding your perfect PR fit...
1. Be clear on what you want to achieve
Having a woolly goal, about wanting press coverage to generate new business, won’t help you in your requirement for specific PR expertise. Really think about the kind of press coverage you want to generate, what assets and ‘news’ you have available to generate that desired press coverage, and which publications (in order of importance!) are relevant to you.
The caveat here is to be realistic – if you’re a small regional business it’s unlikely The Times will write about you – unless you have some ground-breaking industry-altering life-changing news. If you’re working in a specific niche, for example advertising or beauty, then you’ll need a PR professional with experience and contacts with relevant publications.
Consumer-facing fashion and beauty requires a different skill set to food and drink PR, and business-to-business or corporate reputation management is different again. You will need a specialist that understands and can operate within your industry – so be clear and specific on your requirements.
A few key questions for you to answer include:
What is the focus of your company and its PR requirements? E.g. Business to business, consumer facing, specific niche trade industry etc.
Are you looking for external or internal communications? Or both?
What are the top 10 key publications that you’d like to see coverage about your business in? Be realistic!
What are the diary dates / big ‘news’ items coming soon?
Are you starting PR activity from scratch or do you want to build on existing success?
What else are you expecting your PR professional to manage? E.g. internal staff newsletters, research, sponsorship, social media, arranging photography, media training etc.
Do you have time to manage someone junior or do you need someone experienced to get on with the job?
Do you have a budget to deliver paid for activity, as well as earned coverage?
Overall, what does good look like for you?
2. Check the basics
A really great PR person should have many strings to their bow. Some of them can be learnt during their time with you, but the key basics to check include:
Good writing skills - they need to be experienced or at least hold their own in writing press releases, pitch notes, blogs and be able to draft key messages
The ability to plan ahead – this may sometimes include a PR strategy but will always need to include a roadmap and PR plans – planning is the ‘unseen’ part of PR and arguably just as important as the coverage generated
Have the ability to build good journalist contacts on your behalf - or already be in contact with a few good ones
3. Specialist knowledge
At no point is a PR professional an expert in anything other than PR. You are the subject matter expert as the business owner or leader – never your PR person. However, you will need to find someone who is interested to learn about your business, what it does and how it fits into the wider industry. If you’re really lucky, they will already understand the basics. If not, you’ll have to teach them and invest in time with them to hone and develop messaging.
The key here isn’t the specialist knowledge, that’s a total bonus, it’s the aptitude and enthusiasm to learn. And how committed you are to teaching them.
4. Creativity
PR covers a myriad of activity from blog and press release writing to event organisation and social media. Arguably not all of this is PR, but the lines of marketing, events, paid for, earned, social and print all get blurred from time to time. In my personal view, it’s important to find someone who’s adaptable and willing to test and learn in the role.
Sharing blue sky thinking and great ideas is incredibly important – often it's the only way to take dreary sales messaging and sprinkle them with a little sparkle. Challenge and encourage your PR professional to think outside the box – because you will benefit hugely from the unique creativity they will bring to your business. And as far as possible, avoid stifling them with marketing or sales messages. No journalist will be interested – no matter how many times you add them back into the press release!
5. Good fit for your company
While a great PR professional should bring the basic skills, a passion to learn, and a spark of creativity – they still need to fit into your organisation. More often than not, PR requests are additional work for your leadership team and wider business. Commentary or press interviews are an extra chunk of time out of someone’s already busy day job. Sharing case study statistics, input into messaging documents or expertise on a particular topic for an event are extra pressures.
Not only does your company have to be fully supportive and recognise the value PR can deliver (which is limitless when you invest in it properly), but your PR professional has to be able to curry favour, ask for help and build positive relationships across your entire business.
Holding a unique position, we helicopter above a business and can often be the only person (other than the CEO and finance team) to work with and understand most if not all areas of the business and how it fits together. To be able to do this effectively, understand the business and tell its story in the best possible way, we need to fit in and encourage collaboration.
There are of course many more considerations, but if your preferred PR candidate meets these key criteria you’ll be off to a very good start.
Victoria Fairclough is a PR & Communications consultant at Fair Communications. For more information visit: www.faircommunications.co.uk
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