If there’s a common client complaint among PR pros, it’s that clients think great PR = guaranteed placements.
We know it’s “earned” media, not paid media. So why can’t clients get it straight? And why do they threaten to fire us when they aren’t in the Wall Street Journal or on CNBC in 30 days?
This huge and costly pain point is the catalyst behind a lot of PR teams commiserating at happy hours after work, bellyaching online, and ultimately losing contracts after a lot of frustration.
However, it’s not always the client’s fault. These misunderstandings are often the result of PR professionals’ failure to help decision-makers understand what would be necessary to achieve success long before the contract is signed.
Here are a few more challenges—and how to turn them into trust-building opportunities to turn prospects into long-term clients.
Money and Time
Every business leader knows to invest time and energy so the lawyer can win in court and the CPA can shave every possible dollar off of the tax bill. Unfortunately, this understanding doesn’t always translate to their PR consultants, who are often treated as “set it and forget it” vendors who receive a monthly retainer fee. What leaders don’t realize is that their most precious commodities—expertise, experience and input—are also the keys to PR success.
Don’t skimp in making this clear, or in conducting your own advance research so you can speak a prospect’s language. A buyer with a background in sales, for example, will understand the need to give the sales team proprietary marketing assets like product specs and research. Making hires and just turning them loose is a waste of everyone’s time and money.
“It’s the responsibility of communications professionals to educate clients from the start how important their active involvement is to success,” said Nicole Ramirez, a digital marketing consultant who has worked with brands like Forbes, Nulo and FabFitFun. “This avoids future frustration, creates better outcomes, and also builds trust between vendors and clients so that when the outside PR firm provides recommendations on process improvements or necessary data, the client provides them with no questions asked.”
Great prospects appreciate upfront transparency. Then you can drive home the value of their time with case studies on how a client’s engagement creates bigger and better success—perhaps including those beloved top-tier outlets.
A Marketing and Branding Tool
Seeing your name in the Wall Street Journal is a rush, but it has little value without a strategy to capitalize on the placement. Most clients don’t realize that media bifurcation and the vast amount of content online means that even a big placement no longer drives weeks of value all on its own.
To prevent good PR from getting lost in the ether, raise the question—in the very first prospect conversation—of existing communication resources. The best prospects will bring their other communications team leads into further discussions to ensure that everyone is working together. That’s where strategic and tactical conversations about turning media placements into website content, social media posts and improved SEO can happen.
And then, once the contract is signed, everyone is on the same page. After all, PR is a marketing and branding tool that brings more value to all of the other tools in the box. Being ready to use those tools together is a much better position than securing a placement and having to ask, “Now what?”
Making the Message Matter
A couple of years back, our agency was tasked with getting a tech company’s message across a niche industry. And we did—but with mostly singles and doubles, and none of the home runs the client expected.
Granted, the client’s desired message was about as bland as it could be, and that’s poison to media interest. But it’s the vendor’s job to help the client see that before the first placement is secured. In this case, we prioritized securing media coverage, come hell or high water, over a frank conversation at the outset about messaging improvement. My team’s hard work delivered, sure—but by the time we had those tough conversations, we were already dealing with the firehose of media placements and never got back on balance.
And it cost us, because when the contract ended it wasn’t renewed.
Not every brand is mature enough to stand out. That’s not a deal-breaker, but the client needs to know it upfront—as well as what will help get them to stand-out status. After all, only the client can make the message truly matter.
Be Grateful for Client Ignorance
Client ignorance drives everyone crazy in every field. But while it may be something to take to Happy Hour on Friday, it’s also something that should not come into the office on Monday morning.
After all, if clients knew what we know, we’d need to find another job.
The good news is that educating a prospect upfront brings two values: good clients will appreciate your transparency and have it be a catalyst to success. And bad ones will think it’s too much work and walk away.
Either way, you win.
Dustin Siggins is Founder of Proven Media Solutions.